Sigourney Weaver was initially upset when she read the script for ‘Aliens’ due to its focus on guns.
Sigourney Weaver didn't like the amount of gun use in Aliens
The 74-year-old actress was happy to return as Ellen Ripley for its 1986 sequel after the success of the original 1979 movie 'Alien', though has now admitted she "wasn’t thrilled" to learn that James Cameron’s blockbuster would be more action-centric than the original.
She told Variety: "[Cameron] was just so open to any thoughts that I might have, and I just felt his instincts were amazing. The one thing, of course, I wasn't thrilled about was all the guns.
"I read very quickly because I’m trying to experience the story and I had left out reading a lot of the stage directions, which had a lot of guns in them."
The ‘Ghostbusters’ star reflected on her displeasure when the 70-year-old filmmaker brought the firearms onto the ‘Aliens’ set.
She explained: "I said, ‘What are those for?’ and he said,’Well, what do you mean?’
"I said, ‘Well, I’m for gun control and I’m really not going to be picking up a gun and doing anything with it.’
"He said, ‘Well, you haven’t read the script.’ I said, ‘I have, but I haven’t read all those paragraphs about guns.’"
Weaver revealed the ‘Avatar’ director had taken her "out into the back field and had [her] shoot off a couple hundred rounds of this machine gun", which the Hollywood star conceded was “unfortunately very addictive”.
Afterwards, Cameron laid out Ripley’s character arc to the actress and explained the heroine’s reliance on weaponry was intrinsically linked to her survival - a detail that Sigourney admitted "wasn’t [her] first choice".
She said: “I think, of course, she needs to defend herself, but also I understood why he wanted to use guns.
“It wasn’t my first choice.”
Weaver would go on to portray Ripley again in ‘Alien 3’ and ‘Alien: Resurrection’, though parted ways with the franchise after the 1997 movie.
However, the actress recently revealed she hasn’t completely closed the door to playing the character again in a future installment in the sci-fi series.
Speaking to Deadline, she said: "I feel like she’s never far away from me, but on the other hand I have yet to read a script that said ‘you have got to do this.’
"So for me, she is in this other dimension, safe from the Alien for the time being. I don’t really think about it, but you know, it’s not completely impossible, and certainly a lot of good filmmakers are inspired by the material."
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