The 2012 Raised Glass Award (RGA) Winner: Sigourney Weaver

“God damn it, that’s not all! Because if one of those things gets down here then that will be all! Then all this – this bullshit that you think is so important, you can just kiss all that goodbye!”  Ellen Ripley, Aliens

 

Introduction

Sigourney Weaver was born Susan Alexandra Weaver in Manhattan, New York City on October 8, 1949 to Elizabeth Inglis (1913–2007), an English actress, and the NBC television executive and television pioneer Sylvester “Pat” Laflin Weaver (1908–2002).  While she had a comfortable childhood as far as creature comfort and luxury were concerned, the instability of a family constantly on the move (by 1959, the Weavers had lived in 30 different homes) as well as the cruel teasing by other children for her uncommon height (by age 13 she was already 5’10”), made her journey into adulthood more difficult than likely imagined.

But young Susan soon turned into Sigourney in 1963 (she chose the name after the F.Scott Fitzgerald character “Sigourney Howard” in The Great Gatsby) and by 1965 was regularly starring in stage plays at school (although somewhat limited by her height). After graduation and a brief period abroad in Israel, Weaver enrolled in Stanford University where she continued her love of the stage.

In fact, her love affair with the stage was so great that it drew her to Yale School of Drama in 1971 where she was admitted, although never fully accepted by much of the faculty for that same height. At one point, Weaver remarked, “I’ve lost a lot of roles because of my height. I’m 6ft 3in in heels. Producers are short and I was never their sexual fantasy….I once offered to paint my shoes on my bare feet to get one part because it made me appear shorter.”

On some level, a dramatized career rivalry with classmate Meryl Streep began here at Yale, with faculty largely revering the acclaimed actress largely at the expense of a ganglier Weaver, whom they relentlessly cast in bit roles, sometimes as streetwalkers. Weaver was once quoted, “I think I get sent the roles Meryl’s not doing”.

But much to Weaver’s credit, her determination and love of stage shone through and she was noticed and accepted by a group of actors and playwrights including Christopher Durang, Kate McGregor-Stewart and Albert Innaurato.  Through 1977 she starred in many plays and was considered, rightly so, a stage actress until she was initially offered the role in Annie Hall that Shelley Duvall eventually played, declining due to prior stage commitments.  But Woody Allen asked her to play a much smaller role (only six seconds) that although brief, stirred notice and began her future career in film.

Only one film later (she starred in Madman in 1978) in 1979, she was offered a role that would prove to be a career making opportunity. It was there that then novice director Ridley Scott offered her the role of Ellen Ripley in the sci-fi horror classic Alien. It was this film that ultimately laid the foundation for her acting brand as a powerful, gritty, determined woman, capable of good and evil and every shade in between.

Since then she as starred in well over 50 films and many additional roles on stage.  Weaver has solidified herself as one of the most prolific, recognizable actresses in modern times.  She has managed to deliver on and off-screen performances that stake claim to vast sums of cultural real estate while also demonstrating her tremendous talent.  And yet, her story is only still being written and continues to deserve undivided attention.

 

Body of Work

One of the most important accomplishments of any one person in any profession is a lengthy and admirable body of work.  To date Sigourney Weaver has over 50 films to her credit, with the majority of these films providing her meaty roles, either as lead actress or at best major supporting actress. These 50+ films have spanned more than 30 years, beginning with Woody Allen’s 1977 Masterpiece, Annie Hall.

To this end, Weaver has not just participated in dozens of forgotten films with little recognition.  Her body of work lists some of the most memorable, and in some cases, ground breaking films of the past quarter Century.  Among the titles are the Aliens series, Annie Hall, Working Girl, Ghostbusters, Gorillas in the Mist,  Prayers for Bobby, Jeffrey, The Ice Storm, The Village, Avatar, Imaginary Heroes, Copycat,  Death and the Maiden, Baby Mama, Heartbreakers ,Red Lights, an unforgettable cameo in Cabin in the Woods, and the list goes on and on spanning genres as easily as decades.

Weaver not only participated in these memorable films, but she contributed to their success.  Although she has only claimed 4 major awards in her career (2 Golden Globes, 1 BAFTA, 1 Saturn), she has been nominated an impressive 30 times for these prestigious accolades including 3 Academy Award nominations, 6 Golden Globe Nominations, 5 Saturn Nominations as well as BAFTA, SAG, Satellite and Emmy Nominations as well.

 

Distinguished Performances

To further illustrate Weaver’s inspiring contribution to the acting profession, it is notable that she moves beyond simply doing a good job but becomes her characters and gives them a signature depth that makes them both memorable and influential.  At the heart of her distinguished performances, is her versatility, playing a wide range of characters while still providing her signature confidence and power.  It is this range and depth that has provided Weaver with an essential qualification: trademark characters.

One of the simplest, yet most important characteristics of a “great” actor is his or her ability to translate their craft into multiple, well-known characters.  This is beyond simply labeling them “performances.”  Certain actors are well known for playing a type of person well and applying this exact template to multiple roles; this leads the audience to form a familiar impression of the actor, but leaves them unable to differentiate these performances (think Vince Vaughn).  Other actors are phenomenal at one role, forever being recalled as that character, and in fact only that one character, the proverbial one-hit wonder of the acting world (think Shelley Duvall in The Shining).

Weaver, however, has countless of these such roles.  Many of them would be good enough to endure in the hearts of audiences everywhere on their own, but which actually make up only the middle of the road in Weaver’s deep career.  Characters like Dana Barrett (Ghostbusters), Dr. Grace Augustine (Avatar), Debra Moorhouse (Jeffrey), Helen Hudson (Copycat), Janey Carver (The Ice Storm) or Mary Griffith (Prayers for Bobby) represent powerful, recognized performances within Weaver’s extensive repertoire.  However, despite these well-known characters, Weaver’s true talent can be found in key flagship performances.

 

Ellen Ripley (The Aliens Series)

Weaver’s second film, Alien (1979), began audience’s cult obsession with the woman who would widely become known as the “Queen of Sci Fi.”  It was not simply the nature of the film, but the strength and gritty grace of the character that mesmerized audiences.  It was her power over horror and suffering while providing determined stability that allowed her to not only successfully grasp audience attention but to serve as a model for future heroines, evolving the previously powerful female role with such stars as Katherine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich and establishing an entirely modern woman, capable of both physical as well as emotional strength.

In this role she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and the Saturn Award for Best Actress.  She then evolved this character beyond cult status with her reprisal of Ripley in the 1986 sequel Aliens.  There, she clearly rose to another level with her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. She had become a symbol for strong women everywhere, as a leader capable of doing what needed to get done to survive. She went on to make two more Alien films over the next decade culminating with Alien Resurrection in 1997 where she received Saturn and Blockbuster award nominations.

 

Dian Fossey (Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey)

Weaver, in many ways, was born to play the role of Dian Fossey, the scrappy and brilliant woman who fought for the Gorillas and whose on tragic story inspired generations.  Like Fossey, Weaver manages to embody power and strength, standing for those who could not defend themselves against insurmountable odds. She was Fossey, in name and in character, exhibiting that strength yet that subtle vulnerability that provided a beautiful balance to a mysterious personality.

Ultimately, this role spoke to Weaver’s sentiment, expressed loudly during one interview, “In Hollywood, if you are a man and speak your mind openly, you’re considered a man in full. But, if you are a woman and do the same, you’re nothing but an annoying bitch.: It is therefore no surprise that she received her second Academy Award nomination and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama.

 

Katharine Parker (Working Girl)

It is a true testament to an actor’s abilities when they can play a villain well.  Weaver accomplishes just such a feat when she inhabits the sinister role of Katherine Parker, herself a referent for the treachery and callous nature of a dog-eat-dog business world.  Despite being categorized as a supporting role rather than lead, there are few moments when Weaver is not the singular element on screen in the minds of observers, successfully delivering each cruel line with more force and yet subtle impact than the last.

She is deliciously evil as Parker and yet also manages a stable comedic turn with the character, forcing audiences to cackle as well as cringe.  It is for this turn that Weaver received her third Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Drama.  With her Golden Globe win for Gorillas in the Mist in the same year, Weaver had monopolized the category, taking home both the Best Actress and Best Supporting actress trophies.

 

Paulina Escobar (Death and the Maiden)

It is difficult to imagine a performance, much less a film, as often overlooked as Weaver’s Paulina Escobar in Death and the Maiden.  Based on the Ariel Dorfman play, Death takes place in a South American country after the fall of an insidious dictatorship.  Paulina and her husband Gerardo (Stuart Wilson) were part of the underground student resistance and during a routine delivery, Paulina was captured and taken off for interrogation.  The horrors inflicted upon her during those torture sessions have remained largely secret, a product of Paulina’s choice to continue to defend her husband.  But one evening, in a storm, Gerardo is brought home by am man whose voice Paulina believes is that of her chief torturer.

The plot itself is intriguing but is brought to entirely new levels by the cast, in particular Weaver. While Ben Kinglsey and Wilson are flawless in their own rights, Weaver reaches a thespian status unmatched.  This may be the best acting performance in recent memory or at very least one of the most powerful, tragic on-screen events audiences may ever witness in such limited surroundings.  It is a rocket of emotions, as she bursts from vulnerable to frightened to enraged to uncertain all within moments of each other.  She is cinematic calamity while still exhibiting sort of shattered strength, and by the end of the film, audiences will find themselves as emotionally exhausted as Paulina.

 

Long-term Relevance

It is impossible to look at Sigourney Weaver’s career and not appreciate the consistency she has shown as a box-office draw over the past several decades.  While her appeal may not bring in Romantic Comedy dollars like Julia Roberts or today’s Katherine Heigel or Jenifer Aniston, she is consistently at the center of major blockbusters or impactful independents.

In Science Fiction, for example, it is impossible to disregard her impact on the success of the Aliens series, to date one of the biggest blockbusters in Science Fiction history. In fact, it should be further noted that her work largely brought the comparatively fledgling genre into the mainstream through Academy recognition.  However, Weaver’s recent performance in Avatar suggests an even more impressive personal victory.  In 2009, her role as Dr. Grace Augustine in Avatar brought her a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress win, marking the 30^th Anniversary of her Saturn nomination for only her third film, Alien (1979.)

Furthermore, since 1981, Weaver has released a film every year to present in all but five (in each of those years, she followed with at least two films released the next year.)  Additionally, in 15 of those years, she released at least two films, and has released 25 films in the last decade alone.  In fact, she is set to release 6 films in 2012 alone.

While there are many reasons why Sigourney Weaver should be honored for her outstanding career, we can focus on three, key accomplishments.  First, her impressive body of work places her in both the center of cinema today while firmly at the forefront of cinema tomorrow. Second, the characters she cultivates through her unique talent are often groundbreaking, flagship roles that set the standard for her peers. And finally, her work is not a flicker of time in a vast ocean of film, but itself a significant, recurring presence across this cinematic opus.

With a brand that still shines strong, we congratulate Sigourney Weaver for a stellar career that shows no signs of age and thus raise our glasses to you, Sigourney Weaver.

“Some of the most intense affairs are between actors and characters. There’s a fire in the human heart and we jump into it with the same obsession as we have with our lovers.” – Sigourney Weaver

 

*Source: IMDB

Art by Marina Design