SIGOURNEY WEAVER chats about teaming up with James Cameron for the first time since Aliens, youthful avatars, and the changing face of acting.
Sigourney Weaver and co-star Giovanni Ribisi
MMM: What was it like seeing the Avatar version of yourself for the first time?
Weaver: We all had renderings of our Avatars when we were doing our performance capture and for me Grace had such a haunting face. I think because her human life is so guarded and armoured that the rendering was a real inspiration to me.
So I was very surprised when I finally saw the movie that he hadn’t done it like I remembered, but that Grace looked just like Sigourney, only 10-foot tall and blue, and a much improved version of myself, and 30 years younger! I could leap tall buildings at a single bound! It was wonderful having a double life as a character and seeing it realised so magnificently by Jim.
What was your first reaction to working with James Cameron again?
Weaver: You know we had stayed in touch, and I was always a big admirer of the challenges Jim took on. So I was absolutely thrilled when he called and, really very sweetly – because even though he’s so capable, he’s actually a very humble person –, asked me if I’d mind taking a look at it. So I spent the next three days reading the script, which was so ambitious on every level. I’d get to these parts where I’d think, well it’s so amazing to ride on that banshee, but I just don’t see how he can do it.
But I certainly wanted to be part of the adventure of going for it. And I always know with Jim that you’re never in better hands. There’s no one who’s going to fight harder, and stay longer, and work harder to give the audience a hell of an experience. And also, the part of Grace is a dichotomy between this very driven, dry, frustrated woman in the human world, and this free spirit who has lost her heart to the Na’vi people. The combination of all these factors just made me jump at the chance to go on this adventure with Jim.
MMM: How would you contrast the way you worked on Aliens and Avatar with James Cameron? And what impact do you think advances in technology will have on actors?
Weaver: Well, I think there have been several revolutions and I think this one is the biggest. When I did the first Alien at Shepperton, there were was this awesome special effects crew who with a few hoses and things like that made those special effects. We had no green screen or anything.
On Aliens we did use green screen. I think green screen is harder for actors. In Avatar, when we were in our little suits with our ears and our tails on this empty volume, we could see the world in Jim’s magic camera – I don’t know what he calls it, I call it the magic camera! We could see what we looked like in this landscape, but we were completely free to just be with each other as actors and characters, and Jim’s focus was on us.
I think the green screen was the most awkward and, as an audience member, I was uncomfortable – I always thought they put the characters too close together, and it was unbelievable to me.
I’m so grateful, as an audience member and as an actor, that we have a new technology where we can get to the essence of the moment and of the scenes, and then leave it up to the geniuses at Weta [effects specialists] to spend 50 hours per frame building on that.
I had an acting teacher a long time ago who told me, as long as you have it inside you, it’s gonna work, you don’t have to show anything. Well, we had it inside us of us and Weta just let that lead them. They don’t show it, they just bring it out into 3D and I, as an actor, I am very grateful.
By film journalist Jan Gilbert
