page_title: Sigourney Weaver
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Sigourney Weaver / Career
caption_attribution_description: Sigourney Weaver at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
context_page_description: Susan Alexandra "Sigourney" Weaver is an American actress. Weaver is considered to be a pioneer of action heroines in science fiction films. She is known for her role as Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise, which earned her an Academy Award nomination in 1986 and is often regarded as one of the most significant female protagonists in cinema history.
  A seven-time Golden Globe Award nominee, she won both Best Actress in Drama and Best Supporting Actress in 1988 for her work in the films Gorillas in the Mist and Working Girl, becoming the first person to win two acting Golden Globes in the same year. She also received Academy Award nominations for both films. For her role in the film The Ice Storm, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She also received a Tony Award nomination for her work in the 1984 Broadway play Hurlyburly.
  Weaver's other film roles include Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Galaxy Quest, Holes, WALL-E, Avatar, Prayers for Bobby, Paul, The Cabin in the Woods, and A Monster Calls; and the television miniseries Political Animals and The Defenders.
context_section_description: Weaver's first role is often said to be in Woody Allen's comedy Annie Hall (1977) playing a non-speaking role opposite Allen. Weaver appeared two years later as Warrant Officer / Lieutenant Ripley in Ridley Scott's blockbuster film Alien (1979), in a role initially designated to co-star British-born actress, Veronica Cartwright, until a late change in casting. Cartwright stated to World Entertainment News Network (WENN) that she was in England ready to start work on Alien when she discovered that she would be playing the navigator Lambert in the project, and Weaver had been given the lead role of Ripley. Weaver reprised the role in the three sequels of the Alien movie franchise, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection. Ty Burr of The Boston Globe states, "One of the real pleasures of Alien is to watch the emergence of both Ellen Ripley as a character and Sigourney Weaver as a star."
  In the sequel Aliens directed by James Cameron, critic Roger Ebert wrote, "Weaver, who is onscreen almost all the time, comes through with a very strong, sympathetic performance: She's the thread that holds everything together." She followed the success of Alien appearing opposite Mel Gibson in The Year of Living Dangerously released to critical acclaim and as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II.
  By the end of the decade, Weaver appeared in two of her most memorable and critically acclaimed performances. In 1988, she starred as primatologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist. The same year, she appeared opposite Harrison Ford in a supporting role as Katharine Parker in the film Working Girl. Weaver won Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for her two roles that year. She received two Academy Award nominations in 1988, for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Working Girl and Best Actress for Gorillas in the Mist.
  She gave birth to a daughter in 1990, taking a few years' break from the movie business and focusing on her family. She returned to the big screen with Alien 3 (1992) and Ridley's Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) in which she played the role of Queen Isabella. In the early 1990s, Weaver appeared in several films including Dave opposite Kevin Kline and Frank Langella. In 1994, she starred in Roman Polanski's drama Death and the Maiden as Paulina Escobar. She played the role of agoraphobic criminal psychologist Helen Hudson in the movie Copycat (1995).
  Throughout the 1990s decade, Weaver also concentrated on smaller and supporting roles such as Jeffrey (1994) with Nathan Lane and Patrick Stewart. In 1997, she appeared in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. Her role in The Ice Storm as Janey Carver, earned her another Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress (1997), and won her a BAFTA Award for Actress in a Supporting Role. In 1999, she co-starred in the science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest and the drama A Map of the World, earning her another Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, for the latter film.
  In 2001, Weaver appeared in the comedy Heartbreakers playing the lead role of a con-artist alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Gene Hackman and Anne Bancroft. She appeared in several films throughout the decade including Holes (2003), the M. Night Shyamalan horror film The Village (2004), Vantage Point (2008), and Baby Mama (2008).
  In 2007, Weaver returned to Rwanda for the BBC special Gorillas Revisited, in which Weaver reunites with the Rwandan apes from the film Gorillas in the Mist, some 20 years later.
  In 2009, Weaver starred as Mary Griffith in her first made-for-TV movie, Prayers for Bobby, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award. She also made a rare guest appearance on television playing herself in season 2 episode of the television series Eli Stone in the fall of 2008. She reunited with Aliens director James Cameron for his film Avatar (2009), with Weaver playing a major role as Dr. Grace Augustine, leader of the AVTR (avatar) program on the film's fictional moon Pandora.
  Weaver has done voice work in variou
caption: Weaver at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
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