Acting icons don't come much bigger than Sigourney Weaver. She held down the Alien movies for two decades as Ellen Ripley, played the villain in the original Ghostbusters movie and is at the head of the Avatar series, which may end up being the most profitable franchise in film history by the time it's done. And she took on plenty of more straightforward dramatic and comedic roles over the years, but this is WinterIsComing and we're focusing on her role as a queen of sci-fi and fantasy, now and always.
Weaver talked extensively to Deadline about her career, which is still very much ongoing. After playing Dr. Grace Augustine in the first Avatar movie, Weaver returned as the Na'vi teenager Kiri in the sequel, The Way of Water. There are three more Avatar movies to go, and she's in all of them. "Yes, I think I’m allowed to say that."
"I remember reading the script of the first Avatar and reading about these blue people with pointed ears and tails riding on these creatures through floating mountains … I couldn’t imagine any of it being shot. I honestly couldn’t imagine how he would ever make a film that looked like this and had these elements. But I’m so glad for [director James Cameron], and for the success of these films, which has meant we’re able to keep making them. I just finished working on Avatar 3 earlier this month, actually, and I think the series will continue to grow and be more and more hard-hitting…"
Sigourney Weaver teases her role in The Mandalorian & Grogu
Not satisfied with two of the world's biggest sci-fi franchises, Weaver has also lined up a role in The Mandalorian & Grogu, an upcoming movie based on the Disney+ Star Wars TV show. "I got to meet Grogu for the first time the other day," she said.
Weaver couldn't reveal much about her role, but did say that it was "very" fun. "I’m looking forward to it. I can’t say much about it right now but it’s fun to bounce between all these different universes."
We'll see Weaver back as Kiri in Avatar 3: Fire & Ash next year; the movie is due out on December 19, 2025. The Mandalorian & Grogu will follow pretty shortly after that on May 22, 2026, so Weaver will be everywhere.
The studios were "idiotic" not to support director David Fincher on the set of Alien III
Deadline couldn't let Weaver go without talking a bit about the Alien franchise. She headlined the very first Alien film back in 1979. "It was dark, unique, very original, very physically arresting," Weaver remembered. "As soon as I saw the designs, when I met Ridley Scott and he showed me these Giger and Carlo Rambaldi designs, I realized I’d never seen anything like it before, so that really intrigued me. But I don’t think any of us could have anticipated that it would continue to entertain people in the way it has."
"What I remember most is Ridley and [director of photography] Derek Vanlint being very innovative in how they linked us all up in these tiny spaces. But I felt like a member of the crew the entire time — I’m glad I didn’t see it as a huge breakthrough opportunity. I always just looked for great stories and wanted to be a part of them, and that’s been my compass, rather than thinking about all the other aspects of the business.
What I love about it, which I think endures, is that the character of Ripley is almost an everyman character [most of the characters were written as unisex so they could be played by male or female actors]. That freed me up from ever having to act like a girl, or dress like a girl. That was very astute of the writers. At a certain point you even forget that it’s a woman. You just know it’s Ripley and you’re hoping she survives."
Most actors are lucky to get a role in one genre-defining hit. Weaver starred in two in the span of a decade, and they were from the same series. 1986's Aliens was every bit as popular and influential as Alien, even though it was completely different tonally. "I recall that I was filming in France when I received the script forAliens," Weaver said. "It was this almost operatic role for Ripley. I was stunned. It was such a different way of approaching the material, much more muscular and much more akin to an action picture. Alien is perfect. It’s so claustrophobic, frightening, and unsettling. And Aliens is this big kick-ass movie of scale, which actually has a more conventional story."
Aliens was Weaver's first time working with James Cameron, who later recruited her for Avatar. So she got to work with two iconic directors one after the other in the same series, a rare feat. "t’s hard to compare them as filmmakers," she said. "They are very different. I can say that all four of the Alien filmmakers I worked with all made the material their own."
David Fincher directed 1992's Alien 3, which is when the franchise's fortunes started to flag. Apparently there were a lot of problems on set. "I could feel that David had to get on the phone and fight every day for us to shoot what he wanted to the next day," Weaver remembered. "And I’m sorry that he didn’t get a chance to make the script his own before we started. That makes filmmaking very difficult. I recall that Vincent Ward’s original script had been about monks in a monastery and Ripley was in a coma for half of it. So, I keenly felt the lack of studio support. That was a transition moment when studios stopped being about 'let’s make great films' and started being about 'let’s not lose money.' They had the great idea to put David Fincher aboard for his first film, but then not to support the guy was very idiotic. It helped shooting in England so we could get on with things to an extent. I heard recently that David has disowned the project and I’m sorry about that because I loved working with him, and I think we made a good film."
Could Sigourney Weaver return as Ripley? "It’s not completely impossible"
The Alien franchise continues to this day, with Alien: Romulus recently tearing it up at the box office. Weaver says that the idea of her returning to the series has come up "several times," but obviously there hasn't been an idea she's liked well enough yet to actually take action. "I don’t really think about it, but you know, it’s not completely impossible," Weaver said of a potential Ripley return, "and certainly a lot of good filmmakers are inspired by the material."
"How much does the public really need or want another Ripley movie? I don’t really sit around and think about it, but if it came up, I would consider it...[B]ut I’m also busy doing other things. Ripley has earned her rest."
One of those things includes receiving the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion award for Life Achievement. We'd say she earned it.
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