{"id":244,"date":"2009-12-19T07:22:18","date_gmt":"2009-12-19T07:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theduanewells.com\/?p=244"},"modified":"2018-07-29T01:23:20","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T01:23:20","slug":"sigourney-weaver-back-to-her-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/sigourney-weaver-back-to-her-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"Sigourney Weaver: Back to Her Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When Sigourney Weaver and James Cameron teamed up to make\u00a0Aliens,\u00a0<\/em>they made movie history in the process. Now, with a string of impressive solo accomplishments behind them both, the Oscar-nominated actress and Oscar-winning director are back together for Cameron\u2019s highly anticipated\u00a0Avatar,\u00a0<\/em>which promises to break new ground in filmmaking once again.<\/p>\n

Shot in 3-D and utilizing revolutionary new CGI technology developed especially for the film, Cameron\u2019s\u00a0Avatar<\/em>\u00a0tells the story of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), an ex-marine in a wheelchair who discovers a new life as an avatar when he is recruited to join an expedition to the moon Pandora, where corporate interests are strip-mining for a mineral worth $20 million per kilogram on Earth.<\/p>\n

As an avatar \u2014 a genetically grown remote-controlled body mixed from the DNA of the humans and the DNA of the Navi, the inhabitants of Pandora \u2014 and with the help of Weaver\u2019s character Dr. Grace Augustine, Sully regains the ability to walk and embraces his adventurous spirit as he seeks to infiltrate the Navi clan in order to convince them to move on as the U.S. military program encourages them to do.<\/p>\n

On the surface, the film may sound all futuristic and high-tech, which it is. But Weaver wants filmgoers to understand that at its heart, this movie is more than your average sci-fi adventure.<\/p>\n

\u201cAvatar<\/em>\u00a0is a very beautiful, primeval, primary story with creatures and places and huge battles and things like that, [but] one thing that Jim [Cameron] is not is cynical,\u201d the actress says. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing modern and cynical about this story, and I hope people enjoy the old-fashioned-ness of it. I used to love settling into my seat and then it would say \u2018David Lean presents\u2019 or something like that and you\u2019d know that you were going to be taken care of. You\u2019d know that you were going to be taken to someplace and something was going to happen to you that you would be thinking about for days to come, and I feel like\u00a0Avatar\u00a0<\/em>is that kind of movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smartly dressed in a black Bottega Veneta dress, Fred Leighton jewelry, and Yves Saint Laurent pumps, the statuesque Sigourney Weaver sat down for a chat with Advocate.com about her new role in James Cameron\u2019s latest megafilm, how she feels about being thought of as sci-fi icon, and why she thinks that come Oscar time,\u00a0Avatar\u00a0<\/em>just might score an armful of little golden statuettes.<\/p>\n

Advocate.com:<\/em>\u00a0So right off the top, you\u2019ve made lots of movie magic with James Cameron in the past. How was it to be working with him again, and was anything different this time around?<\/strong>
\nSigourney Weaver:\u00a0<\/em>Well, it\u2019s wonderful. I think we picked up right where we left off, except I think he\u2019s merrier now. He\u2019s very happy and he has all these kids and he was so excited about working onAvatar\u00a0<\/em>and so excited about working with each of us. He\u2019s really a very gentle, encouraging director. [He] always makes you feel good about what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s still a taskmaster with technicians, but he\u2019s great to work with. I wouldn\u2019t want to say he\u2019s mellowed, because that sounds like he needed to mellow, but I think, as I do too at my advanced age, we enjoy [the work] more because we know that the opportunities to do this kind of work are few and far between, and this felt like one of those jobs where it was fantastical and it was all new and it was about something, so we just scored totally.<\/p>\n

I think [Cameron] had that feeling all the time. It\u2019s incredibly ambitious what he\u2019s done and he\u2019s given every ounce of himself to it.<\/p>\n

In this film you play Grace, this tough, hard-edged botanist who
\ndoesn\u2019t seem to suffer fools gladly. Describe Grace\u2019s journey in the
\nfilm.<\/strong>
\nI think when you meet Grace she\u2019s hoping to have Jake\u2019s\u00a0brother Tommy, who\u2019s a very, very promising scientist, arrive and help\u00a0her crack this mystery about Pandora so she can get the company … or the\u00a0corporation … to stop mining and protect this world that she loves so\u00a0much. Then it turns out that Tommy\u2019s dead and been replaced by this\u00a0ex-marine Jake [Sam Worthington] who clearly doesn\u2019t have a scientific\u00a0bone in his body, and I think she\u2019s furious.<\/p>\n

And so in the\u00a0course of the story … [Grace] gets thrown together with Jake again and\u00a0again and I think they both fall in love with Pandora. And in the end\u00a0[Jake] really ends up teaching Grace how to fight because she\u2019s in this\u00a0sort of holding pattern \u2014 she can\u2019t leave Pandora, but she\u2019s continuing\u00a0to work for this company she hates.
\n
\nWhere would you place Grace in the spectrum of strong female roles you\u2019re portrayed?
\n<\/strong>
\nWell,\u00a0I would think pretty close to Dian Fossey [Gorillas in the Mist<\/em>]\u00a0because Dian could be very, very tough on people and tough on herself,\u00a0and I think Grace is the same way.
\n
\nYour costars Sam\u00a0Worthington and Zoe Saldana both had to train almost nonstop because\u00a0of the physical demands of their respective roles in\u00a0Avatar.<\/em>\u00a0Did you\u00a0have to train equally as intensively for the scenes in the film when\u00a0you\u2018re in avatar mode?
\n<\/strong>
\nNo, I didn\u2019t. I don\u2019t have to do quite as much as Sam and Zoe … flying and swooping and all that stuff.<\/p>\n

So you still stay in pretty good shape naturally then?<\/strong>
\nI\u00a0try to. I have to work a little bit harder than I used to, but I like\u00a0being physical. I like to hike and swim and all that stuff, so it\u00a0wasn\u2019t that difficult.<\/p>\n

Speaking of your costar Sam Worthington \u2014 he has been tapped to become one of the next big things in Hollywood\u00a0on the heels of his two major blockbuster films this year. What did you\u00a0think of working with him and James Cameron\u2019s choice to cast him in\u00a0this film?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They worked so well together. I think what Sam brings\u00a0is he\u2019s so mischievous and sweet and merry and warm … there\u2019s something\u00a0so lovable about him. And when you see him as Jake, he just takes all of\u00a0the starch out of the hero and just is this very magnetic person that\u00a0you root for.<\/p>\n

Jim, I think, had to fight to give him the part\u00a0because he was completely unknown, and I think he made a wonderful\u00a0choice. And Sam worked so hard. I think he\u2019s in every frame of this\u00a0bloody movie, and when I saw it I couldn\u2019t take my eyes off him.<\/p>\n

Because\u00a0of your roles in films like\u00a0Alien\u00a0<\/em>and now\u00a0Avatar,<\/em>\u00a0you\u2019ve been called\u00a0an icon of the sci-fi genre \u2014 sort of the queen of sci-fi, if you will.\u00a0What do you think about that designation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really think about it. [Laughs<\/em>] I mean, I sort of blame Ridley Scott and Jim Cameron for all of that. [Laughs<\/em>]<\/p>\n

You\u00a0know, Ridley loves women and respects women, and I think he made Alien\u00a0<\/em>what it was [because] he let Ripley just be a person. He set it up so\u00a0that with Ripley all I had to do was just be. Most women who play\u00a0action figures have to wear tiny little clothes and all this other\u00a0stuff. All I had to do was be an intelligent, breathing, feeling entity,\u00a0and he captured it.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, early sci-fi showed humans\u00a0being threatened by aliens, but in\u00a0Avatar\u00a0<\/em>aliens are threatened by\u00a0human beings. What do you think accounts for this shift in contemporary\u00a0perception?
\n<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s interesting because I think with every decade\u00a0our view of what aliens are changes. In the \u201950s it was guys with big\u00a0heads … and this year in\u00a0District 9,<\/em>\u00a0the aliens were much nicer than the\u00a0humans.<\/p>\n

Jim said a very interesting thing at Comic-Con. He said\u00a0science fiction is the exploration of what it means to be human, so I\u00a0think it\u2019s interesting that in our movie, the people one can learn the\u00a0most from are not even human, and I do think it goes along with the\u00a0whole underlying environmental message of the movie, which is respect\u00a0for species, respect for nature, and respect for what we don\u2019t know,\u00a0can\u2019t control, and don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

James Cameron says that\u00a0Avatar\u00a0<\/em>is a movie that “has everything.” Having worked with him before\u00a0and knowing his stellar track record at the box office, how do you\u00a0think this film will stack up to everything else he\u2019s done, and do you\u00a0think there might even be an Oscar nod waiting in the wings for this\u00a0movie?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes to all of your questions. I think it will be his most successful movie.<\/p>\n

You say that with such certainty. Why?<\/strong>
\nAvatar\u00a0<\/em>has changed my understanding of what filmmaking is and what filmmaking\u00a0can do. Turn on this movie and you will go to Pandora. Some people can\u00a0go places without even being in a theater [laughs<\/em>], but this is going\u00a0to take everyone there whether they want to be there or not.<\/p>\n

To\u00a0me, I can\u2019t believe a film can do this, and we\u2019re all aware that we are a\u00a0part of something that is going to have a huge impact. You can sense\u00a0that we\u2019re stepping over a threshold into a different way of making a\u00a0movie. I think there\u2019s no end to this technology and what this will do\u00a0for us.<\/p>\n

Jim said this is the movie I wanted to see when I was 14,\u00a0and this is the movie I wanted to see when I was 14 too. There\u2019s a\u00a014-year-old in all of us that wants to see this movie.<\/p>\n

Final\u00a0question. There has been buzz about a sequel to\u00a0Ghostbusters\u00a0<\/em>and maybe\u00a0a prequel to\u00a0Aliens<\/em>. What\u2019s the skinny? Will you be involved?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u00a0think there are a couple guys who want to make a\u00a0Ghostbusters\u00a0<\/em>with\u00a0younger ghostbusters and I think everyone has said fine go ahead. I\u00a0think Bill [Murray] might be in it and I just said that maybe my son\u00a0Oscar could have a part in it, but I don\u2019t think any of us are really\u00a0any it except for Bill.<\/p>\n

And the\u00a0Aliens<\/em>\u00a0prequel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have no\u00a0idea. I can only imagine that they\u2019re going to back to the planet from\u00a0which the original ship came from. But I won\u2019t be in the prequel.\u00a0[Laughs<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Originally published at <\/span>Advocate.com<\/span><\/a>. To read this post and more by Duane Wells at the Advocate, <\/span>click here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Sigourney Weaver and James Cameron teamed up to make\u00a0Aliens,\u00a0they made movie history in the process. Now, with a string of impressive solo accomplishments behind them both, the Oscar-nominated actress and Oscar-winning director are back together for Cameron\u2019s highly anticipated\u00a0Avatar,\u00a0which promises to break new ground in filmmaking once again. Shot in 3-D and utilizing revolutionary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88889,"featured_media":823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1590,1588],"tags":[1133,1143,1164,1206],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-culture","tag-entertainment","tag-interview","tag-hollywood","tag-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5559,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/5559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theduanewells.com\/staging3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}