Sigourney Weaver

“I wanted to play a mother again. I thought it would be interesting to play the mother of an older child. And it was also the kind of part I've been looking for my whole career, actually, in film. You know, just to play a femme fatale who's very smart, and wicked.”

“Every time there's a really good story, there's women in it. We may not get as many roles, but the roles we get are really good, I think, for the most part.”

“I think breathing is actually the key to a lot of opening up of other parts of yourself that you haven't used, for any job, but particularly in acting.”

“I think I have always tried to do the smaller films. I like to jump around and there is something really nice for acting in a smaller film. But I think now, Hollywood's movies certainly involve a younger generation for the most part and so... I love going back and forth.”

“I used to be terribly shy, so I was either shy or over the top, and I always had a difficult time.”

“With Alien, because we always use a different director, each one kind of stands on its own. So I guess it's possible for them to make another one, but we have no plans.”

“I've been very fortunate to be able to jump around. I just did this really wonderful film called Map of the World. That was a real, amazing, dramatic story. Then I did a movie called Company Men, a little comedy about the Bay of Pigs.”

“I was at an all-girls' school, so there were a lot of us who were really awkward. I was this tall when I was 11, so I was really awkward and self-conscious. No one would really have wanted to be mean to me. I was too unimportant.”

“I love the role of Ripley.”

“As an actor, the second and last ones were interesting for me. Because those parts had the most change in playing someone who was both light and dark, sort of Jekyl and Hyde.”

“When I was in college, I did sort of want to be a journalist. Being an actor, you kind of have the same interest. You go into a story, and you tell it from your point of view for people who aren't there. That's what an actor does with a character. But the real life is more more interesting.”

“One of the reasons I did this, because I wasn't really looking for another science fiction film, was that my daughter can see it. She's 9 and it's really a good film for all ages.”

“I worked hard and made my own way, just as my father had. And just, I'm sure, as he hoped I would. I learned, from observing him, the satisfaction that comes from striving and seeing a dream fulfilled.”

“I think indie films are really important, because they show the studios and the audiences when they see them, great stories. Really interesting, small stories.”

“My husband is from Hawaii and his father who was also born in Hawaii was a teenager when Pearl Harbor happened, right before church and he ran up and got on the roof of his grandfather's house and watched the planes go over.”

“I don't want to leave New York and leave my family. I don't like the distance. I just did a movie in California and it's kind of excruciating to be away from them so I think there is that sense.”

“It was actually a relief for me to play an actor who was scared, who didn't know where everything was, who didn't know what buttons to push, and for me to be able to play all that.”

“I still am in touch with several friends from high school. I don't go to reunions much. I'm afraid that if I go back to the school, they'll suddenly go, 'You know what? We've checked the records and you still have one more French class. Get back in here.'”

“I consider myself very much a team player.”

“I have always been uncomfortable with a series of movies. I hate that word 'franchise' - it always makes me think of French fries. What I felt each time was that we were going for broke, that this was going to be the last in the series. You can't count on anything.”