Name: Sigourney Weaver Reveals An "Alien" Secret | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-08-16T22:00:28.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Sigourney Weaver Reveals An "Alien" Secret | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-08-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Sigourney Weaver Reveals An "Alien" Secret | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-08-16. Transcript available.

Our first guest has starred in three alien motion pictures, two Ghostbuster
movies, and she can also be seen in one of the upcoming Christopher Columbus
movies.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the very lovely Sigourney Weaver.
Hi. Thank you very much for being here. I'm under the impression that you have
been here as a guest. I know you've been here once before. You came with Paul
Reiser. Is that right?
It was fast. Yes, I came as his governess.
Long, long time ago.
Yes.
But have you been here ever in the history of the show as a guest?
No, and I think I'm here tonight because I have actually been and stayed at the
Intercourse Motel in Intercourse, Pennsylvania.
Congratulations. We have this plaque for us.
It was everything you hoped it would be.
What was it like there?
Well, they have a lot of video games in the lounge.
Does everyone kind of have a...
A reason to go there?
No, no. A happy sense of humor about the name of the place?
Well, that I don't remember, but probably they do. I mean, they do have, like,
the town sign, you know. I think they've got a lot of business.
Have we, have we, I guess if you have not been a guest on the show, you and I
have probably not talked about your first name. Have we talked about your first
name?
No.
It's an unusual first name, at least to me it is.
Yes.
And is there something to talk about there?
Well, I, I guess so. It's, I picked it out of a book when I was about 13.
Oh, you did not?
Oh, I did too.
Really?
Well, what was your given name?
I was named Susan Alexandra.
That's a beautiful name. Susan Alexander Weaver.
Susan Alexandra. And I want to thank my parents publicly for giving me this
lovely name, which turned into Susie and then into Sue.
And by this time I was about six feet tall and I thought I needed a longer name.
Uh-huh. And Sigourney Weaver came out of the book and referenced, it was
somebody else's name? It was a family name?
It was in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and it was just mentioned
once very briefly and I thought, well, that looks long and lots of vowels and I
just adopted it.
You know, I'm looking at those earrings and I'm thinking, you know, you may
have like a game, catch one of those in your mouth or something.
It's very hypnotic to look at those.
Along with the swan candle holders.
Yes, let me, I mean, yeah, be careful.
You're, let's talk a little bit about you. You mentioned you picked out your
own name when you were 13 years old and how did the folks react to that?
Well, you see, actually it was a family tradition, I realize now. My father's
name is Sylvester, but he's called Pat and my mother's name is Desiree and she's
called Liz.
So I guess, and my uncle's name was Winsted and he was called Doodles, so I
actually think that it must be in the blood, but they were very nice.
They called me S for a long time in case I changed it back and changed it to
Sally or Sarah or something.
You have a, you have a wonderful career for yourself and a fascinating family
and you mentioned, you mentioned your uncle and you mentioned your father, Sylvester
Pat,
who I guess this is, this has been talked about a lot, but he's responsible for,
he ran this network, didn't he, from 51 to 56 or so?
He was the king of this building. I used to come here when I was, yay high.
Like five, six years older?
That was about 50,000 years ago, no. But he ran NBC in the early 50s and
started the Today Show and the Tonight Show.
He had the concept for the Today Show, as you mentioned, the Tonight Show, and
also I think the Tomorrow Show was his idea.
Yes, that was his, absolutely. Not yesterday, though.
And for a little kid, did you know that what your dad did at work was something
that you could sit at home and watch on television or did it not, you just didn't
have any idea of that?
Well, I didn't know that. I really thought everyone's father ran a network. He
seemed to have a good time. I remember coming in to the building and J. Fred Muggs
was this little awful chimp that was on the show.
And he, I guess, I thought he was like my father's child at work. And so I had
like a, not a hostile relationship with J. Fred Muggs, but I think he was
bigger, stronger, faster, and he used to come at me and take my hat.
And, you know, I was a little threatened by him. I'm in therapy because of that.
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. But, you know, he's running the network now.
Ah, I knew someone I'd like to.
What kind of a young woman were you? Where did you go to college? Did you go to
college? How was that if you did?
Well, actually, I went to two colleges. I went to a girls' college, and then
after a year of that, I'd had enough.
Where was the girls' college?
Sarah Lawrence in Bronxville.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Was, uh, you say you had enough. Why? You just wanted...
Well, girls' schools, you know.
Girls' schools, I wanted to have a normal, you know, school experience.
Found it a bit sheltering, did you?
No, not sheltering. We weren't sheltered there at Sarah Lawrence.
But, um, it just was, uh, the ratio. There were six men and 6,000 girls or
something.
Wow. My goodness.
Hard to get a date.
So, from Sarah Lawrence, you went to, uh, where?
Stanford.
Stanford?
University in California.
Yeah, yeah. What did you study there?
Well, I studied English mostly.
And then, uh, they had, um, they had a human biology program where you could
live with a primate.
I didn't do that, but I was just still thinking.
What year was this?
Uh, gosh, must have been 71.
So that's very, that's very interesting.
A student, a man or a woman, could actually have as their companion or a pet or...
As their roommate in their trailer, a primate.
Now, when you say primate, that's all range of monkeys and orangutans and...
I think so.
I didn't look closely into it.
I don't think you could live with a gorilla.
You had to do that on your own time.
But I think that you could...
You lived with a chimp or an orangutan.
Now, that, that's, to me, seems very, very advanced and probably a wonderful
experience.
But you did not do that.
I didn't.
I chose not to do that.
Yeah.
What was your life like in college?
Well, I, um, it, you know, 60s, you know, early 70s, there was a lot going on
and,
uh, flower children, et cetera.
And I, I guess the oddest thing that I did was I did have an elf costume that I
used to wear,
uh, and my boyfriend had an elf costume.
And we used to also dress as tigers.
Wait a minute.
Hey.
But everyone did this.
You and your boyfriend had, would wear elf costumes for college credit?
I don't know that we actually got credit for doing that.
We actually got, uh, A's once in a course where we both appeared in our elf
costumes and threw pies at each other.
It was a, a course in para-language, which was other ways of communicating.
Oh, very valuable.
Very valuable.
I think the, the teacher liked, uh, this example of para-language as part of
the final exam.
Where would we be today without that research?
Um...
And we lived, you know, in a treehouse and over an experimental garden from...
Lived in a treehouse.
Yeah.
That's off-campus housing, I guess, or is that...
It was cheap.
Yeah.
No, but seriously, an actual treehouse?
Well, it was a tree with a platform.
We didn't actually have a roof.
Uh-huh.
Or a window.
It was open air.
And what would you do when mom and dad would drive west to visit?
Well, luckily, they lived on the East Coast.
Yeah.
Um, it was, the only awkward time I had was, I was supposed to graduate, I
guess, in 72.
And I was taking genetics.
And, uh, Stanford was experimenting with sort of, um, more free courses.
So they didn't actually see if you were in class or not.
And I thought that I would just understand genetics intuitively.
And so, I got to the exam and it was all about parrots and, you know, the, the
Galapagos Islands.
And, you know, I mean, I flunked it, of course.
And so I had to, like, rig this fake diploma and the little costume and
everything.
Take a picture from my parents so that they'd think I'd graduated.
Well, I quickly took astronomy at UCLA and passed.
So you phonied up your graduation photo.
Just for them, not actually for the school.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you didn't use it on job interviews.
Well, of course I graduated.
Look, look there.
This is me and my tree.
You know, it's interesting because in those days, if your folks had any inkling
of what was going on,
I'm guessing they were just wild with anxiety for you.
And now, you're, like, one of the top movie stars in the world.
Well, thank you.
Oh, sure.
I think they're...
You know, parents, though, they're just beginning to relax now about me.
I mean, they are so glad these alien pictures are over.
They look so dangerous.
You say they're over.
Are they over?
Is there going to be another aliens film?
I hope, you know, if they want to make another one, the alien is there.
In fact, the alien is played by quite a wonderful fellow named Tom Woodruff.
And there was a funny thing that happened on the film.
I was in a shot.
I don't know if you've seen it, but there's a battle I have with the alien, and
Tom was in his suit.
He gets sewn up.
He can't see anything.
And he has a little mic in his ear so we can hear direction.
So I had to battle him with this flare, and then he had to hit me with his tail
and all this stuff.
And I did my part of it.
And so they sent me off to get a cup of tea or something, and then it was a
close-up on Tom, the alien.
So I came back in with my teen.
I heard the director saying, during a take, he said,
All right, Tom, go for her.
Go for that bald bitch.
Go for her.
Tom, you hate that bitch.
Go for her with your tail.
Get that flare.
Knock that flare in a minute.
And so cut, and he said, good, Tom, that's good.
And this friend of the director, David Fincher, was there, and he turned to
Dave, and he said,
You know, I don't know how the audience will feel when they find out that the
alien's name is actually just Tom.
It's not really very scary.
How scary is that?
Sure, no.
The big film, it's opening now?
It's opening soon?
It opened about ten days ago.
And it's one of your big summer blockbusters.
Now think about it, you and I will call Mattel right after the show, and we'll
get something with that game.
Sigourney, it was a great pleasure to have you here.
Have a great day.
Yeah, I'll be right back.