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I'm Sigourney Weaver, and I just want to say, hey, buckle up. Here comes a new SmartLess. SmartLess. SmartLess. SmartLess.
This is a listener. We're panning Sean's billiard room at his house that's now become your office. Wait a second. Pan that again. He has such a beautiful office. I put a pool table in this room because like an old pool table that was cheap because... Don't try. It's true. It was cheap. I got the cheapest yacht I could find. It floats. It's got a beautiful sail.
No, no. And so I was like, because it was like this little room that was an office, and I was like, I don't need an office. I just need... Where is he? Is he in Toronto? Yeah, he's at his parents' place. Oh. There he is. Listener, um...
Arnett is late, but he's clearly on Toronto time, so that's okay. Are you in, you're in mom's, we were just talking about Sean's billiard room and now you're in your parents' study or library, is it? Yeah, I'm in my, sorry, I'm in my dad's study. Sorry. Oh, really? Okay, so you're in. Listen, I'll have you know, I'm just in the room above the garage, okay? Yeah, right. I'm just keeping things real over here. Oh, yeah, you keep it really real. Yeah, yeah.
- Really real. What else is, what's near that room? Is your workout room and your sauna near that room? - Well, I have a bunch of things in this one small little space. Yeah, I mean, I gotta move the microphone out of the way if I wanna, you know, work out in this room. And then if I wanna get dressed or shower, I've gotta, you know, move the workout stuff out of the way. - Hey, you know my dad's name is Jim, right? Jim Arnett. - Congratulations.
And did you guys know that he likes to drink highlighters? Oh, yeah.
It's a mug of highlighters. Will is holding up a mug that says Jim on it. A mug that says Jim and then... What are you doing in Toronto, Will? Just robbing your folks' place? I'm just doing a little thing here for my friends over at Freedom Mobile, which is a great place if you're looking to get a great deal on one of their big gig unlimited plans. This is on our time. Go to freedommobile.ca. Is that what you're doing there? You're working? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not visiting? And then I just...
So .ca is not California web addresses. That's Canadian web addresses? Yeah, yeah. .ca, yeah. Sometimes I make myself laugh. Do you? Yeah, I just need me. That's it. Driving around all day in the car. You get a lot of you. You guys, I went on a haunted hayride the other day. Sounded out. Haunted hayride. Have you guys ever been to that one in Los Angeles, the hayride?
Well, I think when I was six or seven. Oh, come on. It's fun. Yep. No, Abel did it a couple weeks ago. It's fun, right? Also, somebody not yet a teenager. He's 12. He's 12. Yeah.
And so how was it, Sean? It's fun. It's like you guys, I think you would like it. It's like, you know, you get in a wagon with a bunch of people and, you know, you go through Griffith Park and they scare the crap out of you. It's kind of fun. Really? It's like a haunted hayride, like the people run out of the bushes and stuff? Yeah. Yeah.
You know, speaking of bushes in Griffith Park, this is a true story. I used to run outside. Now I run here in my small little closet of a room here with a treadmill. But I used to run through Griffith Park and...
And I'd tell my friends, boy, you know, the friendliest people in Griffith Park. There's some funny business going on. I kept running by these guys. They just kept waving at me. And they said, what time of day do you run? I said, well, I don't know, like right around late morning or early, like around lunchtime. Yep, 10 a.m.
At lunchtime at Griffith Park, famously, supposedly, you can just take a walk or a jog and find any dude you want by a bush, and he'll give you an HJ, a BJ, whatever. It depends on how much money you're holding. But there's a section there in Griffith Park where it's just hookup central. That's why when I asked Sean for a good place to jog, he said Griffith Park, and I said, why? And he said, because it's very handy. Okay.
And you thought it was just centrally located. Yeah. I have never heard of that story. All right. So let's get to our guest, which I'm so excited. It's a wonderful segue. Great. It is a tremendous segue. I know. I'm always excited for my guests, but...
This one is kind of like a mic drop, okay? Your 80s childhood dreams are going to come true. Your 90s childhood dreams, your 2000 childhood dreams, and your current dreams. This woman is at the center of all your favorite iconic franchises that we'll talk about later. Born and raised in Manhattan. She went to the same two schools I did, Stanford and Yale. So, of course, she speaks three languages. I don't know what they are. But she loves gardening and is afraid of elevators. As far as her work goes...
As far as her work goes, if you don't blink, she was in Annie Hall for like six seconds. Annie Hall for six seconds. The respect and love and admiration she gets in this business of ours is as tall as she is. Guys, it's one of my favorite actresses of all time, Sigourney Weaver. Whoa, Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver. It is Sigourney Weaver. There she is. It's so glamorous.
Hi, you guys. I'm so excited to be here. By the way, you look beautiful and you know you didn't have to like zhuzh up for us because nobody's going to see this. Oh, I didn't. Yeah, no, she's doing something important after this. You watch. This is the way I look, you know, when I'm vacuuming the house and doing the dishes. Unbelievable. Oh, I did it, is my favorite response to that. Sigourney, have you ever been to Griffith Park?
I have, but I think I was on a horse. So I missed all the fun. So was I. Don't take a sip after that. Yeah, you're not allowed to take a little comedy sip. Sigourney Weaver, welcome to the show. My God, this is such an honor to have you. It really is. Oh, well, that's very sweet of you. But by the time our segment is over...
I don't know that you'll feel like that, but it's very kind of you to say. No, I've been... I'm a big fan of this show and of each of you. Well, thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Likewise. I didn't know... You're probably so sick of talking about this. I didn't know your real name was Susan. Sue? Wait, what? Yeah. Sue and Susie. And does anybody call you Sue or Susie?
Well, you can't change your destiny. I did change my name to Sigourney when I was about 13, but now everyone calls me Siggy.
So, you know. Siggy Susie. I was trying to get a longer name because by that time I was almost six feet tall when I was 11. So I thought Susie is too diminutive. And Susie Snowflake. There's Susie Snowflake. Yeah. Yeah. Or Wake Up Little Susie or all those. Or Susie Cream Cheese. Yes. Yeah. And from The Great Gatsby, right? Is that what you thought of it? That's right. I saw it. It's mentioned once. What is Sigourney? I think it's Jordan Baker's aunt is mentioned and it's like.
Mrs. Sigourney Fay or something like that. And I just looked, it was an S.
in case I liked the initial, and it just went on for a long time. And then the Y, which I think is very upbeat. And your parents were like, what did your parents say? Were they like, hey, we gave you a nice name, and now you've decided. What kind of thanks is this? Yeah. Yeah, they did call me S for a long time, in case I changed it again. But ironically, my mother was named Desiree because they'd had like eight boys, and finally they had a girl. But everyone called her Liz. And my father was named Sylvester,
But because he was a little redheaded kid, he and his brother, they were called Pat and Mike. So he was Pat. So they couldn't say anything to me. So you come from a long line of people who are not happy with the names they were given. Exactly. What about your middle name? It begins with a name. Alexandra. Alexandra. That's a beautiful name. That's my mother's name. It's a beautiful name, but it's a bit long. Yeah, but Alex is a great short for a woman.
But I knew a really obnoxious girl named Alex at camp, so I couldn't do that. What about brothers or sisters? Were they equally unhappy with their names? Well, no. My father was a Roman history nut, so he named my brother Trajan after a really wonderful emperor, and he wanted to name me Flavia, which my mother said. Now, that I would have changed. Flavia? Yeah.
Oh, my God. That sounds so close to something else. I know. This is a very rich history. This is an incredible what was happening at your house. These are interesting people. No, I'm dead serious. I'm sorry. No. We're going to move on. First of all, my mother's name is Alexandra. My partner's name is Alessandra. And my son's first name is, his real first name is Alexander. Well, okay.
Alexander the Great. So Alexander the Great. And do you know that women traditionally spelled Alex when they shortened it with an I? That's how you differentiate between... Oh, Alex. Yes, I understand that. And what, A-L-I-X? Yeah, my mom spells it A-L-I-X. Does she really? Mm-hmm. Wait, Sigourney, how many brothers and sisters did you have? I have one brother. One brother. Trajan. And then, and growing up, so what was growing up like? That you could just be like, I want to change my name, and they're like, great. Was it like...
Crunchy and 60s and love and whatever? Well, my father was working. He was head of NBC in the 50s. Oh, wow. So he produced Show of Shows and created the Today Show and the Tonight Show. Come on. He did? All of that. Hang on, Sean. This is your guest. This has got to be covered on the Wikipedia page. I did not know this. I did not know this. What's his name? Her father created the Today Show. Yeah. Hi, Irwell. Her father created the Today Show.
What's his name? Sylvester. Sylvester Pat Weaver. Sylvester. And she just said it. I didn't know that. And Jimmy Fallon just said nice things about him the other night. You know, they think of him as the father of the Tonight Show. Sylvester Weaver. Yeah. Sylvester Pat. Okay. Pat Weaver is really what he's called. So what's so crazy is I met you once for two seconds backstage at the show.
at the Tonight Show when I was like 27 years old. And just three years ago. Really made a real imprint on her. So we passed each other in the hall in the back. I just think that's wild. I was like, oh my God, hi, nice to meet you. And you were like, hi, nice to meet you. So then does that mean your childhood was around show business? And is that where you got your taste for it? Or was that later?
I was very shy. So I don't think I imagined even developing a taste for it. But what I must say is my father would come home after the day, I guess before he went back for the night shows, and he always seemed in a good mood. You know, he was always laughing. And I thought...
And we had lots of, you know, we had those people come in and out like Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason did their, you know, This Is Your Life. So he was working with people who sounded absolutely wonderful to me. And so it took me many, many years to say I want to be an actor for various different reasons. But I guess I was always maybe trying to head toward a little area of that world that
because I knew it was hard work and unpredictable and often unfair, which I think is a great advantage to know that going in. But I also knew my father laughed a lot during the day. I love that. But wait a second. I mean, what an interesting thing, though. So he creates the Today Show and the Tonight Show, and he's doing them simultaneously, working on them. Well, first he was running the network, and so he had the regular shows like Show of Shows, but then...
The network, the world could not imagine having any kind of TV on in the early morning. And they couldn't imagine TV on at night. So it sort of went from, I don't know, five to...
It was very limited in those days, in the early 50s. So when he pitched to the General Sarnoff who owned RCA and NBC that he wanted to do this morning show, people should wake up in the morning, be able to turn on TV, find out what happened overnight, get a few laughs from Dave Garraway and all that stuff.
The general was horrified and he, my father pushed it through anyway and it's, you know, still running. And maybe you can answer that because I remember hearing once...
years ago that the idea of the late night program, i.e. the Tonight Show, was part just that it was empty airways, but also so that the last thing people did was leave their TV on that channel. That's right. So that the next day when you turned your TV on, they already had your attention. That's right. Oh, that's cool. Did you ever hear that from your dad? I did, yeah. I'm not talking to you. No, I didn't, but he wasn't telling me the secrets of NBC, so...
But it's a good idea. Sigourney, sidebar, I'm doing a play on Broadway next year. I'm playing Oscar Levant. And the play takes place backstage at the Tonight Show. Wow. Yeah. Can I do a walkthrough? Yes, please. Like a ghost? Now, wait. I didn't know that... So when I was in college...
We were obsessed with Christopher Durang. Like every play was like, oh my God, let's do a Christopher Durang play because it was the, they were the, he was kind of like the Neil Simon of our generation, right? And I would look at the opening of all his plays. I was like, it would be like starring Sigourney Weaver. And I was like,
Wait, the movie star was on in play? Like, it's the first time at such a young age I realized, oh, as an actor, you just weren't, you couldn't just be one thing. You could do all the things. But I was blown away to see your name as the original cast in so many Broadway plays. Yeah. I doubt it said starring. I think we just had our names. Oh, well, yeah, the characters, right. That's what I mean. Yeah. No, but that's how I, you know, that saved me because I was quite discouraged at drama school and
And luckily, when I came to New York, even though I was looking for a job in a florist or anywhere, you know, a cake store, anywhere but a show business because I'd been so discouraged.
I kept working with Chris and all our friends and all of Broadway. And I'm so grateful that that is how I started with about five years of Duran. And all those comedies. They were all comedies. And Albert and Erato and all the gang. Do you still do a bunch of theater? Do you even have time to? Do you want to? I did. We did Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike on Broadway for a year just about in 2013. Wow.
And then since then, I've been doing Avatar. Yeah, I'll bet. Avatar and some other stuff. I haven't heard of it. Wow. When does that come out? Avatar 2 is coming out December 16th. And didn't you shoot the third one at the same time? Well, there's like five. Yeah, two and three. There will be five. It's all part of one long story about this...
I love it. It's so great. You know, it's so funny because, you know, Avatar came out to such fanfare and success. It was, you know, really well received critically and at the box office, etc.,
to then have this follow-up, this film that's been made, as you can attest to, for a long time and there's a lot surrounding it, to just call it Avatar 2 seems so-- - -Unceremonious. -No, it's The Way of Water. -The Way of Water. -Okay. -Yeah. And because James Cameron has this fascination with water, we don't-- I don't-- You know, hopefully he'll come on the show one day. -Yeah. -But wait. But tell me about-- Didn't you have to learn how to breathe? Didn't you film underwater for a long time? She learned how to breathe underwater. Tell us about that. Yes.
I'll just show you my gills. No, but we did. We actually worked with Kirk Crack, who teaches the Navy SEALs, and Jim doesn't do anything by half, so he really wanted us to be comfortable in the water and be able to do scenes underwater. So we studied for a whole year with Kirk, and we all had to do breath holds, which you train to get up to, and...
I was able finally to do a static breath hold for six and a half minutes. Oh my, I can't, that's unbelievable. But anyone can do it if you have Kirk crack. My husband was with me because he trained with me. We both did it that day for six and a half minutes and neither of us can believe it. Wow. And we will be right back. Back to the show.
Now, can I ask you a potentially tacky housekeeping question? If you were obligated to train for a year for a film before you start shooting, are you paid for that year of training? That's a very good question. And we were shooting at the same time we were training. So we got there in the summer of 2017 and started doing a lot of parkour. Yeah. And I actually play one of the kids in Avatar 2. So I had to do everything the kids did.
And at the same time, we started training. So you'd like shoot in the morning and then train in the afternoon or vice versa? No, I'm trying to remember. We had about two months of training. And then when you weren't shooting, they would bring you over to the little tank in Manhattan Beach. And you would do...
more and more challenging stuff. And then eventually they took us to a final sort of rehearsal off the big island. And we learned how to swim with sort of underwater vehicles, which would then represent the
other species that we might meet in the-- - That's crazy. - You see, she's being very careful not to reveal any secrets here. - I should be very, very careful. Sigourney, Jason would love to get a hold of your day out of days, maybe the one line or two. And if he could get a number on the first AD just so he could work on his hard outs, that would be great. - Yeah, I mean, you need to know your turnarounds and things like that, 'cause I'm sensing there's some overtime that could be owed to you. - Definitely.
Wait, Sigourney, but don't you have to do a lot of, in addition to the water stuff and maybe for the other ones, and I know for the first one, all that motion capture green screen stuff, right? Well, may I just say that everyone in the world thinks we still do green screen. I haven't done a green screen since a pickup for the first Ghostbusters that long ago. Wow. Wow.
So I've never done green screen except that one time. This is all performance capture. Yeah, performance capture. You know, like Andy Serkis. Yeah. And it's actually kind of a wonderful theatrical experience. You don't have to worry about lights or makeup or, you know, it's just you and your little black suit. Yeah.
So explain that to our Tracys out there that have no idea what that... First of all, green screen is something where if you stand in front of a big piece of green fabric, they can later cut out all the green stuff behind you and put in a picture of mountains or whatever they want to put you in front of. Or charging rhinoceroses or something. Right. Nowadays, they have you act in front of...
And you are wearing a suit that captures your movement. And those cameras tied to your head and your side, right? So you're in a big empty space called the volume space.
And you may have basic sets built to run up and down and jump over this or jump over that. They all represent parts of Pandora. That will be drawn in later. Like topography of the... Yes, exactly. Topography. So we can do the scene running through an approximation of that landscape. And you have a suit on with various, I don't know... Ping pong balls?
Ping-pong balls. Little... Receptors. Little receptors. And you have a helmet that has two cameras facing you, which must be just an awful angle. It's for the... It's a dream for Will. For... There's a little China ball on a third arm there. He'd be real happy. And then I think there's also...
One facing the person you're talking to. And that's all for Weta Digital in New Zealand. I wish I knew the exact time and amount of money, but it's like...
to make an avatar, it's all CGI. It's all CGI. And how do you-- a dumb actor question to actor, how do you connect to the material when you're not in-- You just say dumb person. Dumb person to smart person. You should say Sean. It's quicker. How do you-- from Sean to Sigourney. How do you connect to the material when you're not in the thing and you're not-- and everybody's dressed like you and you're looking across and you can't probably see them 'cause there's a camera in your face.
That's why I feel it's like an early theater rehearsal where you just have an empty stage and you've read the script and you know who's playing what and you just are there as actors making the scene work and it's not for any camera. It's literally for each other. And of course Cameron has about 14 guys hidden around the set doing shots of different people and when Jim...
And I won't be able to explain this well. Jim created a camera for the first Avatar, which kind of looks like he's holding a dowser. And when you're there, you can actually look over at a specific screen and see your roughed out Avatar being.
And how much taller they are than humans and how they relate to the landscape. So that's a kind of very rough guide to go, oh, I see. I'm twice as tall as the boy I like, you know, in the next story. And then you just, you forget about all that and you just work on these beautiful, very compelling scenes that Jim Cameron has written about this phantasmagoria.
And don't you play a teenager in this one or something at some point? I do. That's crazy. Yeah, she said that. Sean, are you listening? Sean, you know what? I sense that she's using something. You should plug the earphones in. It's called an imagination. You should look into it. Because she has obviously a very vivid one and she doesn't need all your TikToks to get inspired. But I just...
Now, have you been able to see all the stuff that he said will eventually be wrapped around you, i.e. what your character looks like, what the world looks like? Have you seen a rough cut of it or will you see it when we all see it because it takes so long to finish? He is taking a long time to edit it down to three hours because, of course, he has a lot of material. So I'll see it when we go to the –
Is it called a royal premiere? Maybe one of the royals will want to come see it. We start the promotional tour in London. So we'll have to see if it's Prince Charles, Prince William. I'm sorry, King Charles. Oh, King Charles, yes. Well, there goes a royal premiere.
We can cut that part out, Sigourney. Yes, please cut that. Things are safe. But wait. Anyway, so I will see it when the world sees it. Wow. I do want to ask you, because I've never met you, just a couple questions about Alien. I know you probably should talk about it. Do you remember meeting him back? He wants to get back to that. I'm sorry. Do you remember me at the convention? Sean's probably forgotten he asked that. Go ahead. Wait, I just want to ask you something like Alien or Avatar or something. Okay.
I always wonder with actors like you in massive franchises, are you as, these guys are going to go nuts, are you as into the mythology and like the backstories and science of it all as we as the audience are? Or do you really just think of it as a job you're focusing on your character? Or do you get into it at all? You know, I kind of treat them all the same. Yeah. It's just the script. I'm on this, you know, when I first did Alien,
I couldn't understand why I was working in such beautiful sets. And when I wasn't on, I could roam through this world. And I remember thinking, it's so nice of Ridley and Fox to create these worlds that we can just walk through when we're off camera and feel like we're still on the planet. I thought they did it
And I was very touched by that. And then of course I realized it was over the camera. But the truth is, is that you have done some really iconic science fiction work. And maybe Sean is wondering, is that just, did you gravitate towards that or did it just find you? In other words, do you have like a passion for science fiction? No, I was cast. Excellent. I was on a short list for Ripley and I told Ridley I didn't like the script and I got the part.
I want to talk about that, yeah. Against your better judgment, you did it. But I will say this. Let me, as a follow-up, even though you don't have a sort of a natural draw or whatever it is to science fiction, but because you've been part of all these incredibly iconic science fiction pieces, do you have a sort of...
an appreciation for it? Like over the years, have you come to embrace it and appreciate it for what it is? Absolutely. It's an amazing space to work in because it's always in the future. And that's, it is about, you know, about being human and what our future is. So I think that's why,
The younger audiences love it, it's still relevant. It took me a while, I mean, listen, once you've done all these really ricocheting around the future, I totally get it, I love it. And especially working with Jim Cameron who is either thinking underwater or out in space. We're in Alpha Centauri, I guess is our...
our solar system for Pandora. No, it's fascinating. It is fascinating. I love it. I'm so lucky. And Ripley is like this iconic character of like sort of the embodiment of sort of like toughness and kind of grit and somebody who's, you know, do you...
Do you wear that well? Do you like... Am I like that? No. I scream at a spider. No, I wasn't going to ask. I didn't mean that. I meant more how do you feel when people sort of project that on you or how do you like that mantle? Do you like it or do you kind of shirk it? You know, I consider it Ripley's mantle and I try to... I feel like I have to then...
Throw that to her. I feel that way about Ripley too. And in fact, about the woman I based Ripley on. She's still like that, even though she's on earth.
So I feel like, you know, I'm a vessel, you know, and I was very, very lucky to be able to tell these stories. I was very lucky to have the writers who decided to make the lone survivor a woman. I was very lucky to have guys working with me who liked, you know, strong women. But it was all a commercial decision to make the survivor a woman because they just thought, you know,
Story-wise, no one will ever suspect that that's going to happen. Interesting. I remember being so... Which alien was it when you shaved your head? That's three. That's three. Was it... I just found that so...
I don't know, it's something about that time period or that moment right there. It seemed like such an incredibly brave and courageous and forward thing for this huge female movie star actor to do something as, you know, sort of traditionally unglamorous as to like shave your head,
did it feel more frightening or did it feel like this is something that's kind of cool and courageous and let's do it? And did you do it yourself? Tell me about that. It was David Fincher. Yeah. He'd just done Vogue, you know, and he was asked to do three. The Madonna video. Yeah. And so we were at this meeting with Fincher and some of the suits and
And it ended. And we all got up. And someone at Fox, probably the head, said, so, David, how do you see Ripley? And we were on our way out the door. And he turned around and he said, I don't know. How do you feel about bald? And I said, sounds great to me. And we just went off and did it. No way. Really?
I had a baby and I had lots of hair then. And so I tried to cut it in little, because they see black and white, I tried to cut it off in little stages so I didn't,
frighten her. You're bald at the same time. It's chilly. Otherwise, I think it's a really cool look. It's so cool. And I mean, just what a beautiful look too. And that sort of postmodern look too. Did the studio freak out when they saw the first footage that, oh my God, they weren't kidding? No, I think they were delighted. I think I was the one, my wig that has to work in the beginning was...
Sort of, you know, like a dog trying to run off my head. And so that was the greater concern, I think, than how I looked bald was how I looked with the wig on and did that match, you know, the Ripley we last saw. But wasn't Alien your first feature film ever? Well, basically, yes. Yes, the first week they had to say,
Ridley kept saying, you know, can you stop looking in the camera? And I said, well, I'd love to stop looking in the camera, but you keep putting it right in front of me. And I just had to ask. I asked a couple of the actors. I said, how do you deal with that? You know, how do you deal with it right being there? And it's right there. So...
But what are the odds? I mean, my God, your first one out of the gate. How did that happen? But it was, you have to remember, it was a very small budget movie. You know, it was Ridley Scott's second movie. I mean, I decided very quickly that I didn't have to worry about any of it because it was just like being off of Broadway. I just was going to be in a different medium, but the stakes were low. It was...
You know, it was a fantastic story. But, you know, no one even thought about franchises there then, maybe. And it was all on a stage, too. So it was in a small area, right? It probably felt really contained. At Shepperton, yes. How did they find you? Being your first movie, you've been doing a bunch of...
television shows or plays? No, I had gotten my first job at the public theater on a John Guare play where I played a maid who was cleaning the glacier a year before. And...
I feel very lucky. And so, you know, I'd been meeting. I was up for a Mike Nichols movie. I, you know, I was up for a Bob Fosse movie. I hardly had an agent. People really didn't know what to do with me. And I even was part of this depressing class where actors sat around and thought about how to get agents' attention like,
Should you make some chocolates, put them in a box and you eat them all and then you have your 8x10 underneath. That sounds like a classic Sean Hayes. I didn't do any of those. I did shit like that all the time. But I did write, the agent who finally accepted me, I wrote,
Something like, love Sigourney, in parentheses, it's a crime that I'm not working, Weaver. I was just desperate. I was just desperate. I hope they saved it. Was the Bob Fosse film that you read for, was it All That Jazz? I think it was the one with Mariel Hemingway.
1981 or one of those. Star 80. Star 80. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, when I was in, just a little sidebar thing, when I was in high school, I watched, I saw you in Gorillas in the Mist and you were like amazing. And after that movie, because the trailer would keep running on TV all the time. I mean, the commercial for it.
And so my go-to joke as a kid to anyone that was bothering me or teasing me was your line from "Girl is in the Mist," which was,
Get off my mountain! I would say that all the time. Oh, I love it. I'm going to use that. It's much more fun to say than get away from her, you bitch. I really do say that all the time. Get off my mountain still works. There must have been in that time a lot of... Are there any films from that era that you regret watching?
passing on or not doing that you go, ah. That at the time you thought, I can't get my head around this or I don't get it. And then later you went, oh, I wish I'd been able to get my head around that. There are a couple of, you know, in the 70s and 80s, there were a lot of what I would call male fantasy movies like Body Heat. Those were quite common, that kind of. And I just didn't get them. I just felt that if I couldn't relate to the character,
And if there was not much character to relate to, I would have been too insecure to just try to look good and sound fascinating because I don't think I'm charming enough to maintain that kind of focus if I don't believe in what I'm doing. And that's just me. I just couldn't relate to it. And speaking of that, like, because a lot of your character, do you ever...
include yourself in the process of writing with the writer? Or do you ever kind of like change some dialogue to fit your vision of the character? Because it just seems like something you might be interested in or do because it's so, everything you say seems so real and honest. Oh, well, that's very nice of you. Yeah. That is, I guess, our job. The only time I've really contributed stuff like that is when the script
does not continue to be good. And then you-- survival. And then it's cutting and rewriting a little so you can manage. Yeah. Very diplomatically put, by the way. Most people would be like, "Yeah, that script was terrible, and I rewrote the whole second act." Is your husband in the business?
Uh, Jim, um, ran the Flea Theater for 20 years downtown. He's an absolutely amazing director. Yeah. Um, and I feel very fortunate since we hardly knew each other when we got married that I had, I ended up marrying someone who totally got what I did, respected the time it took, uh,
really enjoys working with me on the occasional script we have to rewrite or um just working on working on you know i can run lines with him we talk about stuff so i like to hit the ground running i have the same relationship actually yeah it's great with her husband with her husband yeah sean yeah does she know i'm i'm revealing it right now we'll be right back and now back to the show
Let's get back to you guys got married before you knew each other. This was sort of an arranged thing. We're making news today, you guys. Well, I was older. Mm-hmm. And...
I went to the Williamstown Theatre Festival and on the very first day I was there, I saw this cute guy chain-smoking in the student union in front of like a stack of books on Chekhov. And I went, wow, that's my kind of guy. And then I didn't really speak to him.
And at the end of... Wait, was that your strategy? You were going to kind of ignore him a little bit? No. Diane Wiest and I were in a Pinter play on the main stage and Jim was sort of directing the non-X, the non-equity kids. And, you know, he ran the bar and...
This guy sounds really hot. You know, he looked like a player and I thought he's not for me. I don't need that. And so then at the end of the summer, I was sitting at the sort of party next to Diane Wiesty and I said...
See that guy over there across the room? I saw him the first day. I'm going to go over and ask him to dance. And she went, oh, go, Siggy, go. Because we both were unattached that summer. That's a great waste. And all we talked about was like, you know, despair. In the name of your biography, go, Siggy, go. Uh-huh. And so you walk over. So you saunter over. You saunter over. Well, maybe. Maybe I tried to saunter. I got up to the guy who was standing with his friends. And I said, hi, you want to dance? And he went, no.
And I just was like, oh, now I have to get across the room. So I just remember going toward Diane, kind of, you know, getting closer to the ground. Every second he caught up with me and he said, I'm so sorry. Of course I want to dance with you. But I couldn't look at him. I had been deflated so entirely.
And then months later, I had a Halloween square dance birthday party when we started shooting Ghostbusters. And I went through the book and I thought, all right, I'll try again. And he came and he had such a good time, even though he didn't know anyone. And about two months later, we decided to get married. Wow. We've been married 38 years. Oh, that's awesome. 38 years. That's amazing. That's really cool.
I think part of it is that you're not with each other all the time. I was off and away filming another alien or something. But no, he's so great. He's from Hawaii. He's filled with aloha. He's just, I'm so lucky, you know. That's great. That's amazing. Did you guys ever decide to have kids or were things just too busy? No, we have a wonderful daughter who's now 32. I don't know how she still looks 12. Well, she's got such terrible genes, you know. Did she go into the business as well?
She teaches. Oh, all right. Yeah. Amazing.
In fact, they're non-binary and they teach. Gotcha. Not acting. Academics. Yes? Digital storytelling and world building and things like that. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. What a cool family. Yeah, very cool family. We may give that impression, but we're just... No, I mean, Sean watches TV and eats Sour Patch Kids all day. I mean...
You could have had one of those, you know? That's true. I just watch all your movies on a loop and you think I'm kidding. We would have been delighted to have you. Absolutely. But speaking of weddings, didn't you officiate... Because you love dogs as much as I do. I think we all own dogs. Oh, yeah. Right? And didn't you officiate a dog wedding once or something? Come on. Yes. Yes. Our daughter was 10. Yeah. And...
We decided to breed our little Italian greyhound. And Char said, well, if she's going to have babies, she has to get married. And I said, well, absolutely. So we had...
in a little beautiful wedding dress that we bought at Zittimer's. We had the groom, we had a best man who brought the groom in. Char was the minister, we had a pre-puptual agreement. Wow. And it was covered. And I must say, they seemed quite in love. And then the honeymoon happened. Yeah.
They couldn't figure out how to get together. I heard they couldn't keep their paws off each other. Guys. By the way, laughing. Dumbest.
Anyway, so now we have actually during COVID, we did those two dogs are rest in peace long ago. And now we have a little beautiful little Italian greyhound named Cosi Fang Tutti because she is an Italian greyhound. The Mozart opera. Yes, with a G. Yeah, Cosi Fang. That's great. Thanks, Sean. Yeah, Sean, good. That was a good catch. Good for you.
Wait, so I want to know just a few more things about Avatar before we let you go. Yeah. Now, when you guys, so was there talk about filming them all at the same time? Are you guys, this is like more of a Bateman question, are you guys contracted to do all of them so you cannot do other work? You have to remain available? You mean all five? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Like you have to block out the next five years of your life. Did they pay for first position? Go ahead, Sigourney. I don't know. But I'm just curious to know, like, do you have to keep yourself now available for that franchise for, what, five, six, seven, eight, nine? Sean has a one act he'd love for you to read. So two's coming out. In two years, three will come out. Probably after three, when Jim can imagine going back to this,
after creating a few more submarines, we will start four and five and we will shoot them together. And then eventually they will come out. So the last one will come out in 28 where I'll be walking with a cane. And how long does it take to shoot each one of them?
Well, I think I was on it working regularly a year and a half. But I think Jim probably, he had to do the live action, which is with actors you see. That was another year and a half. So I'm sure it's like three years.
three years to just shoot it, and meanwhile Weta takes about five years to transform it. Wow. So it is a big thing. Just colossal. No, they have to work around my schedule. Yeah, there you go. Where do you do that? It's in Manhattan Beach for the performance capture and then in New Zealand for the live action.
Now, doesn't a nice quick run off-Broadway or going back to Williamstown, doesn't that sound a little bit more manageable? What if you slide one of those right in the middle of one of these avatar shoots? Well, I do. I do try to, obviously, you really need to go to the opposite end of the spectrum and do small. I've done about three small movies that are all coming out this year too, and they keep me sane.
Yeah, amazing. We watched, may I just say, we were just devotees of Ozark, which was so terrifying. You guys were so amazing in it. But I have one suggestion. Uh-oh. This is good. We are locked. At the very end, I think it should have been your daughter. Because we assume that she's escaped all of this and she might...
have a normal life, maybe. And if she had killed him, we would have gone, oh my God, everyone is going to be in this. It would have been way better. I think a lot of people agree with you, Sigourney. It would have been way better. William Goldman's already written a book about it. It's called How Ozark Could Have Been Better. No, I'm sorry. I don't mean that to be. No, I'm with you.
It's a great idea. You know, it's so funny. I emailed him that exact same suggestion. Sorry. But anyway, Sigourney, we've taken up too much of your time. We love you. Thank you for being here. It's so cool you decided to do this. Thank you so much. Well, I'm so grateful to you for thinking of me and we love your show and you guys are awesome. I love the way you do ads too.
Oh, yeah, we've got to do some of those today, I think. I wanted to do an ad for you. You want to? Yeah. Why don't you do it? I don't know. Do we have one? Or just what about a, hey, buckle up, here comes a new smart look. Yes, yes. Do an intro. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we should do an intro. Just that? Something like that, yeah. You know what? Make it your own. Let's just have fun with it. Here we go. Rolling. Introduce yourself and then introduce the show. Yeah. Yeah.
Hey, who are you today? Who is that over there? I'm Sigourney Weaver, and I just want to say, hey, buckle up. Here comes a new Smartless. Wow! Wow, we're off to the races. Anytime. Anytime. Thank you, Sigourney. Thank you guys so much. Thank you, Sigourney. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Love you. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.
What a pleasant way to start the day. Oh, my gosh. I mean, I truly... Who doesn't, when you're scrolling through the thing and see Aliens on, just sit and watch it every time? Sigourney Weaver is iconic. I didn't accidentally say I've been in love with her my entire life. Did I? That didn't come out, right? You did not say that. That stayed internal? Great. Did you? Did you get... Think about...
All the movies we could have talked about. We didn't even talk about Ghostbusters. No, I know. And that was probably on purpose because that's where it really started for me. I know. Because obviously, who are you going to call? Well, I guess... Oh, Will. By the way, I did want to mention to her because somebody once accused me and she needs to know.
I ain't afraid of no ghost. Well, he just did it again. No, but I wish that I had just let her know. I ain't afraid of no ghost. Okay. No. Oh, you're really, you're really. Well, I'm adamant. Your conviction. Yeah, I'm adamant about it. But you know, when you guys have people like that on that you're super fans of, aren't you kind of afraid to ask them about,
you know, the things that made them famous because you think they're just sick of talking about it. But you kind of want to know, right? Well, yeah, that's our little sort of like...
our little privilege. We're so lucky to be able to just say, hey, excuse me, sir, can I ask you a question? Yeah, exactly. I love that, Jason, you always want to know schedule and you always want to know, do you get Fridays? What did you do? How did you get out of it? You're always looking for the out. You get portal to portal, right? It's unbelievable.
You know, there's a show called, I don't know if I think it's on Netflix, maybe it's called The Movies That Made Us. Do you know this show? No. And it's all these iconic movies and they get some of the people that worked on them to talk about it. And they have behind the scenes clips nobody's ever seen. And one of them was aliens. And I just watched it like a month ago. And I wanted to talk to her about it, about all of the...
It was just kind of a mess and everybody was yelling at each other and screaming and it got shut down for a while and then they went back and-- Thank God you didn't ask her when we just had her on the show. -No, I know, but I mean-- -What the fuck is-- What are you doing? Any other exciting questions you would like to ask? Anybody else? Hey, you got anything that you want to ask Dax, our first guest ever? Now we're a couple hundred in, maybe have you worked up a good database of post-interview questions?
Sean, also, did you guys find like a tear in the space-time continuum? Where are you and Scotty finding all this time to watch all this shit? Holy crap. What do you mean? At night? You watch a lot of stuff. Does your night start around 3.30? I can't believe how many documentaries and stuff you've seen. I just watched the one on Sinead O'Connor. I thought that was pretty good. Wait, you guys are always telling me. Will, it's the same as you reading 10 books a day. That's true. I do neither.
What am I so busy doing? I got it. Can I start? No, I wasn't soliciting a response at all. Quiet. I'd love to see Alex come back in right through that rear door there. It's time for mom to do another special guest spot. When you're done there visiting and working and stuff, is it going to be hard to say, uh-oh, uh-oh, here it comes? Hang on, here it comes. Just to say bye. Bye.
I don't think we can ever use just bye. Why not? Why not? It's lazy? Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. I mean, I... I live here. I grew up here, but then I moved to New York, and now I live in L.A., but I have a place down on the East Coast, so technically I'm... Bye, Coastal! Still not great, but better. I feel like we've used that one a million times. No, by the way, so I'm here... Seriously, you're... I'm here with...
I'm here at my dad's study, and my dad went to the University of Manitoba. And Manitoba, I'm here at my dad's study, and my parents are from... You didn't need to reset yourself there. I didn't reset. We're going to cut. No, we're not going to cut it. We're going to keep in that you've reset yourself. Still rolling. So I'm here because I wanted to include... I'm here in my parents' place. Yes. I am Will. Okay. And I...
You were eating for what part today? My parents are from Manitoba, which they have, you know, the animal, the provincial animal. Let's cut. Let's just do a brand new slate. Is the bison. What did he just say? That was.
Oh, Manitoba is a Canadian bison? Is that what he said? No, that's the province and their provincial animal is the bison. Bison! Bison! It's just a wipeout. And then the music starts. We'll talk to you next week, listeners. That's all we got. You say bye right now. Goodbye, everybody. Bye. Pasta. Smart. Nice.
SmartLess. SmartLess is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Michael Grant Terry, Rob Armijarv, and Bennett Barbico. SmartLess. If you like SmartLess, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
