Sigourney weaver quotes

It's rare when you have everything going perfectly all at the same time.

I've always thought that a lot of the problems in the world would be solved if a spaceship did arrive, then anyone with one head and two arms and two legs would be your brother! It wouldn't matter where they were from or what they believed or anything. It might be good for us.

Acting as a career is a long term thing and that work is kind of progressive and you can build on a career. It's part of the great tradition of the theater to me.

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.

I love working quickly. I don't like to do thousands of takes, and I don't want to do thousands of set ups.

I'm always the last person they go to with a sequel, because I'm the most skeptical. You know, I'm very proud of what we've done, and I don't want to screw up our series.

There's something to be said for going right into people's living rooms. I think actors have always loved that medium - you're right in there with people in their homes. A lot of very audacious work is being done on television.

For the camera, particularly, I feel like - I think that, as human faces become older, they become more interesting.

I'd rather have a small part in a movie I love than a bigger part in one I don't care about.

I was discouraged at drama school, along with most of my peers.

It's rather rare when you play an older character in a movie in a supporting role to even get an arc.

My father was always very interested in space. I watch Star Trek and all those things, but I always had a different picture in my mind... maybe closer to Alien. I don't see it in space as much as I do see it in different planets, with each having its own strange characters.

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

When I was in college, I was an English major, but I was part of this great group at Stanford called the Company. We didn't know any better, so we did it all; we did King Lear, we did Hamlet, new plays ... And we did it all in a covered wagon that we took around the Bay Area. We all put our makeup on in one cracked mirror. It was the most fun I've ever had.

I think so many families are touched by illness and loss, and we kind of overprotect our children often, you know, we sanitize.

I consider myself very much a team player.

Whether it was work, marriage, or family, I've always been a late bloomer.

What I love about the 'Alien' franchise is I would do all kinds of films - dramas, comedies, whatever - and every now and then I'd be in this science fiction blockbuster that would re-introduce the character and me to a lot of audiences around the world and allow me to go back and do the smaller films again, so it was really a good balance for me.

After I left Yale, we were all doing these mad plays off - off Broadway. And I got back to that feeling I had from college, of everyone making up in front of one cracked mirror, which is what I loved - the scrappy theater idea. I think off-off Broadway healed me, made me an actor again, and I was in so many different crazy shows.

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.

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 changed my name when I was about twelve because I didn't like being called Sue or Susie. I felt I needed a longer name because I was so tall. So what happened? Now everyone calls me Sig or Siggy.

Only someone who believes in marriage would be married five times.

Once I put that wig on, I didn't say an intelligent thing for four months. My voice went up. I walked differently. I'd ask incredibly stupid questions.

I really enjoy working with younger actors. I just feel like we're all peers together.

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.

Carbon dioxide pollution is transforming the chemistry of the ocean, rapidly making the water more acidic. In decades, rising ocean acidity may challenge life on a scale that has not occurred for tens of millions of years. So we confront an urgent choice: to move beyond fossil fuels or to risk turning the ocean into a sea of weeds.

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.

It's such a nice change to get to play a wretched, shallow, mergers-and-acquisitions woman. My true colors come out.

I love the role of Ripley.

Don't depend on other people's encouragement. It's never enough and never when you need it.

I love playing an alien.

I am a person who goes out without a purse. I put things in my coat pockets, so I don't have any accessories.

I don't really see science fiction as fiction. I can imagine colonies on Mars and everything.

Someday hopefully it won’t be necessary to allocate a special evening to celebrate where we are and how far we’ve come…someday women writers, producers and crew members will be so commonplace, and roles and salaries for actresses will outstrip those for men, and pigs will fly.

I'm no Ripley. I had doubts that I could play her as strongly as she had to be played, but I must say that it was fun exploring that side of myself. Women don't get to do that very often.

We need to do a better job of keeping oceans healthy.

When you're young, there's so much that you can't take in. It's pouring over you like a waterfall. When you're older, it's less intense, but you're able to reach out and drink it. I love being older.

My mother said, "Pack your bags and leave." And my father said, "I've already paid for a year and a half - why don't you stay and get the degree?" And I said, "That's a good idea, because then I can at least run a theater even though I have no talent, and I'll never be an actor." It's my fault that I believed them.

Most people think that animals are third-class citizens. Very few people really see animals as "the others" with whom we inhabit this planet. They have equal rights with us.

It's very hard to find a good comedy. I prefer doing comedy far over anything else because I think they're actually more profound. But finding a good one and a great ensemble is very difficult to do and I'm delighted that in these particular times there is so much interest in comedy and that comedy is having so much success.

People who run environmental groups and things like that, who have to listen to all kinds of nonsense and keep their tempers, are very diplomatic and very inclusive.

When you hit your strive, and you feel confident in what you're doing and in your process, you really want to do more and try lots of different things. I've also really worked on my breathing, which is a funny thing to talk about, if you're not an actor. 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 always find it particularly difficult to work in New York because there are so many things to do.

Never burn bridges. Today's junior jerk, tomorrow's senior partner.

I feel self-doubt whether I'm doing something hard or easy.

I actually have a long apology letter from Robert Brustein, saying, "I'm so sorry this happened to you. I didn't realize the people who were running the acting department at the drama school hated actors." They did. And they were fired when I graduated.

James Cameron thinks we can do anything. He'll let you try anything. There are very few geniuses in the world, let alone in our business, and he's certainly one of them.

I often meet young directors who, you know, had a 'Ghostbusters' picture on their wall as they were growing up. And it's really nice. It just shows how inter-generational our industry is.

Art school is a very difficult thing to run in a generous, humane way, because academic power is somehow very corrupting.

I never think about Wall Street - why should I - but to go down there so often while filming 'Working Girl,' to become acquainted with this whole different world, and to find out what goes on behind the scenes is so interesting. There's so much of the city that you don't really bother to investigate. Ahh... New York.

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.'

Here's a vice: I say yes to too many things. I wish I had the guilty pleasure of saying no. My goal is to try to do less, but more fully.

People are amazed that I do comedy. I always did comedy.

What makes these creatures so awful is the feeling that they can use us in ways too horrible to imagine-and yet, we DO imagine them, which makes it worse than seeing it.

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'm very happy with the opportunities I've had.

Sorry men, but I think boys are a little more oblivious in high school. Girls are just more sensitive. We're so concerned about how we look and how we're doing.

It is one proof of a good education and of true refinement of feeling, to respect antiquity.

I am more of a New Yorker than ever and just actually, sometimes I fantasize about living somewhere else, where it's maybe not quite so crowded or stressful, blah, blah, blah and after September 11th, I guess I could just not imagine living anywhere else.

I made fun of myself before everybody else could, so I always got the comic crowns: Freshman Fink, Sophomore Fairy, Junior Birdman. I got all three of them!

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 wouldn't recommend it, because art school is a funny business. Yes, if you can find a situation where they'll give you money to live at the school and do whatever you want and pay for all your materials, if you're a painter or maybe a filmmaker, do it. But acting should be the most fun thing in the world; you're surrounded by other people who are as obsessed with Anton Chekhov as you are.

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 look around the world, I don't see too many damsels in distress. If they're a damsel in distress, they're manipulating some guy to help them.

I'd be more interested in doing a smaller, character driven thing, rather than another action picture.

I had always done theater in extracurricular ways. I'd never been a drama major.

I am sent too many mainstream scripts in which the older woman is really quite grotesque. Sometimes you read a script and you feel quite sick that they have to caricature older women in such a negative way.

I can do five things at once. I'm tapping my foot, I'm opening my mouth and talking to you, and looking at the bulletin board.

If one is married for a long time, and one does have a family . . . It is like an energy, a wonderful fire that never goes out underneath you, to help you go out into the world and do your damnedest.

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.

Sometimes you trust someone who turns out not to be honest. There are a lot of things that happen in life that don't turn out the way you're given the impression that they will. And I think that's all kind of a con. But I think we've probably all been hurt.

It's always the script that's going to lure me. And I don't really care about the part.

Every role sort of teaches you how to prepare for it.

I actually think the reason I am interested in certain parts is because I was such a dweeb in high school. When you are such a loser, it's a helpful way in to a lot of characters because even very powerful people are not all that powerful really. They all had a high school. That vulnerability is completely permanent and, as an actor, it's a good thing.

Secretly, I had always wanted to go to Vegas, and have my own really bad act!

I love working with young people and young filmmakers, and I love working on first films. I think it's cool. It's fun. I just take it as it comes.

I think that every piece has its challenges. I love going back and forth between one and the other. I'll always pick a comedy over a drama.

Maybe you're better to play a villain just straight out.

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.

As long as your robot isn't programmed by like Dr. Evil, I think you're going to be fine.

In Yale they convinced me I had no talent, even though I was always working. They cast me mostly as prostitutes and old women, and I stayed because I loved the writers. I loved Chris Durang and Wendy Wasserstein. I was always doing their work in the Yale Cabaret.

I just feel that getting out there physically and protecting New York, putting my arms around everyone and protecting them... to see this happen to our city and our community.

I am a person who goes out without a purse.

When I'm making the movie, I absolutely do. I work so hard, and out of the raw material that is the script and talks I have with the director, the writer, I create, I hope, a very specific person who wouldn't have otherwise existed. However, do I then attach and hang on to the finished product? No. The experience of the creation of the character is what feeds me, what excites me, challenges me.

Most of life is hell. It’s filed with failure and loss. People disappoint you. Dreams don’t work out. Hearts get broken. Innocent journalists die. And the best moments of life, when everything comes together, are few and fleeting. But you’ll never get to the next great moment if you don’t keep going. So that’s what I do. I keep going.

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.

There's a lot of conning as part of our society, I think.

I think that's what I really dig about science fiction these days - we've caught up to it in a way. It's no longer about people with huge brains. Now it's really much more, as Jim Cameron says, the nature of being human. What it is to be human in society. How to retain one's humanity in society.

What I love about Neill's Blomkamp work is that his stories are small human stories. But what's interesting about Neill's movies is that they're set in the future but they're so incredibly timely that it feels like maybe in the present in the next dimension. It feels like it's happening now. The universe is very recognizable, in many ways.

If you come back from the dead, you don't have the same value system, I think.

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 have a very commercial appetite. I don't like to do high-brow things.

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've always been very shy and sheltered; I think it was a good way of starting to communicate with people. I was taught as a child never to talk about myself, never to talk about my emotions. Of course, now I talk about myself constantly. Now I have to take reverse est.

Usually it's the guys that don't follow you around, who you're attracted to!

Please, God, please, don't let me be normal!

In the past, 'Avatar' would have won because Oscar voters loved to hand out awards to big productions, like 'Ben-Hur.' Today it's fashionable to give the Oscar to a small movie that nobody saw.

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.

I guess it's a pretty common experience while making a movie. You have to let go of the result and just hang on to the experience and the process, where each role takes you to a different country, as it were: You're shipwrecked on this new island, you have no clothes, you have to figure out how you're going to live in this new character. All of that turns me on.

When I went to Yale, I thought it would be like in Stenford 24 hours a day. Robert Brustein, former dean of the Yale School of Drama and founder of the Yale Repertory Theater was there, and we did all this very serious - I would go so far as to say completely humorless - Eastern European drama, as well as August Strindberg, and Henrik Ibsen, we weren't allowed to do William Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neill. I was not in the right place.