Sigourney Weaver Quotations

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.'

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'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.

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.

Writers write these male stereotypes, and it makes it ten times more interesting if a woman says the lines.

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 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.

I'm a natural golden retriever at heart. I'm fine with that now, but there was a time when I tried to keep myself from jumping up on people. I had to make myself sit.

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

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

Being tall has a major impact in general. It takes some courage to be as big as you are - to live up to it and not be intimidated by the graceful tiny people.

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!

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.

I consider myself very much a team player.

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

I am a person who goes out without a purse.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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'd love to tell actors about all the things they don't need to worry about. Less is more. If you have it inside, you don't need to show too much. People pick up on things.

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.

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.

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

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 always find it particularly difficult to work in New York because there are so many things to do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That whole generation that's gone now, that lived through the two world wars, is a great example to all of us. They knew how to live. If something bad happened, they didn't sit at home, eat Haagen-Dazs, and watch a movie.

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.

It won't be long before the Facebook generation will be rejected by the non-Facebook people who will be rejected by the post-Facebook people. Everyone will be on their own planet.

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 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 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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

What I perceive in science fiction is that it's more about how everything looks than what's going on, which I think is just difficult if you're an action character. I think they are about character, not about what it looks like.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

In the past, 'Avatar' would have won because they [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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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 love the role of Ripley.

I love playing an alien.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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