Sigourney Weaver Talk, Part the First
Aug. 28th, 2006 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moogingThis is the Sigourney Entry! And...it's actually the first of two Sigourney entries, because I have a lot of notes and lots of text to look at can be a little dull.
Sigourney Goodness!
The event was held in the Cineworld cinema in Fountain Park, Edinburgh - the same cinema we went to last year for Wah-Wah. We queued up outside, where the red carpet was but we were ushered in before Sigourney actually appeared, so we didn't see her arrival. That didn't really matter though; because we didn't hang around to see her arrive, we got very good seats - third row from the front, and believe me, it was a big cinema screen. The same cinema screen that we went in to see Wah-Wah actually, so that was a little 'huh' moment.
The set-up was that Sigourney and the person who I think was the director of the festival sat in two chairs at the moment of all the seating, just under the screen, with a spotlight on them. Cameras were recording the event, and they put a close-up of Sigourney's face on the screen behind her so that the people at the back could see her. We, sitting at the front, could of course see both her and her face on the screen and it was a little hard to know where to look - on one hand OMGSIGOURNEYSOCLOSEANDREAL! and on the other, to see the way she reacted to questions and things, looking at the screen was better.
And then she came down the steps. She was wearing a long sleeved black top, a crinkly/shiny/tartanish green skirt and the most frakking gorgeous shoes. Seriously. They were kind of irridescent green stilettos (Stilettos! She's really really tall!) but the soles and the heel were bright, bright red. At some point, when the audience asked her questions, someone asked where she got them and she took one of them off to look at it. (I saw her foot! /fangirl) She said they were from Paris - it said so in the shoe - but she didn't know where exactly because they were a gift and she thought they had come with an outfit but she didn't know which one.
The event started off by the screening of a clip from Death and the Maiden, which I haven't seen but damn, Sigourney was good. Then the director-guy kind of asked her questions and let her ramble on, just prompting her occasionally. And he was so smitten with her, you could tell, and at some point he just said "Excuse me, I just have to say this - I LOVE YOU!" and everyone cracked up, because everyone in the room was feeling the same thing. You can't not love her (and I like that use of double negative)! A little later, near the end of the 90 minutes, questions were asked by the audience.
What follows here is just basically all the notes I made once I got back, everything I could remember. It's in no order, and certainly not chronological order (and I say 'she' waaaay too much), so I've just copied out my notes and tried to make them a little easier to understand!
*****
Her Roles
- She pieced Linda (Snow Cake character) together through different experiences from different people that she met during research and she said that the role taught her how to play again.
- She started researching autism for Snow Cake and realised that she didn't know nearly enough about it - as a result, when it came to shoot it, the director just had to "let [her] go" on set because she was so fired up with research and mannerisms!
- She has an upcoming role as a flighty socialite in the other Truman Capote film, Infamous, and said that it might sound biased but she thinks it's one of the best films she's ever seen and that it is different to Capote.
- She begged to be cast in Galaxy Quest even though the producers didn't want anyone who was associated with Sci-Fi movies to be involved - she said "who knows what's funny in sci-fi better than me?!"
- She turned down a bigger role in Annie Hall because she was doing a play - she was originally going to be Girl on the Beach, I think.
- She is doing a play in spring - she said she was playing 'a very human character' (I think she said the name was 'Lydia') and hopes Ang Lee doesn't come along and offer her something, because then she would have to drop out!
- When she was cast in The Year of Living Dangerously, she had just been fired from a play of Macbeth (she referred to it as 'the Scottish Play') and therefore had very low confidence. At a dinner with the director, he told her that he had no idea that she was so inexperienced and just to play it like she was Sigourney talking to Mel (Gibson, her co-star), and then she relaxed.
- She said she used to throw herself out and beg to be cast in the roles that she wanted but a certain director (she didn't specify which one) told her not to because she would never be cast that way.
Herself
- She and her husband try to take it in turns to work and stay home.
- She is good friends with Alan Rickman and Ang Lee (and hmmm, who are they both close to? Emma Thompson! Sigourney and Emma sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G. *wistful sigh*)
Her Experiences
- She said James Cameron was "witty and affable" when not working but driven and focused on set - "if he could do everything himself, he would".
- Said that when doing the readthrough for Death and the Maiden, Polanski just read all the roles. He then watched the actos rehearse and set the scenes around how they interacted.
- She met her husband whilst filming Ghostbusters.
- Said that when she was cast in Ghostbusters, she was nervous about meeting Bill Murray (said "he can be prickly") but she went to introduce herself on a day he was filming and he just said "Hello, Susan", picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and carried her down the street while she laughed.
- Described Alan Rickman in Galaxy Quest as "the one with the big head thing" and herself as "the one with the big boobs".
- Told us that Alan Rickman went around the set on Galaxy Quest stealing the props of himself and now donates them to charity auctions.
- On Gorillas in the Mist, she thought they covered too much of Diane's life but she has great respect for her, Rwanda and the gorillas.
- She mentioned her height a lot - usually after saying something like "I don't know why" - that would be followed with a laugh, or a head toss, and then "maybe it's my height".
- She played with her hair a lot, ran her fingers through it and pulled it back and the like.
- She said she used to be really self-conscious and then came across as snobbish because she was so painfully shy.
On ActingMisc.
- She said a good director can be obvious on a set, regardless of age.
- She would write something herself, but says she's "too lazy to sit down and write".
- She said she doesn't mind if people only think of her as Ripley - she's happy that they know/like her at all and she gets work because of it! She said that most fans don't know most of her work; she has Gorillas in the Mist fans, Ripley fans, Ice Storm fans etc.
- When asked which roles she was most proud of, she said Heartbreakers because she had to fight to be cast as most people don't see her as comedic.
- Said that Galaxy Quest was originally different (darker) but that the end product was still good.
- Described a script as giving actors "[wings] to fly".
- She is always attracted to films because of their scripts, even they are just a blueprint, she can tell whether they will be good from them.
- She said that when a script changes constantly during filming, it can be tiring but ultimately, it is usually for the best.
- She has recently gone to back Rwanda with the BBC after 18 years to see how Diane's cause is doing (very well, by the way) and while there she taught orphans from the local orphanage how to speak in monkey talk (which she demonstrated adorabibbly - tm.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
missfoxie) and then showed them the gorillas.
- Didn't want to get on the topic of Mel Gibson and his recent behaviour!
- She would like to do more comedies as she enjoys them.
- A question from the audience was if 'Susan Weaver' would ever direct a film - she said she didn't know if she could direct anything because it took so long and she's "too lazy", but seemed slightly put out by the use of 'Susan'. As I would have been.
- The whole thing opened with a clip from Death and the Maiden, which I haven't seen, so that was immediate yaye. In the clip, Sigourney's character was talking about being held prisoner in some torture camp or other; when it finished, the interview man said that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to open with that! She laughed.
End Part One!
The event was held in the Cineworld cinema in Fountain Park, Edinburgh - the same cinema we went to last year for Wah-Wah. We queued up outside, where the red carpet was but we were ushered in before Sigourney actually appeared, so we didn't see her arrival. That didn't really matter though; because we didn't hang around to see her arrive, we got very good seats - third row from the front, and believe me, it was a big cinema screen. The same cinema screen that we went in to see Wah-Wah actually, so that was a little 'huh' moment.
The set-up was that Sigourney and the person who I think was the director of the festival sat in two chairs at the moment of all the seating, just under the screen, with a spotlight on them. Cameras were recording the event, and they put a close-up of Sigourney's face on the screen behind her so that the people at the back could see her. We, sitting at the front, could of course see both her and her face on the screen and it was a little hard to know where to look - on one hand OMGSIGOURNEYSOCLOSEANDREAL! and on the other, to see the way she reacted to questions and things, looking at the screen was better.
And then she came down the steps. She was wearing a long sleeved black top, a crinkly/shiny/tartanish green skirt and the most frakking gorgeous shoes. Seriously. They were kind of irridescent green stilettos (Stilettos! She's really really tall!) but the soles and the heel were bright, bright red. At some point, when the audience asked her questions, someone asked where she got them and she took one of them off to look at it. (I saw her foot! /fangirl) She said they were from Paris - it said so in the shoe - but she didn't know where exactly because they were a gift and she thought they had come with an outfit but she didn't know which one.
The event started off by the screening of a clip from Death and the Maiden, which I haven't seen but damn, Sigourney was good. Then the director-guy kind of asked her questions and let her ramble on, just prompting her occasionally. And he was so smitten with her, you could tell, and at some point he just said "Excuse me, I just have to say this - I LOVE YOU!" and everyone cracked up, because everyone in the room was feeling the same thing. You can't not love her (and I like that use of double negative)! A little later, near the end of the 90 minutes, questions were asked by the audience.
What follows here is just basically all the notes I made once I got back, everything I could remember. It's in no order, and certainly not chronological order (and I say 'she' waaaay too much), so I've just copied out my notes and tried to make them a little easier to understand!
Her Roles
- She pieced Linda (Snow Cake character) together through different experiences from different people that she met during research and she said that the role taught her how to play again.
- She started researching autism for Snow Cake and realised that she didn't know nearly enough about it - as a result, when it came to shoot it, the director just had to "let [her] go" on set because she was so fired up with research and mannerisms!
- She has an upcoming role as a flighty socialite in the other Truman Capote film, Infamous, and said that it might sound biased but she thinks it's one of the best films she's ever seen and that it is different to Capote.
- She begged to be cast in Galaxy Quest even though the producers didn't want anyone who was associated with Sci-Fi movies to be involved - she said "who knows what's funny in sci-fi better than me?!"
- She turned down a bigger role in Annie Hall because she was doing a play - she was originally going to be Girl on the Beach, I think.
- She is doing a play in spring - she said she was playing 'a very human character' (I think she said the name was 'Lydia') and hopes Ang Lee doesn't come along and offer her something, because then she would have to drop out!
- When she was cast in The Year of Living Dangerously, she had just been fired from a play of Macbeth (she referred to it as 'the Scottish Play') and therefore had very low confidence. At a dinner with the director, he told her that he had no idea that she was so inexperienced and just to play it like she was Sigourney talking to Mel (Gibson, her co-star), and then she relaxed.
- She said she used to throw herself out and beg to be cast in the roles that she wanted but a certain director (she didn't specify which one) told her not to because she would never be cast that way.
- She and her husband try to take it in turns to work and stay home.
- She is good friends with Alan Rickman and Ang Lee (and hmmm, who are they both close to? Emma Thompson! Sigourney and Emma sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G. *wistful sigh*)
Her Experiences
- She said James Cameron was "witty and affable" when not working but driven and focused on set - "if he could do everything himself, he would".
- Said that when doing the readthrough for Death and the Maiden, Polanski just read all the roles. He then watched the actos rehearse and set the scenes around how they interacted.
- She met her husband whilst filming Ghostbusters.
- Said that when she was cast in Ghostbusters, she was nervous about meeting Bill Murray (said "he can be prickly") but she went to introduce herself on a day he was filming and he just said "Hello, Susan", picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and carried her down the street while she laughed.
- Described Alan Rickman in Galaxy Quest as "the one with the big head thing" and herself as "the one with the big boobs".
- Told us that Alan Rickman went around the set on Galaxy Quest stealing the props of himself and now donates them to charity auctions.
- On Gorillas in the Mist, she thought they covered too much of Diane's life but she has great respect for her, Rwanda and the gorillas.
- She mentioned her height a lot - usually after saying something like "I don't know why" - that would be followed with a laugh, or a head toss, and then "maybe it's my height".
- She played with her hair a lot, ran her fingers through it and pulled it back and the like.
- She said she used to be really self-conscious and then came across as snobbish because she was so painfully shy.
- She said a good director can be obvious on a set, regardless of age.
- She would write something herself, but says she's "too lazy to sit down and write".
- She said she doesn't mind if people only think of her as Ripley - she's happy that they know/like her at all and she gets work because of it! She said that most fans don't know most of her work; she has Gorillas in the Mist fans, Ripley fans, Ice Storm fans etc.
- When asked which roles she was most proud of, she said Heartbreakers because she had to fight to be cast as most people don't see her as comedic.
- Said that Galaxy Quest was originally different (darker) but that the end product was still good.
- Described a script as giving actors "[wings] to fly".
- She is always attracted to films because of their scripts, even they are just a blueprint, she can tell whether they will be good from them.
- She said that when a script changes constantly during filming, it can be tiring but ultimately, it is usually for the best.
- She has recently gone to back Rwanda with the BBC after 18 years to see how Diane's cause is doing (very well, by the way) and while there she taught orphans from the local orphanage how to speak in monkey talk (which she demonstrated adorabibbly - tm.
missfoxie) and then showed them the gorillas.- Didn't want to get on the topic of Mel Gibson and his recent behaviour!
- She would like to do more comedies as she enjoys them.
- A question from the audience was if 'Susan Weaver' would ever direct a film - she said she didn't know if she could direct anything because it took so long and she's "too lazy", but seemed slightly put out by the use of 'Susan'. As I would have been.
- The whole thing opened with a clip from Death and the Maiden, which I haven't seen, so that was immediate yaye. In the clip, Sigourney's character was talking about being held prisoner in some torture camp or other; when it finished, the interview man said that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to open with that! She laughed.
