The One Thing You Never Knew About Actress Sigourney Weaver

written by cassidy February 3, 2017

One of our favourite silver screen doyennes, Sigourney Weaver, stars in the new movie A Monster Calls.

Picture: Getty Images.

Based on the award-winning novel by Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls tells the story of 12-year-old Conor (Lewis MacDougall), who is dealing with his mother’s (Felicity Jones) terminal cancer.

He summons an unlikely ally in the form of a 40-foot monster (voiced by Liam Neeson). Sigourney plays Conor’s strict but loving grandmother. She lives with her husband, stage director Jim Simpson, in New York and they have a grown-up daughter.

Here Sigourney shares her experiences on set, and what she’s most afraid of…

She’s a rather scary grandmother, but I liked the challenge of playing someone who isn’t so sympathetic, trying to find the humanity.

It’s funny though because actually I’m such a pushover in real life – I scream if I see a spider!

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My role in A Monster Calls marks my first as a grandmother and I think people will probably say, “Well it’s about time – you’ve been around for so many years!”

I’m rarely offered this kind of role though because I’m often thought of as a career woman (I get the vice president roles), but to me, these family stories are at the heart of everything we do.

But, my 26-year-old daughter won’t let me even think about being a grandmother in my own life yet.

I have so much admiration for my on-screen grandson, Lewis MacDougall.

In fact, my main problem with him was that I didn’t have too much fun – he’s so lovely to be around, but I’m supposed to be this unlikeable character.

We had great fun hanging out together off-screen though; we went out for dinner when we were filming in Barcelona and we went to see the film Guardians of the Galaxy when we were in Manchester – that does a lot for a relationship!

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What the story shows is how it feels to be losing a member of the family – in my character’s case, her only child – to an illness.

It’s every parent’s greatest fear to lose a child, isn’t it? And to have a child you’re trying to save by telling them to eat broccoli and them refusing to listen to you – if only they’d do what you’ve asked them to do. I think every parent goes through that.