Sigourney Weaver: ‘I Feel Like a Babe in Real Life, Even If I Don’t Always Have Those Roles’

Sigourney Weaver signs on to our Zoom with a giant map of the world behind her. It's the kind of background one might expect to see accompany a nightly newscast or a weather reporter. But, given her upbringing, it makes total sense.

“We have the map to remind ourselves how insignificant we are,” she explains, adding that her father, late broadcasting executive Sylvester “Pat” Weaver, who was president of NBC in the ’50s, always had maps on the wall of his library too. “There's so much going on in the world,” she says. “It really helps to remind myself of where things are.”

In this case, the “where” is New York City, where Weaver is getting ready to start a busy fall promoting four films: Master Gardener, The Good House, Call Jane, and Avatar 2. “It's funny that they're all coming out at the same time because they're all so different,” she says. “It's like a flower bed coming up after winter.”

Not to be clichéd, but Weaver's career has pretty much always been in bloom. Born in New York City, she graduated from Stanford University and went on to receive a master's degree from the Yale School of Drama—where, at one point, she was told she shouldn't consider a career as an actor.

The “advice” didn't stick: She made her feature film debut in Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi blockbuster Alien as Warrant Officer Ripley, followed by 1986's Aliens. For that follow-up, she earned a best-actress Oscar nomination and, most important, paved the way for future bona-fide, tough-as-nails female action stars.

Her greatest hits continued with the role of Dana Barrett in 1984's Ghostbusters and a Tony nomination that same year for Hurlyburly. A few years later, in 1988, she earned another two Oscar nominations; this time for playing primatologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist and sly boss Katharine Parker in Working Girl.

The ’90s were no different, starting with reprising her role as Ripley in Aliens 3, which she coproduced. (She also starred and coproduced 1997's Alien Resurrection.) Then there was 1993's critically acclaimed political comedy Dave and the 1997 drama The Ice Storm, both opposite Kevin Kline. (She stars with him again in this fall's The Good House.) The successful projects kept on coming—by 2009 she had another blockbuster under her belt in James Cameron's groundbreaking film Avatar, which was nominated for best picture at the Oscars.

And while Weaver is most known for her extensive film work, she's also made her mark in television, earning Emmy and SAG noms for Lifetime's Prayers for Bobby and USA Network's Political Animals. We'd be here all day if we listed all of her credits, which total more than 100.

But as successful and groundbreaking as Weaver's career has been, she's remained under the radar as far as her personal life is concerned—especially in today's know-everything social media climate. The TL;DR version is that she's been married for nearly 40 years to director and actor Jim Simpson, and they have one adult daughter, Charlotte. But who is the real Sigourney Weaver? Does she consider herself as fearless in her daily life as she is in her films? What are her pet peeves? And does she feel as confident as she looks on the red carpet?

For Glamour's latest Icons Only, she opens up about ignoring naysayers, why she doesn't mind talking about her height, and how she's fascinated by the newfound focus on her age. Read on.

Glamour: I don’t know how much you hear this given your extensive filmography, but my dad and I consider Dave our favorite movie. We can quote every line.

Sigourney Weaver: I'm so glad. What a brilliant cast. My friend Ivan Reitman directed it, of course, and I'm so glad you feel it holds up. Unfortunately, it's become more and more timely in a way. I just got to work with Kevin again in The Good House. That was the third movie I've made with him, and it's great fun to work with him.

What came first: You and Kevin wanting to do a third film together, or the script for The Good House?

It was a script that had been around for a while. I thought, Wow, it's wonderful the way they can keep the heart and the comedy through this very serious subject of bipolarity. I was very impressed. The producers sent the script to Kevin and he said yes, which I wasn't expecting because he's not the lead and he doesn't work all the time. He has his piano, he has his painting. I was absolutely thrilled he said yes, and it was so great knowing Kevin was there supporting me. I just felt so fortunate and grateful.

The setting and cinematography in The Good House is also stunning. It’s the perfect fall movie.

I also think it's the perfect boomer movie. How many times do you have a script where an older woman has her say and talks right to the camera? That never happens, in my experience. It's a kind of a unicorn.

What’s so wonderful about your career is the range of characters you’ve played. Each one is so different from the next.

I'm glad you can sense that because it's always been very important to me to not retread the same ground. When I finish a comedy, I try to find something serious. I try to go into a different genre. I try to keep moving. That's the secret for me. I always feel very excited about a new challenge.

When you attended Yale Drama School, you were told you probably wouldn’t have a career in this business. Then they backtracked and said you could do comedy but not drama. Did you ever run into those people again?

I didn't need to. They were fired when we graduated and the head of the school, Robert Brustein, wrote me an apology. The two teachers in charge really picked on people and were quite inappropriate. They told a friend of mine she should get a divorce if she wanted a career. They were all over the place. Luckily, I had just finished six plays at Williamstown the year they were saying I had no talent. My story is not the only one, but I was very glad when Brustein said, “When I realized they didn't like actors, I fired them. Shouldn't have people who don't like actors running the acting department.”

To hear that at such an impressionable young age must have been hard to digest.

It really came out of the blue. I could tell there were teachers who wanted to speak on my behalf. But no matter what happened to me at Yale, I was always very happy that I went to a school with a playwriting department. Juilliard didn't have one at that point. I do like to tease Kevin Kline that he never had that experience with new plays. It's such a shame that Juilliard couldn't provide that for him. [Laughs.] We're always bantering about our school rivalry. Always.

Let’s talk about about your next film, Call Jane, which centers on a housewife who needs an abortion before it was legal. Aside from the fact that it’s so timely, it’s one of the best films I’ve seen recently that humanizes what life was like pre-Roe.

It's an issue that is so fundamental to women's freedom in this country—for all of us, and especially Elizabeth Banks, who has worked on behalf of abortion rights for a long time. We wanted to get this movie made. I don't think we anticipated that Roe v. Wade would be reversed in such an abrupt manner, but it was a hard film to get financed. Phyllis Nagy, who's our director, hung in there. She fought for the film's quality. I'm very proud of the movie. I hope it will remind people of who is really at risk in all of this—and that is women.

It can be hard to watch a film on abortion rights at this time, because we’re living it every day and you want to escape, but this tells such a profound story.

I have to say, people who are pro-life, we respect that choice. No one is making them have abortions. But for the rest of us who believe in choice and having the agency to determine what you're going to do with your body…a lot of women are going to be forced to give birth. It's so unjust.

What was it like for you the day Roe was overturned?

It blindsided me because I really believe in the separation of church and state. I believed that the justices would make a more obvious effort to not follow their religious beliefs. It felt like a different country to me. I had no idea that a right that's been around for 50 years and has enabled women to make such incredible progress over the last five decades, in terms of achievements and positions in business, sports…just exploded. Luckily, that decision can't take our progress away, but I do worry about all the women who are in that situation.

It's just too unjust. Half the people in the country are women, and this takes away agency over our bodies. It's a basic human right. Overturning Roe shook me to my core. It still does.

I want to switch gears to another timely film—especially in the ’80s—Working Girl. Our editor in chief refers to your character as the original shrober, which is a term I had never heard before. Do you know what that means?

I don't. [Laughs.]

It’s when you wear a long coat or suit jacket over your shoulders without putting your arms through the sleeves. Our editor in chief said to me, “Sigourney shrobed before anybody else did in the fashion world.”

Ann Roth, who did the costumes for that and for My Salinger Year, really likes that look for certain kind of women. It's so they're not closed with a power suit but have a little bit of power and a sort of super cape. You have to be careful that it doesn't fall off. But if it happens, it happens!

Selena Gomez is reportedly producing a new version of Working Girl for Hulu.

How wonderful! What a great idea.

What are your thoughts on bringing it back?

It's such a good story. It's basically Pygmalion. One of the things [director] Mike Nichols did was have us all watch Pygmalion, and then he and Ann Roth figured out how to transform Melanie [Griffith] physically. I thought that was one of the strongest parts of the movie. So I think that's fantastic. What a great idea.

They have to find a way to bring your character, Katharine, back into this world. You need to come in shrobing.

Absolutely. I'll send her a note. Tell her that shrobing's going on.

Speaking of style, we were all enamored with your look at the Met Gala this year. What is your approach to the red carpet? Do you enjoy it?

Michael Kors designed the dress. He's an old friend of mine. As soon as I put this dress on of his, I thought, I'm the luckiest person at the gala because my dress is comfortable. I didn't have a train. I didn't have a headdress. I didn't have this and that. I can just go and enjoy myself and watch everybody else with all that stuff going on. I love it. I loved the color of my gown; I thought it was a wonderful idea for a dress and very sparkly.

I felt very lucky that he asked me because I haven't been to the gala in a long time. There's this really vibrant, young energy, and so much self-expression there. Maybe you don't quite get that when you're looking at the pictures, but it's much more than just fashion. It's very much about energy.

You always seem to exude such confidence on the red carpet. Do you feel that way?

I've had training from my hairdresser of many years, Maury Hopson. We used to say, “Stick your personality out.” I don't have a lot of confidence in these areas, but I know how to put a dress on. You don't want to let the dress down. If you're not having fun, it's just not worth it. Nowadays people use stylists, but for so long we never used to have any of that. I used to just find my own dress. I'm working with a stylist at the Venice Film Festival, for instance, and it's a great load off my mind. We're using most of my actual clothes, but she's put them together.

I think it's important to rewear your dresses. You can't have that attitude toward fashion anymore, that you only wear something once. I'm proud to wear a dress that I like again and not taking more out of the earth for every occasion. I love to recycle things.

Before our interview I was watching the speech you gave at our Glamour Women of the Year awards when you were honored in 2002. Bebe Neuwirth introduced you and said, “Sigourney just gets sexier with age.” That was true then and now, but do you feel you've gotten sexier with age?

I don't really think about what category I am in Hollywood because of my height—I wasn't going to be the standard girlfriend. I would say that I have a really lovely husband, who's a few years younger than I am. So I feel like a babe in real life, even if I don't always have those roles. I think it's funny that if you play a role like Ripley [in Alien] for a while, you're going to be sent serious roles. Took me a long time, really until Ghostbusters. [Director] Ivan Reitman thought of me for that. I'd never met him before. I basically had to turn into a dog on his couch in his office.

I love the fact that actors can transcend whatever box they're going to be put in and keep going. I've always thought of acting as a long-term job, and two of my dearest friends were [actors] Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn who worked until they stopped. They died with their boots on and did it with such joy and enthusiasm. When you look at Cocoon, I didn't even know how old they were. Definitely in their 80s. I'd love to be that kind of actor.

You just mentioned transforming into a dog on Ivan Reitman’s office couch. And then there’s Gorillas in the Mist and Alien. Are you as fearless in real life as you are when going out for a role?

Oh no, I'm quite wimpy. I was in Australia filming a miniseries that's going to come out next year [Amazon Prime Video's The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart]. I think Australians are quite proud of the fact that they have the 10 most venomous snakes in the world, but I was quite terrified. Sometimes I try to find the Ripley in myself. I go, “Where is she?” [Laughs.] I think we all have Ripley in us. We just have to access it and let her act. By the way, we actually haven't talked about Avatar yet. I don't know if we're supposed to.

Well, it’s whatever you can say about it because I know it’s very top secret.

Well, it's come out that I'm playing a 14-year-old naughty girl. So I don't have to worry about keeping that a secret. It was a great, exciting challenge for me that Jim gave me. I thought it was crazy.

I was going to say, what was your reaction when Jim told you about this?

The two of us were trying to figure out what could happen post-Grace and came up with the idea of this young girl who feels more at home in the forest, the animals, and the creatures than she does with people. She has a way about her that allows her to be with all kinds of creatures. She's not afraid, and they're not afraid. It was fascinating for me. It was fascinating for me to go back into my own adolescence. I remember it so, so clearly and in such a sensory way. I just didn't want to play 14-year-old; I wanted to find my 14-year-old again. I had to start working in a completely new way and was able to do it. I think it's improved my work.

Speaking of 14, that’s when you changed your name from Susan to Sigourney.

Maybe before that. It's not a bad thing.

Not at all, but it is ballsy! I read it was because of the Great Gatsby character and you felt like you were more of a Sigourney than a Sue or a Susie.

I was going away to school. Actually, one of the reasons I did was because it was an all-girls school and we called each other by our last names. I'd be at a school dance or something and the boy would say, “What's your name?” and I would be very tempted to say “Weaver.” I thought, God, I need a name. I don't like Susie. It's too small. It's for a mouse. I thought, I'm just going to use this Sigourney name until I can find a real name. It was always meant to be a temporary thing.

I don't think my parents took it very seriously, but the school was not happy. I heard that my parents backed me up, but for a long time they called me “S” in case I changed it again. They knew I liked the initial, so they were giving me some leeway. It's a crazy thing to change your name. My mother's name was Desiree, yet she was always called Liz. My father's name is Sylvester, and he was always called Pat. I think it's more common than we realize.

I love how vivid your memories are of that age. I’m sure that’s what helped with playing this 14-year-old in Avatar 2 and being able to access those memories so easily.

Well, I'm not sure it was easy. I had to work on it. Luckily, I had quite a bit of time while he was continuing to write them, to try to put it together slowly, like building it inside and very much not in a intellectual way, but very much in a sensory way, remembering what it felt to walk around, what it felt like to have breasts and how being that tall made me want to disappear and all those things that I think people pretty much remember from their adolescence.

It’s interesting—I was purposely not going to bring up your height because you're always asked about it in interviews. Does that get frustrating?

I felt it really kept me from working with conventional people. You had to be a bit of a crazy director to want to work with me and put up with that quite high height. What I notice now, for instance…I think the trailer for Good House came out and it had Sigourney Weaver, 72, and a love story with Kevin Kline. So now the front-end thing that people load on is the age. They wouldn't do that if I was just in my 30s. I guess there's an element of amazement that I'm still going, or that actors like me and Kevin are still going. You only notice it in stuff like that. Otherwise, you still feel like you're whatever age.

I get it. But I also have noticed that we’re finally at a place where more women are comfortable talking about their age and taking that power back by doing so. When you have someone like yourself, who is such an icon, they say your age to celebrate it.

I'm often the oldest person on the set these days, which cracks me up. I think it's very important to show the training that you've come prepared. I love being an ambassador for that, because you really have to have your work ready to go.

Is there a role you would love to go back and do again, either because you had so much fun doing it or because you’d love another chance at it?

Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything. I'm always thinking about what's next, and I hope it's something I've never done before. That's why I'm tickled by these four movies coming out at once. I've always tried, secretly, to pretend I'm in a magical repertory company and play a tiny part in one play and a big part in another, or I play the maid in one and the rich queen in the other.

The greatest fear I always had was being pigeonholed. And after Alien, it was like, “Never send her anything funny” because she was Ripley. I'm glad I survived long enough to do different things.

What is the best advice you’ve shared with your daughter, who is 32?

They don't need any advice, but I always said try to be kind to everybody because you never know what someone's going through. I think that's a good way to go through your day.

You and your husband Jim have been married for 38 years. How did you know he was the right one for you and vice versa?

He has so much aloha. He's from Hawaii. I think I fell in love with him for his aloha, for his talent as a director, and he's also really cute. There are so many built-in separations in a professional marriage like this, so it's never been boring. Actually since he retired—he retired right before Avatar 2—he came out to California with me. He took a cooking course. He's made meals for me. He's really been such a support. I can't believe how many years I spent on my own really doing these films, and it's so much more fun now that I can share it with him.

Before we go, I have some fun rapid-fire questions for you. One, have you ever overslept for a call time?

Never. I only set one alarm clock also. I'm a light sleeper. I also don't stay out very late.

What’s something you want to get better at?

Cooking. It's not that pleasurable for me. I need to go take a real cooking course with a really good cook. I can cook the way my mother cooked, which is like lamb chops and string beans and a baked potato. But that, to me, is not really cooking. I want to cook Italian and Moroccan or Cuban.

What’s one of your biggest fears?

I always get very nervous about a job before it starts. I actually anticipate all the things that can go wrong, which means that, in the two or three weeks before starting a job, I'm quite miserable. But that's just my way. I do that with everything. By the time I get there, I'm like, “Throw it at me, I'm fine.” At least I can notice it now and go, “You're scaring yourself. That's not going to happen.”

What is something you won’t spend money on?

Cars and houses and stuff. I just look at those things and go, “Oh my God, I'd need helpers to help me clean the house.” I'm much more interested in keeping a low profile.

Don’t tell that to Hildy Good [Weaver’s character in The Good House]. She’d want to sell you a really nice house, Sigourney.

[Laughs.] Yeah, I know. She's great.

Jessica Radloff is the Glamour senior West Coast editor and author of The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series (October 11, 2022), which is available for preorder here.