Sigourney Weaver, Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

I'm Angelo Chalb for Fred Film Radio at the 81st Venice Film Festival. Very glad and very honored to be here with Sigourney Weaver. Good morning.

“Good morning, I am honored too.”

Well, you are honored because you are the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Awards this year. You were here two years ago, handling two posh writers, and now it's your turn. How do you feel about that?

“I'm in shock. It is funny to come with Paul one year and then come back as the Golden Lion. I think it's frankly the most inspiring and prestigious award that exists in the film industry. So I'm astonished and so grateful.”

Do you think that this award has a different importance for an actor, a different director, for example?

“Well, I'm not an expert. I've always thought of it as a filmmakers award, even though artists have received it. I think that's why it also expresses all these groundbreaking films and the actors who are in them. So to me, it's just a very inspiring body of work, and a sort of constellation that you become a part of. But I definitely think of it more as a filmmakers award, so I'm extra, extra happy.”

Well, you have a kind of a huge body of work yourself, because you traveled many genres. You have never been pigeonholed in one genre, or even if you start with the science fiction, there could have been a risk. How did you manage to walk through your career in such a various way?

“Well, I ran from being pigeonholed. That was the thing I most wanted to avoid. And I, what I found is, it's completely up to me. They always send you five films, just like the one you just finished, and so, I was from theater and did a lot of comedy, so when I played Ripley, it was interesting, but I certainly didn't want to, I'm happy to have played her four times, but I certainly wasn't going to be limited by that.
I was going to try to make that help me open doors and I think I was so lucky, you know. I mean, I had to audition for Ghostbusters, and I was on the coach with, Ivan Reitman, and I misread, I guess, the script. In this original script, my character does not turn into a dog they were separate but I turned into a dog at the audition, and was howling, and like eating the pillows and everything, and he stopped the camera and he said, you must never do that again. It's so grotesque, you know, it's so grotesque, an editor would want to use it.
In any case, he called up the writer and said, Sigourney Weaver had this great idea of turning, you know, having Dana turn into a dog. So they made that change. I didn't even realize that.
But I think that I love going far, as far as I can in another direction. If I do comedy, I want to do that. If I do small, I want to do big. I can't help it. I don't know what it is.”

Actually, there is one movie, a very small movie that you did many years ago. There is praise by the LGBT community all over the place, which is Praise for Bobby, which was a very important film. Very easy, simple film, but very important. Do you have any memories about that?

“I was so grateful to be given Prayers for Bobby as a story to tell. I must say I found this story so upsetting, and I couldn't imagine how I'd play Mary. Then I had the good fortune of meeting her and hearing directly from her, and I realized it was a story for all mothers, absolutely, all parents, and actually now looking back, it's actually a story about America, hence Trump, I think.
But I was so grateful, I worked with the greatest guys on it, and I just, I feel I have met young people all over the world who thank us for doing that movie.”

Absolutely. Well, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot to Sigourney Weaver for being with us.

I'm Angelo Cerbi for FRED, The Festival Insider. Thank you.