SPARKLE

here aren’t many actors who could play an amphibious teenage alien at the age of 73. Then again, there are zero actors like Sigourney Weaver: handy with a flamethrower, deadly with a one-liner, sophisticated, sexy, silly or serious as the situation demands. Film producers, she has often remarked, have never known what to do with her. ‘And that’s a good thing,’ she laughs. ‘As long as I knew what to do with me, it didn’t matter.’

Right now, Sigourney Weaver movies are lining up like London buses. There is James Cameron’s $250 million sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, in which she plays the aforementioned alien; in Call Jane she is a 1960s abortion activist; The Good House sees her as an alcoholic estate agent; and in Master Gardener she’s an imperious landowner. It is a source of satisfaction to her that none of the roles have anything in common, ‘except maybe that the women are somewhat independent and still have a sex life ‒ which in itself is an achievement in this business’.

Weaver is at home in New York, sitting by a huge photo of a tree in blossom, wearing serious spectacles, a plaid blazer and a