THE ALIEN INSIDE ME

>> It is the big day. I have decided to swim like an alien, something I have not practiced. I envision it as doing the butterfly without arms. Jean-Pierre is crazy about the idea. My stunt double, Lesley Aletter, tries the new stoke. She says that since you can't use your arms, it's much slower and more demanding. In other words, I've fucked myself.The underwater cast (4) is a dedicated and deranged group, important when you're going to be out in space together for five months. To distract us from our terror, we play ¿Quién es más macho? Laden down with heavy boots and guns, all nine of us squeeze down the ladder. As we switch to respirators, set decorators swim through, dropping lettuce, sausage links, and all kind of other crap around us.On the surface, Ernie uses the bullhorn to remind us that we should make a throat-cutting gesture if we're in terrible trouble. Then he asks us for thumbs-up. Yes, yes, I want to get this done. "Ten…," Ernie yells, "nine…eight…seven… Masks off!" Ernie's adrenaline is terrifying. I take off my mask, my nose fills with water, my eyes blur. It is a feeling I will never get used to. "Six…five…four …Lose the hookahs! …three….two…one…Action! Action! Go! Go! Go! Go!!! " There's an explosion of movement around me - a tumult of guns, boots, and bodies. I hope Winona's okay. I push away, undulating on my route, and promptly run into someone. Havoc. "Cut! Cut! Cut! " screams Ernie. Someone jams a hookah into my mouth and swims me up to the surface. The whole thing is a disaster. Winona looks like a tiny drowned otter. Freeman is telling his diver not to grab him that way. Kim is rolling her eyes. "It needs to look more tense," says Nancy Gilmour, interpreting for Jean-Pierre over the chaos. Now that's funny. We reset for the next take, this time choreographing who should swim over whom to avoid collisions. It is not a bad way to forge an ensemble. Here, underwater, we all take responsibility for one and another and no one wants to let the others drown…I mean down.On the next take my stroke gets better, but I get a big piece of lettuce in my face. We go again. The takes basically end when we run out of air. I do the throat-cutting gesture and hope Hank will find me. To my amazement, he is always there. At one point, Winona is brought up choking. She had made the throat-cutting gesture right after "Action" but no one saw her. Oy. We persevere. With relief I realize it's hard for everyone.

>> Almost two weeks in the tank and it's beginning to look like the Ganges. I wouldn't be surprised to see a dead body floating by. Jean-Pierre informs me that we're going to shoot my close-up today. Ripley waves the others ahead, then watches as an alien grabs a terrified human swimming behind her. "If it's just a close-up, can't I stick my head in a fish bowl?" I aks. J.P. looks puzzled. It takes us a while to work out the irony thing. I'm curiously calm for this shot. On "Action" I take off my mask and stand at the bottom of the tank, motionless, letting a tiny stream of bubbles escape from my mouth. It is a strange feeling to be Ripley, watching this specter of death steal away a vulnerable human and do nothing to stop it. It feels powerful. I would like to stay under forever, but I am more than out of air. A respirator is stuck in my mouth and, like the victim I watched, I too am carried away, up into the real world. Jean-Pierre is happy. Indeed, when I watch the playback, I look completely comfortable in the water. I'm not, but Ripley is. And isn't that what it's all about? I look at Hank and Ernie and blow them a heartfelt kiss.

>> When I worked on Alien3 my daughter was a baby and we had matching bald heads. But since my daughter started nursery school four years ago, I have tried to take only one job a year, as close to home in New York as possible. This determination has resulted in jobs in Paris, San Fransisco, Prague, and now Los Angeles. To compound matters, the shooting schedule for Alien Resurrection was postponed from summer to winter - a disaster for my family. While I'm away I e-mail my daughter at school and commute home for all pageants, ballet recitals, and parent-teacher conferences. I fly her out for long weekends. I depend on my amazing husband, our baby-sitter, and two or three other moms to mother for me. Will I look back and think this was a big mistake? My daughter does not like coming onto the set. It is not the face-huggers or special effects that put her off. It is the noise and the huge number of people. "I'm not a set girl, Mommy," she explains. "I'm a homey girl."

>> For the last two weeks I've been practicing for Ripley's basketball scene with former UCLA Bruin star Nigel Miguel. Conceived to show off Ripley's strength and speed, the basketball scene originally consisted of her beating the shit out of everyone. But I want to make it about basketball, not about fighting. At the end of the scene, I want Ripley to make an impossible basket without any effort. Nigel, a majestic and fluid player, designs the perfect shot. Ripley walks away from the basket and, without looking, tosses the ball over her shoulder and gets it in. It takes me about ten tries, but on the very first day of practice I sink one. From then on I am hooked. I eat, sleep and dream B-ball. I look for the ball when I wake up in the morning, like a jazzman checking his horn. Was there a life before basketball? What was I doing when I could have been outside shooting hoops? The outrage I feel that only now, in 1997, has the NBA bothered to embrace women's professional basketball is intense. Sisters, unite! Slam that ball. Toss it. Fly. Float. Don't let the guys have all the fun. Basketball is the best-kept secret in the world. It's a total high and I have wasted my life. By the time we are ready to shoot, my average on the shot is one basket for every six tries. The delicious presence of Ron Perlman ignites the scene. Take after take, I dribble, I pass, I knock him away. He loves it. Ernie is making Jean-Pierre nuts with all his talk about rigging people to fly through the air during the fight. You know, it's just not French. I'm anxious to show Jean-Pierre my shot, but I miss it again. My shot, my sweet shot, seems to be going sour. Unimpressed, Jean-Pierre says, "It's too close. Anyone can do it from there." "I can't," says Nigel. "Well, where do you want me to do it from?" I ask. "Here," says Jean-Pierre, standing almost in center court. Nigel whistles. "That's far, man. We didn't know she'd be doing it that far." Jean-Pierre shrugs. "She doesn't need to. Pitof from visual effects has a way to trick it." I'm feeling depressed. I look over at Pitof by the monitors and stick out my tongue. "You can do it," Nigel whispers, handing me the ball. Jean-Pierre calls "Action". I bounce the ball, walk forward, toss it over my shoulder…and miss. "Cut," says Jean-Pierre. Take two: I walk to my mark, sail it back…and miss again. Pitof comes bustling up with Jean-Pierre who says, "It's better for Pitof if you don't get it in. Start further away and send the ball back flat - easier to match. Don't try to get it in. Please, Sigourney. I know how much you want to do it, but I need to finish this scene." I practise throwing the ball flatter, from about 22 feet away. Nigel comes over, shaking his head. "They can't do this. Everyone will know it's fake. Don't listen to them. Go for it."I walk to my start position and look down at the ball. I feel it for what I know is the last time. I walk to center court and toss the ball up, up, up, along the lines of the set, knowing it won't, it can't go in. The crew explodes. "Did it go in?" I ask, in shock. "Nothing but net, baby!" shouts Nigel. We jump up and down. Everyone is cheering. Suddenly Ron's voice booms out. "It's no good!" he yells, mortified. "I broke up after the ball went in." We freeze, then rush to see a playback. Two beats after the ball goes in, Ron Perlman flashes a huge smile and yells "Oh fuck!" right into the camera. Cut Connie Hall, our genius camera operator, shouts, "It's okay, you can use it! You can get the scissors in." The set erupts again. People hug me and give me high fives. When I look over at Jean-Pierre, he and the French contingent are huddled morosely by the monitor. "Jean-Pierre," I say, bouncing over, "I got the shot!" "I know," he says mournfully. Confused, I say again, "No, you don't understand. I got the shot!" "Yes," he sighs. "But the ball left the frame, so everyone will think we tricked it even though we didn't." "They won't think we tricked it," I say, "because…because I'll tell them we didn't." "You can't tell everybody," says Jean-Pierre existentially. "I can try," I say.