Standing out in the crowd

“When I was in college, I did sort of want to be a journalist. Being an actor, you kind of have the same interest. You go into a story, and you tell it from your point of view for people who aren't there. That's what an actor does with a character. But the real life is more interesting.” – Sigourney Weaver

Weaver was nearly 30 and acting for more than 10 years before she became “an overnight success,” but once she got on a roll she never looked back.  It was her work as the lead as Eileen Ripley in the Alien series that put her front and center.  Since then, she’s done dozens of other movies, including a number of comedies, and in recent years she’s also been writing and producing shows.

Her acting has won her numerous awards including Golden Globes as both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in the same year – the first playing Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist and the second in Working Girl.  She also was nominated for Academy Awards for both movies – the only actor or actress to be nominated for the four major acting awards in one year.

 

Sigourney Weaver

Susan Alexandra Weaver was born on this day in 1949 in New York City.  She changed her name to Sigourney because she wanted something that would stand out in a crowd.  A brilliant student as well as actor, she did her undergraduate work at Sarah Lawrence and Stanford and then earned a Master of Fine Arts from Yale.   

While everyone knows her work in the movies, many are surprised at the breadth of her work in theatre, where she has appeared in nearly 40 plays on and off Broadway.  A star in the original Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II, she is reprising her work in the upcoming version of Ghostbusters, due out in 2016.

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