Since Sigourney Weaver first kitted up as Ripley, her performances have developped as much as the series itself. But when the last survivor of the Nostromo dissolved into the furnace of Fury 161 at the end of Alien3, the New York born actress' association with the franchise finally seemed at an end...
Drawn by her love for the character, however, Weaver eventually agreed to return - but only if the fourth instalment offered the same level of creativity and originality as that established by the previous movies...
"I didn't want Ripley to keep waking up in space and crying Alien!" insists Weaver. "To present her in a way we knew her from the previous films did not interest me. But I missed Ripley and I am glad to come back to her with the chance to give her a new persona and the series fresh oxygen."
And a lot of that relied on writer Joss Whedon's script, which became as much an exploration of Ripley as of the Alien itself. "What really drew me to the part", explains Weaver, "was the idea of Ripley suddenly existing with a clean slate, only to discover that she's not what we expect. In Alien Resurrection, Ripley doesn't have to do the right thing and stand up for the good and the right - all the things she's done in the past. That's very liberating, as a character and an actor."
With Weaver in place and the script green-lighted, Fox and the producers contracted French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet to helm the project. Discussing the film in Jeunet's native French, Weaver soon realised that her wish for a director who could bring a distinctive and innovative style to the project and her own performance had been answered.
"What I love about Jean-Pierre", comments Weaver, "is that he's not interested in guns and blood. I greatly admire his black sense of humour; he gives everything a weird curve. He enabled me to work off my weirdest instincts." Having been flown over from Paris to Los Angeles, Jeunet stopped over in New York to meet Weaver to discuss the focus of the script. "I was very interested in working with Sigourney", says Jeunet, "and I have been completely flabbergaasted by her work on this film. I often became a spectator watching her on set and I had to stop myself from clapping at the end of a take."
With so many memorable moments in Alien Resurrection, it's strange that the one that stands out for Weaver is a sequence that's become known as 'The Basketball Shot'. The scene has Ripley entertaining herself with only a ball and her instincts to protect her, manages to hold her own. "It absolutely obsessed me", Weaver confesses. "It really meant a lot to try to transform that scene because otherwise it's just this woman beating up guys. I wanted it to be much lighter than that. So I practised."
Practise isn't the word... Training intensively for two weeks with former UCLA basketball player Nigel Miguel, Weaver developped a dribble that even the Alien would be proud of. "A no-look three-pointer", states Weaver. "Next to my wedding and the birth of my daughter, 'The Basketball Shot' was the greatest moment of my life."
