Sigourney Weaver’s 10 Most Badass Characters, Ranked
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Sigourney Weaver is a legendary Hollywood movie star, particularly in the science fiction genre. She’s kicked butt in a ton of films and we look back.
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Easily one of the most recognizable faces in the history of science-fiction movies, Sigourney Weaver has forged one of the most distinct careers for an actress in modern Hollywood and beyond. Her versatility has seen her win acclaim for both comedic and dramatic roles, with a host of memorable characters being produced in the process.
From smaller parts with big impacts to big roles in some of the biggest movies ever made (and one of the most significant leading movie roles of all time), here are our picks for Sigourney Weaver’s ten most badass characters so far.
10 The Director (The Cabin in the Woods)
Though a role with a very short amount of screen time, The Director still very clearly has a huge significance to the story in The Cabin in the Woods. Drew Goddard’s horror comedy is a play on the conventions of horror movies as much as it is a criticism of them and Weaver, of course, is a big part of horror movie history.
The Director, successfully hyped as the figurehead of the mysterious organization at the center of the movie, appears at the end to explain that the main characters’ ordeal has been specifically designed as a blood sacrifice to appease potentially world-ending ancient gods. Weaver’s typically-sincere delivery of the story is as funny as it is frightening.
9 The Big Guy (Paul)
Written by — and starring — the Cornetto Trilogy double act of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, Paul is a loving homage to American sci-fi pop culture — one that wouldn’t feel complete without Sigourney Weaver. (They even nab a Spielberg cameo.)
The Big Guy is a very similar role to The Director from The Cabin in the Woods but with a stronger prominence throughout the movie, mostly featured only as a voice role that builds up to her arrival in the big finale.
8 The Warden (Holes)
Another of Weaver’s rare out-and-out villain roles. Like The Big Guy from Paul, The Warden is a bad guy who clearly enjoys the trappings of being a villain. She’s a commanding antagonist throughout the movie who makes a big impact on the main characters even when she’s not on screen. This is no surprise when considering the movie’s origins.
Holes was a screenplay adapted by Louis Sachar from his novel of the same name. The hugely popular book was famous for its clearly-defined characters and the movie lives up to the legacy.
7 Dana Barrett (Ghostbusters & Ghostbusters II)
One of Weaver’s most well-known performances by far. Dana Barrett could be boiled down to just a love interest for Bill Murray’s character, but she’s much more integral to the plot of each movie, with or without Murray’s Peter Venkman.
Dana’s a memorable character for her independence; she’s not hapless or really ever a damsel in distress. At least, not as much as she could have been. She lives a successful and solitary life as a cellist in Manhattan in the first movie and then as a single mother in the second.
6 Helen Hudson (Copycat)
Traumatized by an assault from an obsessive serial killer, Dr. Helen Hudson suffers from severe agoraphobia and is confined to her apartment. But when a local copycat serial killer begins to murder people in recreations of famous slayings, she battles her debilitating anxiety to help the police solve the case.
Jon Amiel’s thriller is renowned for its surprisingly complex characters and Weaver’s unconventional teaming with Holly Hunter’s talented detective makes for a memorable, and underrated, duo.
5 Carrack (The Cold Light of Day)
A backstabbing CIA agent in Mabrouk El Mechri’s thriller, Carrack betrays one of her own operatives to steal a briefcase from Israel to then sell to the highest bidder. Though a role that Weaver took on well into her sixties, Carrack isn’t simply a behind-the-scenes villain. She’s fearless and determined, going in — literally — guns blazing against Henry Cavill’s lead hero.
Though an almost universally-panned movie, Weaver’s thoroughly unapologetic bad guy makes up the most entertaining parts of the movie.
4 Jasper (Rakka)
Jasper is the leader of a group of resisting human survivors in Neill Blomkamp’s horrifying alien invasion short. The twenty-minute film was the first release from Blomkamp’s Oats Studios, formed after the director’s Hollywood projects — such as Weaver’s return to the Alien franchise in a direct sequel to James Cameron’s Aliens — failed to materialize.
Though brief, Rakka successfully sets the stage for a much wider idea to take shape in the future and Weaver’s archetypal figurehead could become another classic role for her one day.
3 Gwen DeMarco (Galaxy Quest)
The most famous of Sigourney Weaver’s self-referential roles is a lot less on-the-nose than a role like The Big Guy in Paul. In Galaxy Quest, Weaver stars as Gwen DeMarco, who once played the role of the female lead on a Star Trek-style science-fiction TV show called “Galaxy Quest,” and with her former co-stars, finds her character thrust into the reality of an alien war after an intergalactic misunderstanding.
Gwen DeMarco channels the frustrations of similar characters and actors from the genre, particularly Nichelle Nichols from the original Star Trek crew, with an unparalleled personal experience for Weaver to draw from herself.
2 Dr. Grace Augustine (Avatar)
Reteaming with director James Cameron over twenty years after their success with Aliens, Weaver plays a kind of human missionary on Cameron’s alien world of Pandora. Her determination to understand the indigenous life on the planet, and her staunch opposition to the militaristic powers looking to exploit it, enables the plot and the audience’s understanding of it.
She’s slated to return in the numerous proposed sequels to the project, but fans are still unsure of how this will happen, given her character’s status at the end of the movie.
1 Ripley (The Alien Franchise)
Truly an icon of science-fiction and movies in general, Ellen Ripley first appeared as the main character in Ridley Scott’s original Alien and through three sequels, she’s done it all. She’s been a survivor, a warrior, a martyr and even been resurrected in the form of a marginally superpowered clone.
Ripley is a fantastic protagonist to go through both a horror movie and an action movie with — pragmatic yet emotional — and it was Weaver’s first leading movie role. Thanks to the overall androgyny of Alien’s characters, it cemented her as one of the most unique faces in genre cinema and a go-to example for more empowering representations of women in film.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/sigourney-weaver-best-badass-characters-ranked/