Sigourney Weaver fears she had a “nervous breakdown” after a drama teacher had a brutal outlook on her career prospects. While studying at Yale University, Weaver says she had a hard time being cast in serious dramatic plays. Some of her acting teachers, she says, even labelled her as “talentless” and said she should “stick to comedy”.
Speaking to Gyles Brandreth on his Rosebud podcast, Weaver says some of the teachers were “horrible” to her and left her questioning her chances of breaking into acting. However, she eventually found success with the Yale Cabaret, an entirely student-run theatre that lets people act outside of their usual discipline.
While performing in shows in Connecticut, Weaver says she lived with her then boyfriend in New York, commuting between the two for school. It was then she feared she had a “nervous breakdown” that would leave her “sobbing on the train”.
The 75-year-old said: “I auditioned for all the drama schools and got into them all, including Yale, where I went. I was quite confident when I arrived and by the time I left they had told me I had no talent and would never get anywhere.
“They were horrible to everybody and by the time I left they were fired. By that point I thought, ‘I obviously have no talent, no one’s going to hire me’.
“I decided to stay at the school because my father said, ‘listen, I’ve already paid for a year and a half’, my mother said ‘pack your bags and leave’ and I thought, ‘well, at least if I get a degree I can run a theatre, and my friends could work there’.
“What ended up happening is that my friends rallied around me and I was in one cabaret show after the other. By the end of that year, I think I had a nervous breakdown, because I decided to live with my boyfriend in New York and commute everyday.
“I used to spend the whole commute just sobbing on the train. I was so discouraged.”
After leaving Yale in 1974, Weaver went on to appear in the Woody Allen-directed romantic comedy-drama Annie Hall as well as some stage shows. In 1979 however, a then relatively unknown Ridley Scott approached her with a script for Alien.
Weaver initially dismissed the film, saying she “didn’t like the script”. The film however became a blockbuster hit, despite mixed reviews, making around $188 million at the box office and becoming a cult classic.
Speaking about her time on Alien, Weaver said: “At the time I was a terrible snob. I went to the wrong place for the meeting. I’d read the script, which I thought was…you know…if you don’t know the design of the alien, and you don’t know Ridley Scott, because nobody knew Ridley Scott, you don’t really know what it is.
“So when he said, ‘What do you think of the script?’ I said: ‘Well, I didn’t really like it’”
Weaver says the film painted a “bleak picture of humanity” but was won over when Scott pulled out drawings of the alien. Brandreth pointed out that the film “changed her life” making Weaver a globally recognised star with a “big audience”.