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Sigourney Weaver says she wasn’t initially happy with one of her most iconic movie lines.
Weaver, 76, reflected on the line and her decades-long career during a recent panel discussion at New York Comic Con hosted by Josh Horowitz, host of the podcast Happy Sad Confused. During our conversation, Horowitz was asked what he thought about a fan-favorite line from the 1986 sci-fi classic “Alien,” the sequel to the 1979 film “Alien.”
This line occurs when the film’s main character, Ripley (Weaver), emerges from an elevator wearing a giant metal bodysuit, ready to fight a terrifying alien to save a young child. As she approached the monster, she firmly said, “Get out of there, you bitch!”
However, Weaver said she was not satisfied with her work performance at the time.
“I remember that by that time[during filming]we were on a big set and it took a lot of effort for the crew to basically open the[elevator]doors and put me on the power motor, and[special effects designer]John[Richardson]behind me to lift my legs,” she recalled.
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She continued, “Everything was rehearsed, everything was in sync. Basically, I felt like I only had one or two chances (to say the line correctly). And when I said the line, I remember saying something like, ‘Get away from her, you (raise your voice) bitch!’ ”
“I pitched up, which is not what you’re supposed to do. You want to seem brave. You should go down, but I went up like a little nerd,” she said.
But director James (Jim) Cameron didn’t seem to notice, she said.
“Jim loved it and we couldn’t do it again. Maybe one more time, but not too much. It was such a big sequence,” she added.
Critics and audiences didn’t seem to care either. Weaver ultimately received an Oscar nomination for her performance, which she said she did not expect, as roles in genre films are rarely recognized with such awards.
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“I think I was surprised because it was, and still will be, unheard of,” she explained. “But I knew Jim had created a character and story structure that was meaningful to people, so I was happy to be a part of a genre picture without jumping over all of that. And that was accepted by the academy, just in terms of the story and everything else, regardless of the genre.”
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As for whether the Galaxy Quest star will ever reprise her role as iconic heroine Ripley? She said she wasn’t against it and had read some promising concepts for the new movie.
“You know,[writer and producer]Walter Hill is a very good friend of mine, and he wrote 50 pages of the situation that Ripley would be in right now. They’re pretty extraordinary,” she said.
“So, I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen, but I’ve had meetings with Fox, Disney, whoever it is right now,” Weaver continued with a laugh, adding, “(I’ve never felt the need to reprise the role) I was always like, ‘Let her rest, let her recover.'” But what Walter wrote rings very true to me. ”
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Weaver’s Ripley was the only character to survive from the original 1979 film, and she became the series’ hero in the next three films. She hasn’t played the role on the big screen since 1997’s Alien: Resurrection.
