Happy Birthday Sigourney Weaver!!!

Sigourney Weaver is one of our most dependable actresses.  She brings an intensity and beauty to her performances that one could only dream of.  She turns 64 today.  Can you believe that?  Sixty-effing-four!  She looks wonderful.  When I looked up her filmography, I forgot how much work she has done in the last thirty years.  I forgot she was in so many films that I really loved.

Weaver will always be the original female action star.  She's starred in four Alien films, and she received her first Academy Award nomination (for Lead Actress for 1987's Aliens) for playing her iconic role, Ripley. 

My first experience with Weaver came with the Ghostbusters films.  

In 1989, Weaver joined the small group of people who were nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year.  She was nominated for Lead Actress for Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey (she lost to Jodie Foster) and Supporting Actress for Working Girl (she lost to Geena Davis).

One of my favorite performances, however, came with 1995's Copycat.  Weaver plays a serial killer field expert who becomes an agoraphobic after a run-in with a dangerous former subject played by Harry Connick Jr.  There is a killer copying the most famous serial murders, and two detectives (Holly Hunter and Dermot Mulroney) turn to Weaver for her expertise.

If I had to pick her "best" performance, I would say her performance as Janey Carver in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm.  The film is packed with great performances (including Kevin Kline, Joan Allen and Christina Ricci), but Weaver's sexually aggressive neighbor is the highlight for me.  Set in 1973, the times are a changing with Watergate, water beds and key parties.  Weaver won a BAFTA for her role.  

Does anyone like Heartbreakers besides me?  I mean, where else can you hear Weaver perform "Back in the USSR"?  Nowhere!

I still hate Avatar.  Sorry I'm not sorry.  

I continually kick myself over not stalking her when she was here in Pittsburgh filming Abduction.  Girls were swooning over Taylor Lautner's abs (who am I kidding--so was I!), but when I saw the trailer I was so mad at myself.  

Weaver popped up in last year's smart horror comedy, The Cabin in the Woods.  She's in the last ten minutes, but the second she walked on screen, I yelled out, "SIGOURNEY WEAVER?!?!"

She starred in two different plays about 9/11.  In The Mercy Seat (above) she starred as Liev Schreiber's boss in Neil LaBute's play.  They both work in the World Trade Center, and Schreiber's wife thinks he's in the building when the New York City is attacked.  Schreiber must decide whether he is going to confess his adultery to his wife or run away with Weaver.  LaBute is a brutal playwright, and his characters never play nice with each other.

In The Guys, she played Joan an editor helping a NYC firefighter prepare the eulogies of his fallen comrades.  She starred Off-Broadway with her Ghostbusters co-star Bill Murray.  The next year, she starred in the film adaptation along with Anthony LaPaglia.  

I've never watched the miniseries Political Animals, but Weaver was always the selling point for me.  She plays Elaine Barrish, a former First Lady who goes up against many political opponents.  The six episode series was praised for it's acting, and Weaver received an Emmy Award nomination for her performance.  

Weaver will team back up with Ridley Scott for Exodus next year, and she will reprise her role of Grace in the upcoming Avatar sequels.  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIGOURNEY WEAVER!!!