Sigourney Weaver was almost written out of her favourite ‘Alien’ movie: “We had to fight”
Like many stars of the 1970s, it was theatre that first captivated Sigourney Weaver. She did her time in many productions before Hollywood came calling, soon thrusting her into a world of acclaim that would set her up for life.
She had a very small role in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall before landing a part in Alien, Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror flick, which would see her join a stacked cast, including John Hurt and Harry Dean Stanton. It was Weaver who emerged as the final girl, her role as Ripley an unforgettable member of the team who uses her intelligence to survive in the face of the terrifying fucking Xenomorph, which claims the lives of the rest of the Nostromo members.
Weaver’s performance as Ripley has long been praised, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the iconic character, who is strong and goddamn resilient despite the horrifying fucking circumstances she finds herself in, having watched everyone else on board succumb to their deaths. Alien was a hit, and it paved the way for further sci-fi horror movies with considerable depth. Scott’s film was genuinely unsettling, and it has since been the subject of many interpretations, like the theory that the film is an analogy for childbirth or even sexual violence.
Following the success of the film, it was only a matter of time before discussion of a sequel arose, yet this time Scott wouldn’t be involved in the direction. A second film, with James Cameron at the helm, was conceived seven years later, although Weaver wasn’t initially asked to reprise her role. Cameron wanted her to, of course, but the studio didn’t think it was necessary.
Talking to Lofficier, Cameron revealed, “I was asked to write a story based on Ripley. Later on it turned out that everybody but us thought that the film could be made without Sigourney Weaver, which completely blew my mind, and was absolutely out of the question for us. So, as far as we were concerned, we started with Ripley from the end of the last film, and it was her story. We, fortunately, were able to overcome these obstacles in the minds of the other people involved. We had to fight very hard for Sigourney to be in the picture, which to me was crazy.”
Aliens luckily featured Weaver in the leading role, and it turned out to be even more of a commercial success. In fact, the actor calls it her favourite in the franchise, and she was relieved to be invited back to step into Ripley’s shoes once again. “The best-constructed story for the character to tell was in Aliens, just because Jim has such an amazing sense of structure of story. To take this character out of hyper-sleep, have no one believe her, have her be exiled into this limbo land where no one believes her and her family’s dead,” she once told Collider.
“It was such a great, supportive arc for the character. In that sense, the second one for Ripley is probably the most satisfying,” Weaver added. It’s unbelievable that the actor almost missed out on the film because the studio didn’t think she needed to be brought back, but judging by the success of the movie, she absolutely did.
