Interview with... Sigourney Weaver
Living the high life
From shy and gawky teenager to thinking man's sex
symbol, Sigourney Weaver tells Tiffany Rose how her height has been
both a blessing and a curse and why she's so grateful to
Britain's film lovers
Shy and retiring is not how
you envisage actress Sigourney Weaver before meeting her. After
all, she stands a towering six feet tall, with a strong jawline
giving her (when she's not smiling) a rather serious look. But
the 61-year-old sexy movie star - who looks at least a decade
younger - exudes a very different demeanour when we first meet: her
features are a lot softer in the flesh and
she's
surprisingly reserved.
It is to Sigourney's credit that she pulled off such a fearless and iconic character as Lieutenant Ellen Ripley in the Alien films, the role that planted her on the Hollywood map back in 1979. "I've always been very shy, even when I was a little girl," she says. "But I never knew that I appeared aloof until years later when people told me that I seemed so above it all. The truth was I'd be standing in a corner, hoping somebody would please talk to me."
Sigourney knows her height has not only been intimidating to others but also a misrepresentation of who she really is. By the age of 13, she had shot up to 5ft 10, making her the tallest pupil in her school. Feeling the odd one out, she accepted the role of class clown.
Now with nearly 50 films to her credit, Sigourney tells me her height was even an issue in the earliest days of her career. "The first time I was fired was from a play was when I was 16," she recalls. "They fired the leading actor and brought in the producer's boyfriend to replace him. As I was much taller than him, I was fired on the spot."
Being statuesque also proved to a challenge with leading men when she hit the big time. "Thankfully Mel Gibson (in The Year of Living Dangerously) didn't care how tall I was. He's one of the secure ones. But I've worked with men who would scream, 'Do you have to wear heels?' and I'm like, 'Relax!' Back then, producers cast women they thought were attractive and I know I'm not the average producer's sexual fantasy - they're looking for the petite blonde types. They wanted less intimidating women, even though I am the least threatening person in the world."
After four decades in showbiz, Sigourney has proved her talent time and again, having morphed into a diverse array of roles including an airhead sitcom actress in space in Galaxy Quest; compassionate scientist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist (which garnered her an Oscar nod); a con-artist in Heartbreakers; the voice of the ship's computer in WALL-E; an unfaithful housewife in The Ice Storm (which earned her a BAFTA) and most recently Dr Grace Augustine in the epic Avatar, which has grossed $2 billion worldwide.
She proves her funny bone once more in the new comedy You Again about a young woman, played by Kristen Bell, who discovers her brother is about to marry the girl who bullied her in school. In a comedic twist of fate, her mum (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) is confronted with her own high school rival, her future daughter-in-law's Aunt Ramona, played by Sigourney.
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