Sigourney Weaver

Sigourney Weaver (born October 8, 1949) was born as Susan Alexandra Weaver in Leroy Hospital in New York City. She is an actress best known for the lead heroine Ellen Ripley in the Alien series.
She portrays Grace Augustine in Avatar and Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water. She also voiced Grace in the video games.
==Biography==
In 1969, Sigourney enrolled in Stanford University, majoring in English Literature. She also participated in school plays, especially Japanese Noh plays. She graduated from Stanford University in 1972 with a bachelor's degree in English.
After completing her studies in 1971, she applied to the Yale School of Drama in New York. Despite appearing at the audition reading a Bertolt Brecht speech and wearing a rope-like belt, she was accepted by the school, but her professors rejected her because of her height, and kept casting her in prostitute and old woman roles (whereas classmate Meryl Streep was treated almost reverently).
In 1973, while making her theatrical debut with "Watergate Classics", she met a team of playwrights and actors and began hanging around with them, resulting in long-term friendships with Christopher Durang, Kate McGregor-Stewart and Albert Innaurato.
In 1977, she was cast in the role Shelley Duvall finally played in Annie Hall, after Weaver rejected the part due to prior stage commitments. In the end, however, Woody Allen offered her a part in the film that, while short (she was on-screen for six seconds), made many people sit up and take notice. She later appeared in Madman and in Alien.
The role of the tough, uncompromising Ripley made Sigourney an 'overnight' star and brought her a British Award Nomination. She next appeared in Eyewitness and The Year of Living Dangerously, the latter being a great success in Australia. It won an Oscar and brought Sigourney and co-star Mel Gibson to Cannes in 1983. The same year, she delivered an honorary Emmy award to her father, a few months before her uncle, actor Doodles Weaver, committed suicide.
That year also brought a romance with Jim Simpson, her first since having broken up two years previously with James M. McClure. She and Simpson were married on the 1st of October , 1984. Sigourney had meanwhile played in the poorly received Deal of the Century and in the mega-hit Ghost Busters. She was also nominated for a Tony Award for her tour-de-force performance in the play "Hurly Burly". Then followed Une Femme ou Deux, Half Moon Street, and Aliens. The latter was a huge success, and Sigourney was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an Oscar.
She then entered her most productive career period and snatched Academy Award nominations, in both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories, for her intense portrayal of Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey and her delicious performance as a double-crossing, power-hungry corporate executive in Working Girl. She ended up losing in both categories, but made up for it to a degree by winning both Golden Globes. After appearing in a documentary about fashion photographer Helmut Newton, Frames from the Edge, and reprising her role in the sequel Ghostbusters II, she discovered she was pregnant and retired from public life for a while.
She gave birth to her daughter Charlotte on the 13th of April, 1990, and returned to movies as a (now skinhead) Ripley in Alien 3 and a gorgeous Queen Isabella of Spain in 1492: Conquest of Paradise, her second film with director Ridley Scott. She starred in the political comedy Dave alongside Kevin Kline, and then a Roman Polanski thriller, Death and the Maiden.
In 1995 she was seen in Jeffrey and Copycat. The next year she 'trod the boards' in "Sex and Longing", yet another Durang play. She hadn't performed in the theater in many years before that play, her last stage performances occurring in the 1980s in "As You Like It", Beyond Therapy, The Marriage of Bette and Boo and The Merchant of Venice. In 1997 she was the protagonist in Grimm's Snow White: A Tale of Terror. She also appeared in The Ice Storm and Alien: Resurrection. Her performance in The Ice Storm got her a BAFTA prize and another Golden Globe nod.
She also gave excellent performances in A Map of the World and the sci-fi spoof Galaxy Quest. However, her next comedy, Company Man, wasn't quite so warmly welcomed either critically or financially. She next played a sexy con artist in Heartbreakers and had a voice role in Big Bad Love. Sigourney starred in Tadpole and The Guys, the enthralling September 11th one-act drama she played on stage in late 2001.
==Avatar series==
Sigourney portrayed Grace Augustine in Avatar (2009). She has stated that she does not view herself as sharing Grace's bold personality, saying she was instead trying to channel James Cameron's personality to help with her performance.
She did not actually smoke on set, however, as she is not a smoker. She acted out the motions of smoking and the cigarette was added in digitally in post, which can be observed in some deleted scenes from the film.https://www.thegeektwins.com/2019/01/25-mind-blowing-facts-about-james.html She voiced Grace in James Cameron's Avatar: The Game and its Wii/PSP version.
James Cameron encouraged her to portray Kiri in Avatar: The Way of Water, saying he knew how immature at heart he knew she can be. Although intrigued, Weaver did not like the initial art of Kiri, feeling the character had a look that felt too neat and pretty. Because of her insistence, Kiri was given more messier hair. Weaver did Kiri's voice and motion capture. She felt insecure about her performance as Kiri while shooting Avatar: The Way of Water due to the lack of immediate feedback during filming.https://thedirect.com/article/avatar-2-sigourney-weaver-behavior Cameron and Weaver, however, wanted to portray Kiri as being an awkward teenager.
==Trivia==
*She is a rather tall woman at around 6 feet.
*She reprised her role as Grace in a Saturday Night Live skit called "Avatar Sex Gone Wild".
*Speaks fluent French and German.
*She changed her name from Susan to Sigourney at 14 after reading "The Great Gatsby".https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/may/01/sigourney-weaver-family-values-avatar
*She is one of the eleven actors who have been nominated for both a Supporting and Lead Acting Academy Award in the same year for their achievements in two different movies.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_actors_nominated_for_multiple_Academy_Awards_in_the_same_year
*Afraid to travel in elevators.https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/145061/Weaver-I-m-nothing-like-my-film-characters
*Singer/songwriter Mike Garrigan wrote a song entitled "Sigourney Weaver" that pays tribute to the actress.
==External Links==
*Sigourney Weaver at the Internet Movie Database
==References==
de:Sigourney Weaver
fr:Sigourney Weaver
pl:Sigourney Weaver
ru:Сигурни Уивер
ja:シガニー・ウィーバー
Category:Production
Category:Actors
Category:Voice actors