Sigourney Weaver

At 74 years old, Sigourney Weaver has this physical status:

Weaver performed in the first production of the Stephen Sondheim musical The Frogs while at Yale, alongside Larry Blyden and fellow students Meryl Streep and Durang. She was briefly an understudy in a John Gielgud production of Captain Brassbound's Conversion thereafter. She also acted in original plays by Durang. She appeared in an off-Broadway production of Durang's comedy Beyond Therapy in 1981, which was directed by then-fledgling director Jerry Zaks. Before her on-screen breakthrough, she had appeared only in commercials, a few television roles (including an appearance in the soap opera Somerset), and had a small part in the 1977 Woody Allen comedy Annie Hall. Her originally more substantial Annie Hall role was scaled back due to her commitment to the Durang play Titanic.

Weaver appeared two years later as Warrant Officer / Lieutenant Ripley in Ridley Scott's blockbuster film Alien (1979), in a role initially designated to co-star British-born actress Veronica Cartwright until a late change in casting. Cartwright stated to World Entertainment News Network (WENN) that she was in England ready to start work on Alien when she discovered that she would be playing the navigator Lambert in the project, and Weaver had been given the lead role of Ellen Ripley. Weaver reprised the role seven years later in the sequel to Alien, similarly titled Aliens. Directed by James Cameron, critic Roger Ebert wrote, "Weaver, who is onscreen almost all the time, comes through with a very strong, sympathetic performance: She's the thread that holds everything together." For Aliens, she won the Saturn Award for Best Actress and earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

She next appeared opposite Mel Gibson in The Year of Living Dangerously released to critical acclaim and as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. In 1988, Weaver starred as primatologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist. The same year, she appeared opposite Harrison Ford in a supporting role as Katharine Parker in the film Working Girl. Weaver won Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for her two roles that year. Weaver received two Academy Award nominations in 1988, for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Working Girl and Best Actress for Gorillas in the Mist.

Weaver returned to the big screen with Alien 3 (1992) and Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) in which she played the role of Queen Isabella. In the early 1990s, Weaver appeared in several films including Dave opposite Kevin Kline and Frank Langella. In 1994, she starred in Roman Polanski's drama Death and the Maiden as Paulina Escobar. She played the role of agoraphobic criminal psychologist Helen Hudson in the movie Copycat (1995). Weaver also concentrated on smaller and supporting roles such as Jeffrey (1994) with Nathan Lane and Patrick Stewart. In 1997, she appeared in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. Her role in The Ice Storm as Janey Carver, earned her another Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress (1997), and won her a BAFTA Award for Actress in a Supporting Role. In 1999, she co-starred in the science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest and the drama A Map of the World, earning her another Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, for the latter film.

In 2001, Weaver appeared in the comedy Heartbreakers playing the lead role of a con-artist alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Gene Hackman and Anne Bancroft. She appeared in several films throughout the decade including Holes (2003), the M. Night Shyamalan horror film The Village (2004), Vantage Point (2008), and Baby Mama (2008). In 2007, Weaver returned to Rwanda for the BBC special Gorillas Revisited, in which Weaver reunites with the Rwandan apes from the film Gorillas in the Mist, some 20 years later. She has done voice work in various television series and in animated feature films. In February 2002, she featured as a guest role in the Futurama episode "Love and Rocket", playing the female Planet Express Ship.

In 2006, she was the narrator for the American version of the BBC Emmy Award-winning nature documentary series Planet Earth; the original British series version was narrated by David Attenborough. In 2008, Weaver was featured as the voice of the ship's computer in the Pixar and Disney release, WALL•E. In 2008, she voiced a narrating role in the computer-animated film, The Tale of Despereaux (2008), based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo. The film opens with Weaver as narrator recounting the story of the pastel-hued Kingdom of Dor. She also made a rare guest appearance on television playing herself in season 2 episode of the television series Eli Stone in the fall of 2008.

In 2009, Weaver starred as Mary Griffith in her first made-for-TV movie, Prayers for Bobby, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award. Weaver reunited with Aliens director James Cameron for his film Avatar (2009), with Weaver playing a major role as Dr. Grace Augustine, leader of the AVTR (avatar) program on the film's fictional moon Pandora. In September 2011, it was confirmed that Weaver would be returning to Avatar: The Way of Water, with James Cameron stating that "no one ever dies in science fiction."In 2014, he revealed that she would be featured in all three sequels. Principal photography for Avatar: The Way of Water and Avatar 3 started simultaneously on September 25, 2017; for Avatar 3, Weaver stated that she would portray a different, currently unknown character.

Weaver has hosted two episodes of the long-running NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live: once on the 12th-season premiere in 1986, and again, on a season 35 episode in January 2010. In March 2010, she was cast for the lead role as Queen of the Vampires in Amy Heckerling's Vamps. She was honored at the 2010 Scream Awards earning The Heroine Award which honored her work in science fiction, horror and fantasy films. In 2014, Weaver reprised the role of Ripley for the first time in 17 years by voicing the character in the video game Alien: Isolation. Her character has a voice cameo in the main story, and has a central role in the two DLCs set during the events of Alien, with most of the original cast voicing their respective characters.

Weaver appeared in the film Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) playing Tuya, directed by Ridley Scott, alongside Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton and Ben Kingsley. In 2015, she co-starred in Neill Blomkamp's science-fiction film Chappie, and stated that she would agree to appear in an Alien sequel, provided that Blomkamp directs. On February 18, 2015, it was officially announced that an Alien sequel would be made, with Blomkamp slated to direct. On February 25, 2015, Weaver confirmed that she would reprise her role as Ellen Ripley in the new Alien film. In 2016, Weaver voiced herself in a cameo in the Pixar film Finding Dory. On January 21, 2017, in response to a fan question on Twitter asking what the chances were of his Alien project actually happening, Blomkamp responded "slim".

On June 7, 2019, Weaver confirmed that she would reprise her role as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which was released on November 19, 2021. On September 23, 2019, Variety reported that Weaver and Kevin Kline are set to reunite again (after Dave and The Ice Storm) for The Good House, a drama from Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners and Universal Pictures.

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