So what’s your favorite movie featuring the American actress? Or a personal anecdote you can share? I’ll tell you mine and one of them unsurprisingly involves Venice, of course, where all kinds of magic happens.
Iconic American actress and three-time Academy Award nominee Sigourney Weaver has been awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the upcoming 81st Venice International Film Festival.
The award will no doubt be handed to the prolific actress during the upcoming festival, which this year will run from August 28 to September 7, 2024.
Upon hearing of her award, Weaver wrote “I am truly honored to receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Biennale di Venezia. To be gifted this award is a privilege I share with all the filmmakers and collaborators I have worked with throughout the years. I proudly accept this award in celebration of all who have helped bring these films to life.” The choice was made by the board of the Biennale di Venezia, which embraced the proposal of the Festival's Director, Alberto Barbera.
But now onto favorite films and must-tell moments.
My run ins with Weaver have never included a word, or an interview. It was simply two brief moments in time which I’ll always cherish because the American actress is simply divine. Once, at Calypso, a cool shop in NYC which no longer exists in its original location — or as the original brand for that matter — I watched a tall, elegant woman emerge from the dressing room, just as I was browsing around. Wearing one of the signature long, gypsy skirts in a color I can’t remember (I was too busy looking at her face) Weaver was a vision. She was already in her mature incarnation, which I love even more than her younger self, but she wore that outfit with such style, I quickly added “long, Sigourney-like skirt in black” to my list of must-haves for that summer. I still own that skirt, in a black shantung silk, high waisted, tiered and wide, like a flamenco dance student costume. All thanks to Weaver!
The more recent run-in was in Venice, when she was promoting Master Gardener, directed by Paul Schrader, also starring Joel Edgerton. I was in the same junket area, surrounding the tennis courts of the Excelsior Hotel, there to interview my favorite Syrian filmmaker Soudade Kaadan. While standing by the bar, trying to gather my thoughts and formulate the questions in my head, I suddenly lost the thread. There, in front of me, casually standing by me, was Weaver, not a spot of self-importance in sight. I couldn’t believe it, in her flat shoes — in case you didn’t know the actress is fantastically tall, which also explains why she wore that Calypso skirt so well! — Anyway, I didn’t say anything, petrified and electrified at once, to be within kissing distance of this wondrous star, but as Maya Angelou says, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Weaver made me feel like I belonged, right there, next to her brilliance.
Sigourney Weaver by © Andrew H. Walker for Shutterstock
Venice International Film Festival Director Alberto Barbera said it best about Weaver: “An actress of the caliber of Sigourney Weaver has few rivals. Strengthened by her significant theatrical training, she won over the great film-going public with Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, soon becoming an emblematic figure of the 1980s. During the course of that decade, she forged the image of a heroine unprecedented in the action film genre, able to victoriously rival the male models who, up to that point, had dominated epic and adventure movies. Not satisfied with having blazed the trail for powerful female actors, the actress ceaselessly continued her search for a personal identity. She constantly challenged her persona through choices that ranged from genre movies to comedies, art-house films, and children's movies, side-stepping labels that sought to restrict her to the role of a triumphant icon of the Reagan era. As an authentic collaborator, rather than simply a malleable instrument in the hands of a director, she has contributed to the success of movies by James Cameron, Paul Schrader, Peter Weir, Michael Apted, Roman Polanski, Ivan Reitman, Mike Nichols, Ang Lee, and many others, each time imposing the mark of a complex personality -- at times contradictory but always authentic -- onto her own charismatic presence. Endowed with a remarkable temperament, able to move with delicacy yet without fragility, she has created the image of a woman who is self-assured and determined, dynamic and resolute; at the same time, with endlessly different shadings, she allows her intensely magnetic, feminine sensitivity to filter through.”
The work of this three-time Academy Award nominated and BAFTA and Golden Globe winning actress includes Gorillas in the Mist, Alien and all its subsequent incarnations — pardon the pun — Death and the Maiden, Copycat, The Ice Storm and The Village. So what is my favorite Weaver performance? I always remember her in Ghostbusters as the sexy cellist, and love interest in the story. But in Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm, opposite Kevin Kline she shines at her sultry best.
Born and educated in New York City, Weaver graduated from Stanford University and went on to receive a master’s degree from the Yale School of Drama. Her first professional job was in Sir John Gielgud’s production of The Constant Wife working with Ingrid Bergman. Weaver is a prolific theater actress as well and was very proud to receive the GLAAD Media Award for her work in “Prayers for Bobby,” as well as the Trevor Life Award in 2011.
She has been the Honorary Chair for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund for the last 33 years. She has also served on the Board of Human Rights First for 25 years, and is currently a Trustee on the Board of the New York Botanical Garden. Weaver was proud to receive the National Audubon Society’s Rachel Carson Award in 2009 for her environmental work. She was also a co-founder of The Flea Theater in Lower Manhattan, which championed young artists and new work and produced multiple New York Times’ critic’s choice shows.
Up next, she will star in the black comedy Dust Bunny alongside Mads Mikkelsen (who could take some classes in Maya Angelou-isms from Weaver, but that’s something left for another piece, another time) and The Gorge, with Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy.
Sigourney Weaver lives in NYC.