View allAll Photos Tagged sigourneyweaver
Today's photo tour sends us to Disney's Hollywood Studios for a shot of Sigourney Weaver in that scary, sci-fi movie, Alien. This scene was always one of my favorites. She always looked so life-like and you can tell by the look on her face that something was about to happen. You always knew that just after you passed her, there would be an alien coming from the ceiling, getting ready to pop out and scare you. Have a magical day!
A look back at most of my previous Lego classic sci-fi customs, some are definately in need of an update - I'm looking at you Logan 5! Yul Brynner is already sporting a revamped torso decal and Taylor (animal skins version) has a new face. I have four more on my to do list but I don't know when I'll get around to making them, so, it feels like the right time for this retrospective of a retrospective.
Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 63. Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).
Delicate American actress Winona Ryder (1971) is known for her dark hair, brown eyes and pale skin. She starred in films such as Beetlejuice (1988), Heathers (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and the television series Stranger Things. In 1994, she won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in the film The Age of Innocence (1993), and Ryder was nominated twice for an Oscar.
Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Winona (Olmsted County), Minnesota, in 1971. Yes, her name is very much the same as her birthplace. Her parents, Cindy Horowitz (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller, were part of the hippie movement. She has a brother named Uri Horowitz (1976), who got his first name after Yuri Gagarin, a half-sister named Sunyata Palmer (1968), and a half-brother named Jubal Palmer (1970) from her mother Cindy's first marriage. From 1978, Winona grew up in a commune near Mendocino in California, which had no electricity. When Winona was seven, her mother began to manage an old cinema in a nearby barn and would screen films all day. She allowed Winona to miss school to watch movies with her. In 1981, the family moved to Petaluma, California. Since Winona was considered an outsider in public school, she was sent to a public school and later to the American Conservatory Theater acting school. She was discovered at the age of thirteen by a talent scout at a theatre performance at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. In 1985, she applied for a role in the film Desert Bloom (David Seltzer, 1986) with a video in which she performed a monologue from the book 'Franny and Zooey' by J. D. Salinger. Although the casting choice was fellow actress Annabeth Gish, director and writer David Seltzer recognised her talent and cast her as Rina in his film Lucas (David Seltzer, 1986) about a teenager (Corey Haim) and his life in high school. When telephoned to ask what name she wanted to be called in the credits, she chose Ryder as her stage name because her father's Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels album was playing in the background. Her real hair colour is blonde but when she made Lucas (1986), her hair colour was dyed black. She was told to keep it that colour and with the exception of Edward Scissorhands (1990), it has stayed that colour since. Her next film was Square Dance (Daniel Petrie, 1987), in which the protagonist she portrays lives a life between two worlds: on a traditional farm and in a big city. Ryder's performance received good reviews, although neither film was a commercial success. Her acting in Lucas led director Tim Burton to cast her in his film Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 1988). In this comedy, she played Lydia Deetz, who moves with her family into a house inhabited by ghosts (played by Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Keaton). Ryder, as well as the film, received positive reviews, and Beetlejuice was also successful at the box office. In 1989, she starred as Veronica Sawyer in the independent film Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1989) about a couple (Ryder and Christian Slater) who kill popular schoolgirls. Ryder's agent had previously advised her against the role. The film was a financial failure, but Ryder received positive reviews. The Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire! (Jim McBride, 1989) was also a flop. That same year, Ryder appeared in Mojo Nixon's music video 'Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child'. At the premiere of Great Balls of Fire (1989), Ryder met fellow actor and later film partner Johnny Depp. The couple became engaged a few months later, but their relationship ended in 1993. He had a tattoo of her name and after they broke up, he had this reduced to "Wino forever".
In 1990, Winona Ryder had her breakthrough performance alongside her boyfriend Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990). The fantasy film was an international box-office success. Ryder was selected for the role of Mary Corleone in The Godfather: Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990) but had to drop out of the role after catching the flu from the strain of doing the films Welcome Home Roxy (Jim Abrahams, 1990) and Mermaids (Richard Benjamin, 1990) back-to-back. Ryder's performance alongside Cher and Christina Ricci in the family comedy Mermaids (1990) was praised by critics and she was nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category. Ryder also appeared with Cher and Ricci in the music video for 'The Shoop Shoop Song', the film's theme song. Independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch wrote a role specifically for her in Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch, 1991), as a tattooed, chain-smoking cabdriver who dreams of becoming a mechanic. Ryder was cast in a dual role as Mina Murray and Elisabeta in Bram Stoker's Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992). In 1993, she starred as Blanca in the drama The House of the Spirits (Bille August, 1993) alongside Antonio Banderas, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. It is the film adaptation of Isabel Allende's bestseller of the same name. Together with Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis, she starred in Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993), the film adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel. She was Martin Scorsese's first and only choice for the role of May Welland. For years, she kept the message he left on her voicemail, informing her she got the role. Her part earned her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and an Oscar nomination. She also earned positive reviews for her role in the comedy Reality Bites (Ben Stiller, 1994). She received critical acclaim and another Oscar nomination the same year as Jo in the drama Little Women (Gillian Armstrong, 1994). In 1996, she starred alongside Daniel Day-Lewis and Joan Allen in The Crucible (Nicholas Hytner, 1996), an adaptation of Arthur Miller's stage play about the Puritan witch hunt in Salem. The film was not a success; however, Ryder's performance was favourably reviewed. A year later she portrayed an android in the successful horror film Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) alongside Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. In 1998 she starred in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998). after Drew Barrymore turned down the role. In 1999 she starred as a psychiatric patient with the borderline syndrome in the drama Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold, 1999), based on Susanna Kaysen's autobiographical novel. Girl, Interrupted, the first film on which she served as executive producer, was supposed to be Ryder's comeback in Hollywood after the flops of the past years. However, the film became the breakthrough for her colleague Angelina Jolie, who won an Oscar for her role. In this decade, she was involved with Dave Pirner, the lead singer of the group Soul Asylum, from 1993 to 1996 and with Matt Damon from December 1997 to April 2000.
Winona Ryder appeared alongside Richard Gere in Autumn in New York (Joan Chen, 2000), a romance about an older man's love for a younger woman. She also made a cameo appearance in the comedy Zoolander (Ben Stiller, 2000). The comedy Mr. Deeds (Steven Brill, 2002) with Adam Sandler became her biggest financial success to date. The film failed with critics and Ryder was nominated for the Golden Raspberry award. Also in 2002, she was sentenced to three years probation and 480 hours of work for repeatedly shoplifting $5,000 worth of clothes. The incident caused a career setback. She withdrew from the public eye in the following years and did not appear in front of the camera again until 2006. In that year, she appeared in the novel adaptation A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006) alongside Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., and Woody Harrelson. In 2009, she made an appearance in Star Trek: The Future Begins (J. J. Abrams, 2009) as Spock (Zachary Quinto)'s mother Amanda Grayson. The prequel became a huge success at the box office and Ryder earned a Scream Award for Best Guest Appearance. She also appeared alongside Robin Wright and Julianne Moore in Rebecca Miller's Pippa Lee (2009), and alongside Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (2010). Ryder starred in the television film When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story (John Kent Harrison, 2010), for which she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. She starred in the comedy The Dilemma (Ron Howard, 2011) and the thrillers The Iceman (Ariel Vromen, 2012), and The Letter (Jay Anania, 2012) opposite James Franco. In Tim Burton's Frankenweenie (2012) she lent her voice to the character Elsa Van Helsing. Since 2016, she has embodied the main character, Joyce Byers, in the Netflix series Stranger Things (2016-2022), for which she received positive responses. Her role in the series has been described by many as a comeback. Since 2011 Winona Ryder is in a relationship with Scott MacKinlay Hahn.
Sources: Pedro Borges (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Following the events of “Aliens” (1986), an egg hatches aboard the Colonial Marine spaceship “Sulaco” releasing a facehugger. A fire starts and the ship’s computer launches an escape pod containing Ellen Ripley, the young girl Newt, Hicks, and the damaged android Bishop, all in cryogenic sleep. The pod crashes on a planet housing a foundry and a penal colony populated by violent male inmates. The facehugger was in the escape pod and secretly attacks Spike, the prison dog. Soon, an alien bursts from Spike and begins killing prison inmates.
Movie trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUTaNMJJBa8
Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 59. Winona Ryder and Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).
Delicate American actress Winona Ryder (1971) is known for her dark hair, brown eyes and pale skin. She starred in films such as Beetlejuice (1988), Heathers (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and the television series Stranger Things. In 1994, she won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in the film The Age of Innocence (1993), and Ryder was nominated twice for an Oscar.
Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Winona (Olmsted County), Minnesota, in 1971. Yes, her name is very much the same as her birthplace. Her parents, Cindy Horowitz (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller, were part of the hippie movement. She has a brother named Uri Horowitz (1976), who got his first name after Yuri Gagarin, a half-sister named Sunyata Palmer (1968), and a half-brother named Jubal Palmer (1970) from her mother Cindy's first marriage. From 1978, Winona grew up in a commune near Mendocino in California, which had no electricity. When Winona was seven, her mother began to manage an old cinema in a nearby barn and would screen films all day. She allowed Winona to miss school to watch movies with her. In 1981, the family moved to Petaluma, California. Since Winona was considered an outsider in public school, she was sent to a public school and later to the American Conservatory Theater acting school. She was discovered at the age of thirteen by a talent scout at a theatre performance at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. In 1985, she applied for a role in the film Desert Bloom (David Seltzer, 1986) with a video in which she performed a monologue from the book 'Franny and Zooey' by J. D. Salinger. Although the casting choice was fellow actress Annabeth Gish, director and writer David Seltzer recognised her talent and cast her as Rina in his film Lucas (David Seltzer, 1986) about a teenager (Corey Haim) and his life in high school. When telephoned to ask what name she wanted to be called in the credits, she chose Ryder as her stage name because her father's Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels album was playing in the background. Her real hair colour is blonde but when she made Lucas (1986), her hair color was dyed black. She was told to keep it that colour and with the exception of Edward Scissorhands (1990), it has stayed that color since. Her next film was Square Dance (Daniel Petrie, 1987), in which the protagonist she portrays lives a life between two worlds: on a traditional farm and in a big city. Ryder's performance received good reviews, although neither film was a commercial success. Her acting in Lucas led director Tim Burton to cast her in his film Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 1988). In this comedy, she played Lydia Deetz, who moves with her family into a house inhabited by ghosts (played by Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Keaton). Ryder, as well as the film, received positive reviews, and Beetlejuice was also successful at the box office. In 1989, she starred as Veronica Sawyer in the independent film Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1989) about a couple (Ryder and Christian Slater) who kill popular schoolgirls. Ryder's agent had previously advised her against the role. The film was a financial failure, but Ryder received positive reviews. The Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire! (Jim McBride, 1989) was also a flop. That same year, Ryder appeared in Mojo Nixon's music video 'Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child'. At the premiere of Great Balls of Fire (1989), Ryder met fellow actor and later film partner Johnny Depp. The couple became engaged a few months later, but their relationship ended in 1993. He had a tattoo of her name and after they broke up, he had this reduced to "Wino forever".
In 1990, Winona Ryder had her breakthrough performance alongside her boyfriend Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990). The fantasy film was an international box-office success. Ryder was selected for the role of Mary Corleone in The Godfather: Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990) but had to drop out of the role after catching the flu from the strain of doing the films Welcome Home Roxy (Jim Abrahams, 1990) and Mermaids (Richard Benjamin, 1990) back-to-back. Ryder's performance alongside Cher and Christina Ricci in the family comedy Mermaids (1990) was praised by critics and she was nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category. Ryder also appeared with Cher and Ricci in the music video for 'The Shoop Shoop Song', the film's theme song. Independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch wrote a role specifically for her in Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch, 1991), as a tattooed, chain-smoking cabdriver who dreams of becoming a mechanic. Ryder was cast in a dual role as Mina Murray and Elisabeta in Bram Stoker's Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992). In 1993, she starred as Blanca in the drama The House of the Spirits (Bille August, 1993) alongside Antonio Banderas, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. It is the film adaptation of Isabel Allende's bestseller of the same name. Together with Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis, she starred in Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993), the film adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel. She was Martin Scorsese's first and only choice for the role of May Welland. For years, she kept the message he left on her voicemail, informing her she got the role. Her part earned her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and an Oscar nomination. She also earned positive reviews for her role in the comedy Reality Bites (Ben Stiller, 1994). She received critical acclaim and another Oscar nomination the same year as Jo in the drama Little Women (Gillian Armstrong, 1994). In 1996, she starred alongside Daniel Day-Lewis and Joan Allen in The Crucible (Nicholas Hytner, 1996), an adaptation of Arthur Miller's stage play about the Puritan witch hunt in Salem. The film was not a success; however, Ryder's performance was favourably reviewed. A year later she portrayed an android in the successful horror film Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) alongside Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. In 1998 she starred in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998). after Drew Barrymore turned down the role. In 1999 she starred as a psychiatric patient with borderline syndrome in the drama Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold, 1999), based on Susanna Kaysen's autobiographical novel. Girl, Interrupted, the first film on which she served as executive producer, was supposed to be Ryder's comeback in Hollywood after the flops of the past years. However, the film became the breakthrough for her colleague Angelina Jolie, who won an Oscar for her role. In this decade, she was involved with Dave Pirner, the lead singer of the group Soul Asylum, from 1993 to 1996 and with Matt Damon from December 1997 to April 2000.
Winona Ryder appeared alongside Richard Gere in Autumn in New York (Joan Chen, 2000), a romance about an older man's love for a younger woman. She also made a cameo appearance in the comedy Zoolander (Ben Stiller, 2000). The comedy Mr. Deeds (Steven Brill, 2002) with Adam Sandler became her biggest financial success to date. The film failed with critics and Ryder was nominated for the Golden Raspberry award. Also in 2002, she was sentenced to three years probation and 480 hours of work for repeatedly shoplifting $5,000 worth of clothes. The incident caused a career setback. She withdrew from the public eye in the following years and did not appear in front of the camera again until 2006. In that year, she appeared in the novel adaptation A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006) alongside Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., and Woody Harrelson. In 2009, she made an appearance in Star Trek: The Future Begins (J. J. Abrams, 2009) as Spock (Zachary Quinto)'s mother Amanda Grayson. The prequel became a huge success at the box office and Ryder earned a Scream Award for Best Guest Appearance. She also appeared alongside Robin Wright and Julianne Moore in Rebecca Miller's Pippa Lee (2009), and alongside Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (2010). Ryder starred in the television film When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story (John Kent Harrison, 2010), for which she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. She starred in the comedy The Dilemma (Ron Howard, 2011), and the thrillers The Iceman (Ariel Vromen, 2012), and The Letter (Jay Anania, 2012) opposite James Franco. In Tim Burton's Frankenweenie (2012) she lent her voice to the character Elsa Van Helsing. Since 2016, she has embodied the main character, Joyce Byers, in the Netflix series Stranger Things (2016-2022), for which she received positive responses. Her role in the series has been described by many as a comeback. Since 2011 Winona Ryder is in a relationship with Scott MacKinlay Hahn.
Sources: Pedro Borges (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
(Top) In the Colony’s Med Lab, (left to right) Gorman (William Hope), Bishop (Lance Henriksen), Burke (Paul Reiser) and Hicks (Michael Biehn) inspect the Stasis Tubes containing alien “face huggers,” which (bottom) menace Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, background) and Newt (Carrie Henn, foreground), in Twentieth Century Fox’s futuristic, high-tension thriller “Aliens.” (Photo credit Bob Penn).
One of the (low light) scenes from the movie "Alien" in the Great Movie Ride attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios.
"In space no one can hear you scream"
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature that stalks and kills the crew of a spaceship.
"The structure seems intact. They still have power." ― Ellen Ripley, Aliens (1986)
5 minutes before sunset.
Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 54. Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).
American actress Sigourney Weaver (1949) rose to international fame with her role as Ellen Ripley in the Alien saga. After her breakthrough in the Science Fiction blockbuster Alien (1979), she became one of Hollywood's major female stars during the 1980s and 1990s. Weaver often plays strong, independent, and driven women. She was nominated for an Oscar for Aliens (1987), Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey (1988) and Working Girl (1988), and her tour-de-force performance in the Broadway play 'Hurlyburly' (1984) earned her a Tony Award nomination. Weaver has actually won more than ten film awards, including two Golden Globes and a BAFTA Award.
Susan Alexandra 'Sigourney' Weaver was born in New York, in 1949. Weaver is the daughter of television producer and president of NBC Pat Weaver and British actress Elizabeth Inglis. She changed her name to 'Sigourney' at the age of 14, after a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's book 'The Great Gatsby'. She graduated from Stanford and Yale, in the same class as Meryl Streep. In the 1970s, she acted in experimental and classical plays, including those by her former classmate Christopher Durang. Because of her height (she is 1.82 metres), she was often ignored by most producers and directors. In 1976, Weaver got a role in the soap opera Somerset. The following year, she made her film debut: she appeared for six seconds in Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977). However, it made many people sit up and take notice. She had her first starring role in Madman (Dan Cohen, 1978) starring Michael Beck. Her breakthrough followed in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). The part of Ellen Ripley became her most famous role and made Weaver one of the greatest actresses of the moment. She continued her career with drama films such as Eyewitness (Peter Yates, 1981) and The Year of Living Dangerously (Pewter Weir, 1982), with Mel Gibson. In 1984, she played her first comic role as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984). In 1986, the first sequel to Alien was released. In Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), Weaver portrayed Ripley as an intelligent, powerful woman. The film was an even greater commercial success than the original and she was rewarded for her role with her first Oscar nomination. She was also nominated for an Oscar for her roles as the animal rights activist and zoologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist (Michael Apted, 1988) and her delicious performance as a double-crossing, power-hungry corporate executive in the comedy Working Girl (Mike Nichols, 1988). She missed out on the award all three times but did receive Golden Globes for the latter two films.
Sigourney Weaver reprised the role of Dana Barrett in the sequel Ghostbusters II (Ivan Reitman, 1989) and played Rebecca Gorin in the reboot Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016). Weaver also reprised the role of Ellen Ripley in the films Alien³ (David Fincher, 1992) and Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) with Winona Ryder, as well as in the game Alien: Isolation (2014), the latter of which marks the actress' return 17 years after her last appearance in the franchise. Weaver collaborated with Ridley Scott again, appearing as Queen Isabella in 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and appeared in the Roman Polanski–directed Death and the Maiden, in a major role opposite Ben Kingsley. For her role in The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, 1997), she received her fourth Golden Globe nomination and won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress. In 1999, she co-starred in the hilarious Science Fiction comedy Galaxy Quest (Dean Parisot, 1999) with Tim Allen and Alan Rickman. Then followed a decade in which she continued to appear in films but also had multiple voice roles in animated films, including The Tale of Despereaux (Sam Fell, Rob Stevenhagen, 2008) and the Pixar films WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008) and Finding Dory (Andrew Stanton, 2016). She also worked in several documentaries, such as the BBC series Planet Earth (2006) and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week (2016). During the 2010s, she made a major comeback in the cinema with supporting roles in the blockbuster Avatar (2009), which marked her reunion with James Cameron, and in the historical blockbuster Exodus: Gods and Kings (Ridley Scott, 2014), starring Christian Bale, for which she reunited with Ridley Scott. She made a lasting return with the Sci-Fi thriller Chappie (Neill Blomkamp, 2015), the fantasy film A Monster Calls (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2016), and the TV mini-series The Defenders (2017). Last year, she returned as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Jason Reitman, 2021). Sigourney Weaver married director Jim Simpson in 1984, with whom she had a daughter in April 1990.
Sources: Wikipedia (English, Dutch and French), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Lego Custom Minifig: Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) from Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi shocker, Alien.
British postcard in the Mini Series by Lilliput Production, London, no. 502.
American actress Sigourney Weaver (1949) rose to international fame with her role as Ellen Ripley in the Alien saga. After her breakthrough in the Science Fiction blockbuster Alien (1979), she became one of Hollywood's major female stars during the 1980s and 1990s. Weaver often plays strong, independent, and driven women. She was nominated for an Oscar for Aliens (1987), Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey (1988) and Working Girl (1988), and her tour-de-force performance in the Broadway play 'Hurlyburly' (1984) earned her a Tony Award nomination. Weaver has actually won more than ten film awards, including two Golden Globes and a BAFTA Award.
Susan Alexandra 'Sigourney' Weaver was born in New York, in 1949. Weaver is the daughter of television producer and president of NBC Pat Weaver and British actress Elizabeth Inglis. She changed her name to 'Sigourney' at the age of 14, after a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's book 'The Great Gatsby'. She graduated from Stanford and Yale, in the same class as Meryl Streep. In the 1970s, she acted in experimental and classical plays, including those by her former classmate Christopher Durang. Because of her height (she is 1.82 metres), she was often ignored by most producers and directors. In 1976, Weaver got a role in the soap opera Somerset. The following year, she made her film debut: she appeared for six seconds in Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977). However, it made many people sit up and take notice. She had her first starring role in Madman (Dan Cohen, 1978) starring Michael Beck. Her breakthrough followed in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). The part of Ellen Ripley became her most famous role and made Weaver one of the greatest actresses of the moment. She continued her career with drama films such as Eyewitness (Peter Yates, 1981) and The Year of Living Dangerously (Pewter Weir, 1982), with Mel Gibson. In 1984, she played her first comic role as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984). In 1986, the first sequel to Alien was released. In Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), Weaver portrayed Ripley as an intelligent, powerful woman. The film was an even greater commercial success than the original and she was rewarded for her role with her first Oscar nomination. She was also nominated for an Oscar for her roles as the animal rights activist and zoologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist (Michael Apted, 1988) and her delicious performance as a double-crossing, power-hungry corporate executive in the comedy Working Girl (Mike Nichols, 1988). She missed out on the award all three times but did receive Golden Globes for the latter two films.
Sigourney Weaver reprised the role of Dana Barrett in the sequel Ghostbusters II (Ivan Reitman, 1989) and played Rebecca Gorin in the reboot Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016). Weaver also reprised the role of Ellen Ripley in the films Alien³ (David Fincher, 1992) and Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) with Winona Ryder, as well as in the game Alien: Isolation (2014), the latter of which marks the actress' return 17 years after her last appearance in the franchise. Weaver collaborated with Ridley Scott again, appearing as Queen Isabella in 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and appeared in the Roman Polanski–directed Death and the Maiden, in a major role opposite Ben Kingsley. For her role in The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, 1997), she received her fourth Golden Globe nomination and won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress. In 1999, she co-starred in the hilarious Science Fiction comedy Galaxy Quest (Dean Parisot, 1999) with Tim Allen and Alan Rickman. Then followed a decade in which she continued to appear in films but also had multiple voice roles in animated films, including The Tale of Despereaux (Sam Fell, Rob Stevenhagen, 2008) and the Pixar films WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008) and Finding Dory (Andrew Stanton, 2016). She also worked in several documentaries, such as the BBC series Planet Earth (2006) and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week (2016). During the 2010s, she made a major comeback in the cinema with supporting roles in the blockbuster Avatar (2009), which marked her reunion with James Cameron, and in the historical blockbuster Exodus: Gods and Kings (Ridley Scott, 2014), starring Christian Bale, for which she reunited with Ridley Scott. She made a lasting return with the Sci-Fi thriller Chappie (Neill Blomkamp, 2015), the fantasy film A Monster Calls (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2016), and the TV mini-series The Defenders (2017). Last year, she returned as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Jason Reitman, 2021). Sigourney Weaver married director Jim Simpson in 1984, with whom she had a daughter in April 1990.
Sources: Wikipedia (English, Dutch and French), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Procreate 2.1 is finally here and I can post what I worked on during the beta stage of "fire"! I always wanted to do a portrait of Sigourney Weaver, especially after the one I did of John Hurt last year in what will hopefully become a series of portraits of my favorite actors. I am also super psyched about the new "Alien Isolation" game coming out this october where Sigourney actually reprises her role as Ripley, 35 years later!!!
I used a photo ref of Sigourney of course, but I improvised the environment as a kind of love letter to the Nostromo spaceship set design, which is in my opinion still one of the most realistic sci-fi environments ever created on film. For a laugh, read the small post-it note on the left monitor. :)
Here's a timelapse for those interested:
Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 59. Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).
Alien: Resurrection (1997) is an American Science Fiction film, the third sequel to Alien (1979). 200 years after her death, Ellen Ripley is revived as a powerful human/alien hybrid clone. Along with a crew of space pirates, she must again battle the deadly aliens and stop them from reaching Earth. The film was directed by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The leads are played by Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, and Dominique Pinon.
Alien: Resurrection (1997) is set 200 years after the events of Alien³. Using blood samples, a group of scientists aboard the USM Auriga creates a clone of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). The scientists work for the company United Systems Military, a kind of successor of Weyland-Yutani from the previous films. Like its predecessor, this company has set its sights on using the Aliens as a biological weapon. Since Ripley was carrying the embryo of an Alien queen when she died, the scientists hope to obtain such an Alien embryo by cloning it. The plan succeeds and an Alien queen is extracted from the Ripley clone. The clone itself is kept alive for further research, while a nest of Aliens is created through the Alien Queen with a series of hosts kidnapped by smugglers for the first time in two centuries. The smugglers find Ripley aboard the ship. The youngest member of the group, Call (Winona Ryder), recognises her name. Meanwhile, the new Aliens prove smarter than usual. Soon they escape and pose a threat to everyone aboard the Auriga. Most of the people on board are killed. Ripley and scientist Dr. Wren (J.E. Freeman) realise that the Auriga is programmed to return to Earth. When the ship arrives there, the aliens will be released on the planet. Ripley, now with part alien DNA and superhuman powers, tries to escape with the smugglers of the spaceship before it reaches Earth. During their escape, Ripley discovers more about the Aliens; for example, the new Alien Queen has part of her human DNA and is now able to produce living offspring without the need for eggs. The Aliens thus created see Ripley as their mother. Eventually, Call turns out to be an android. She can break into the Auriga's computer system and programs the ship to crash into Earth in the hope that the crash will kill all the aliens. Just before the impact, Ripley and the last smugglers are able to escape with another ship.
20th Century Fox hired Joss Whedon to write the script for Alien: Resurrection as they were impressed with his previous work. Initially, Fox wanted the film to revolve around a clone of the Newt character from Aliens (James Cameron, 1987). Whedon wrote a short script around this idea when Fox decided to try to have Ellen Ripley return in the film. At first, it was a bit of a mystery how to make an Alien 4, as Ripley died in the previous film, Alien³ (David Fincher, 1992). In the 1990s, cloning was in the spotlight, and that became the basis for the resurrection of Ripley and the xenomorph. Whedon personally found it difficult to incorporate Ripley's return into the script. Sigourney Weaver, who had played Ripley in all the previous films, initially saw nothing in yet another return of her character. She felt it would be too much of the same. However, she was so impressed by Whedon's script that she agreed to play the role again. It was her idea to give her character some new characteristics, such as the Alien DNA. Weaver also gained mention as a co-producer and an $11 million salary as a result of her input. Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated (ADI) was hired to provide the effects for the film, and to design the Aliens for the film. In the previous Alien sequels, H.R. Giger's original Alien (Ridley Scott, 1986) design had already been reworked, for example, the creatures in Aliens (James Cameron, 1987) had a ribbed skull roof (in the previous film it was smooth), the chestburster had arms and the eggs looked different. In Alien³, they went a step further, turning the Alien into a reddish-brown, lightning-fast quadruped. For the fourth instalment in the series, some changes were made again. In the past, the legs of the aliens were never shown, because in terms of joints they were clearly human. Because in 1997 the computer was now available, digital Aliens could be fully portrayed. To give them a more animal-like appearance, an extra joint was added to the ankle. The tail was also made flatter, as a paddle for the swimming scenes in the film. The old hissing and screeching noises were replaced by growling and roaring, and the Alien eggs were made much more mobile. The appearance of the eggs was brought back to that of the original Alien. Alien: Resurrection was shot at Fox Studios in Los Angeles. Filming lasted from October 1996 to February 1997. Jeunet had difficulty finding a studio as the production of Alien: Resurrection coincided with several other films such as Titanic (James Cameron, 1997), Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven, 1997) and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1997). Jeunet wanted to emphasise Ripley's new powers, including in a scene where Ripley throws a basketball through the net in a gym without looking. This shot is real. Sigourney Weaver insisted on doing it herself, though it was said to be almost impossible to do without a machine or digital ball. When it was done, actor Ron Perlman was so impressed that he started cursing in amazement while the camera was still rolling. This 'character break' could be cut out without losing the scene. Alien: Resurrection officially premiered on 26 November 1997 after a preview in Camarillo, California. In North America, the film grossed $47.7 million, making it the least successful film of the franchise in America. Internationally, the film did better. Its worldwide box office was $161.2 million. Like Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection was met with mixed reviews. Roger Ebert in The Chicago Sun-Times: "The 'Alien' movies always have expert production design. Alien Resurrection was directed by the French visionary Jean-Pierre Jeunet (City of Lost Children), who with his designers has placed it in what looks like a large, empty hangar filled with prefabricated steel warehouse parts. There is not a single shot in the movie to fill one with wonder - nothing like the abandoned planetary station in Aliens. Even the standard shots of vast spaceships, moving against a backdrop of stars, are murky here, and perfunctory."
Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Wikipedia (Dutch), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Alien poster composition.
Having collected production imagery from this film for years I wanted to experiment with a few compositions which might capture the tone of the film.
Most importantly, no alien. Don't spoil your hand.
Dutch postcard by Film Freak Productions, Zoetermeer, no. FA 461, 1997. Photo: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Poster image of Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) with Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder.
American actress Sigourney Weaver (1949) rose to international fame with her role as Ellen Ripley in the Alien saga. After her breakthrough in the Science Fiction blockbuster Alien (1979), she became one of Hollywood's major female stars during the 1980s and 1990s. Weaver often plays strong, independent, and driven women. She was nominated for an Oscar for Aliens (1987), Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey (1988) and Working Girl (1988), and her tour-de-force performance in the Broadway play 'Hurlyburly' (1984) earned her a Tony Award nomination. Weaver has actually won more than ten film awards, including two Golden Globes and a BAFTA Award.
Susan Alexandra 'Sigourney' Weaver was born in New York, in 1949. Weaver is the daughter of television producer and president of NBC Pat Weaver and British actress Elizabeth Inglis. She changed her name to 'Sigourney' at the age of 14, after a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's book 'The Great Gatsby'. She graduated from Stanford and Yale, in the same class as Meryl Streep. In the 1970s, she acted in experimental and classical plays, including those by her former classmate Christopher Durang. Because of her height (she is 1.82 metres), she was often ignored by most producers and directors. In 1976, Weaver got a role in the soap opera Somerset. The following year, she made her film debut: she appeared for six seconds in Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977). However, it made many people sit up and take notice. She had her first starring role in Madman (Dan Cohen, 1978) starring Michael Beck. Her breakthrough followed in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). The part of Ellen Ripley became her most famous role and made Weaver one of the greatest actresses of the moment. She continued her career with drama films such as Eyewitness (Peter Yates, 1981) and The Year of Living Dangerously (Pewter Weir, 1982), with Mel Gibson. In 1984, she played her first comic role as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984). In 1986, the first sequel to Alien was released. In Aliens (James Cameron, 1986), Weaver portrayed Ripley as an intelligent, powerful woman. The film was an even greater commercial success than the original and she was rewarded for her role with her first Oscar nomination. She was also nominated for an Oscar for her roles as the animal rights activist and zoologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist (Michael Apted, 1988) and her delicious performance as a double-crossing, power-hungry corporate executive in the comedy Working Girl (Mike Nichols, 1988). She missed out on the award all three times but did receive Golden Globes for the latter two films.
Sigourney Weaver reprised the role of Dana Barrett in the sequel Ghostbusters II (Ivan Reitman, 1989) and played Rebecca Gorin in the reboot Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016). Weaver also reprised the role of Ellen Ripley in the films Alien³ (David Fincher, 1992) and Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) with Winona Ryder, as well as in the game Alien: Isolation (2014), the latter of which marks the actress' return 17 years after her last appearance in the franchise. Weaver collaborated with Ridley Scott again, appearing as Queen Isabella in 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and appeared in the Roman Polanski–directed Death and the Maiden, in a major role opposite Ben Kingsley. For her role in The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, 1997), she received her fourth Golden Globe nomination and won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress. In 1999, she co-starred in the hilarious Science Fiction comedy Galaxy Quest (Dean Parisot, 1999) with Tim Allen and Alan Rickman. Then followed a decade in which she continued to appear in films but also had multiple voice roles in animated films, including The Tale of Despereaux (Sam Fell, Rob Stevenhagen, 2008) and the Pixar films WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008) and Finding Dory (Andrew Stanton, 2016). She also worked in several documentaries, such as the BBC series Planet Earth (2006) and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week (2016). During the 2010s, she made a major comeback in the cinema with supporting roles in the blockbuster Avatar (2009), which marked her reunion with James Cameron, and in the historical blockbuster Exodus: Gods and Kings (Ridley Scott, 2014), starring Christian Bale, for which she reunited with Ridley Scott. She made a lasting return with the Sci-Fi thriller Chappie (Neill Blomkamp, 2015), the fantasy film A Monster Calls (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2016), and the TV mini-series The Defenders (2017). Last year, she returned as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Jason Reitman, 2021). Sigourney Weaver married director Jim Simpson in 1984, with whom she had a daughter in April 1990.
Sources: Wikipedia (English, Dutch and French), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 64. Sigourney Weaver in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).
Delicate American actress Winona Ryder (1971) is known for her dark hair, brown eyes and pale skin. She starred in films such as Beetlejuice (1988), Heathers (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and the television series Stranger Things. In 1994, she won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in the film The Age of Innocence (1993), and Ryder was nominated twice for an Oscar.
Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Winona (Olmsted County), Minnesota, in 1971. Yes, her name is very much the same as her birthplace. Her parents, Cindy Horowitz (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller, were part of the hippie movement. She has a brother named Uri Horowitz (1976), who got his first name after Yuri Gagarin, a half-sister named Sunyata Palmer (1968), and a half-brother named Jubal Palmer (1970) from her mother Cindy's first marriage. From 1978, Winona grew up in a commune near Mendocino in California, which had no electricity. When Winona was seven, her mother began to manage an old cinema in a nearby barn and would screen films all day. She allowed Winona to miss school to watch movies with her. In 1981, the family moved to Petaluma, California. Since Winona was considered an outsider in public school, she was sent to a public school and later to the American Conservatory Theater acting school. She was discovered at the age of thirteen by a talent scout at a theatre performance at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. In 1985, she applied for a role in the film Desert Bloom (David Seltzer, 1986) with a video in which she performed a monologue from the book 'Franny and Zooey' by J. D. Salinger. Although the casting choice was fellow actress Annabeth Gish, director and writer David Seltzer recognised her talent and cast her as Rina in his film Lucas (David Seltzer, 1986) about a teenager (Corey Haim) and his life in high school. When telephoned to ask what name she wanted to be called in the credits, she chose Ryder as her stage name because her father's Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels album was playing in the background. Her real hair colour is blonde but when she made Lucas (1986), her hair colour was dyed black. She was told to keep it that colour and with the exception of Edward Scissorhands (1990), it has stayed that colour since. Her next film was Square Dance (Daniel Petrie, 1987), in which the protagonist she portrays lives a life between two worlds: on a traditional farm and in a big city. Ryder's performance received good reviews, although neither film was a commercial success. Her acting in Lucas led director Tim Burton to cast her in his film Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 1988). In this comedy, she played Lydia Deetz, who moves with her family into a house inhabited by ghosts (played by Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Keaton). Ryder, as well as the film, received positive reviews, and Beetlejuice was also successful at the box office. In 1989, she starred as Veronica Sawyer in the independent film Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1989) about a couple (Ryder and Christian Slater) who kill popular schoolgirls. Ryder's agent had previously advised her against the role. The film was a financial failure, but Ryder received positive reviews. The Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire! (Jim McBride, 1989) was also a flop. That same year, Ryder appeared in Mojo Nixon's music video 'Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child'. At the premiere of Great Balls of Fire (1989), Ryder met fellow actor and later film partner Johnny Depp. The couple became engaged a few months later, but their relationship ended in 1993. He had a tattoo of her name and after they broke up, he had this reduced to "Wino forever".
In 1990, Winona Ryder had her breakthrough performance alongside her boyfriend Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990). The fantasy film was an international box-office success. Ryder was selected for the role of Mary Corleone in The Godfather: Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990) but had to drop out of the role after catching the flu from the strain of doing the films Welcome Home Roxy (Jim Abrahams, 1990) and Mermaids (Richard Benjamin, 1990) back-to-back. Ryder's performance alongside Cher and Christina Ricci in the family comedy Mermaids (1990) was praised by critics and she was nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category. Ryder also appeared with Cher and Ricci in the music video for 'The Shoop Shoop Song', the film's theme song. Independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch wrote a role specifically for her in Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch, 1991), as a tattooed, chain-smoking cabdriver who dreams of becoming a mechanic. Ryder was cast in a dual role as Mina Murray and Elisabeta in Bram Stoker's Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992). In 1993, she starred as Blanca in the drama The House of the Spirits (Bille August, 1993) alongside Antonio Banderas, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. It is the film adaptation of Isabel Allende's bestseller of the same name. Together with Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis, she starred in Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993), the film adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel. She was Martin Scorsese's first and only choice for the role of May Welland. For years, she kept the message he left on her voicemail, informing her she got the role. Her part earned her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and an Oscar nomination. She also earned positive reviews for her role in the comedy Reality Bites (Ben Stiller, 1994). She received critical acclaim and another Oscar nomination the same year as Jo in the drama Little Women (Gillian Armstrong, 1994). In 1996, she starred alongside Daniel Day-Lewis and Joan Allen in The Crucible (Nicholas Hytner, 1996), an adaptation of Arthur Miller's stage play about the Puritan witch hunt in Salem. The film was not a success; however, Ryder's performance was favourably reviewed. A year later she portrayed an android in the successful horror film Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) alongside Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. In 1998 she starred in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998). after Drew Barrymore turned down the role. In 1999 she starred as a psychiatric patient with the borderline syndrome in the drama Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold, 1999), based on Susanna Kaysen's autobiographical novel. Girl, Interrupted, the first film on which she served as executive producer, was supposed to be Ryder's comeback in Hollywood after the flops of the past years. However, the film became the breakthrough for her colleague Angelina Jolie, who won an Oscar for her role. In this decade, she was involved with Dave Pirner, the lead singer of the group Soul Asylum, from 1993 to 1996 and with Matt Damon from December 1997 to April 2000.
Winona Ryder appeared alongside Richard Gere in Autumn in New York (Joan Chen, 2000), a romance about an older man's love for a younger woman. She also made a cameo appearance in the comedy Zoolander (Ben Stiller, 2000). The comedy Mr. Deeds (Steven Brill, 2002) with Adam Sandler became her biggest financial success to date. The film failed with critics and Ryder was nominated for the Golden Raspberry award. Also in 2002, she was sentenced to three years probation and 480 hours of work for repeatedly shoplifting $5,000 worth of clothes. The incident caused a career setback. She withdrew from the public eye in the following years and did not appear in front of the camera again until 2006. In that year, she appeared in the novel adaptation A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006) alongside Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., and Woody Harrelson. In 2009, she made an appearance in Star Trek: The Future Begins (J. J. Abrams, 2009) as Spock (Zachary Quinto)'s mother Amanda Grayson. The prequel became a huge success at the box office and Ryder earned a Scream Award for Best Guest Appearance. She also appeared alongside Robin Wright and Julianne Moore in Rebecca Miller's Pippa Lee (2009), and alongside Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (2010). Ryder starred in the television film When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story (John Kent Harrison, 2010), for which she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. She starred in the comedy The Dilemma (Ron Howard, 2011) and the thrillers The Iceman (Ariel Vromen, 2012), and The Letter (Jay Anania, 2012) opposite James Franco. In Tim Burton's Frankenweenie (2012) she lent her voice to the character Elsa Van Helsing. Since 2016, she has embodied the main character, Joyce Byers, in the Netflix series Stranger Things (2016-2022), for which she received positive responses. Her role in the series has been described by many as a comeback. Since 2011 Winona Ryder is in a relationship with Scott MacKinlay Hahn.
Sources: Pedro Borges (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
“Aliens” is the sequel to the highly-successful 1979 science fiction horror film “Alien.” James Cameron was hired to write a story for “Aliens” in 1983, and was given the director role based on his success directing “The Terminator.” Since its release, “Aliens” is now considered to be among the greatest films of the 1980s, one of the best science fiction or action films eve made, and one of the best sequels ever made. It has been called equal to (or better than) “Alien.” Sigourney Weaver was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress at a time when science fiction films were generally overlooked. [Source: Wikipedia]
Movie trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTCaVjQ8nU4
First off, I'm not a fan of Alien 3 or, indeed of Alien : Resurrection. As far as I'm concerned Ripley's story arc was wrapped up at the end of Aliens and no sequel was necessary. So airtight was the script of Aliens that the writers of the third film had to introduce a massive, and still unexplained, plothole, in order to make it work. And, of course, killing off Hicks and Newt in such an offhand way was absolutely unforgivable. You might say, 'that's life, sometimes you don't get a happy ending'. True. That's why we have fiction.
Anyway, rant over. I bought the Alien 3 Ripley because it looked awesome and indeed it is.
The figure has an extra set of arms so she can be posed minus her leather jacket. The jacketed arms are quite firmly attached but can be removed using the usual boil-and-pop method.
I haven't tried it but I'm wondering if it might be possible to put the jacket on the Aliens Ripley. It's not the same style as the one she wore in that film but it might pass.
That's how you know a cat really loves you.
Featured on Life In Plastic: nerditis.com/2015/12/04/life-in-plastic-toy-review-lt-rip...
This is my first non-photo art project I’m posting on Flickr. Happy birthday to my lovely Spouse, Chris!
ituated just south of Seaham and was once the location of Dawdon Colliery – the mainstay of Dawdon’s economy.
Opened in 1907 the colliery employed 3300 men and in its lifetime broke national and European production records. It was one of the last pits in the North East to close in 1991, ending almost 85 years of production. Colliery waste was dumped onto Blast Beach below the site resulting in environmental devastation.
The site has now been reclaimed into one of the most stunning gateway sites on the Durham Heritage Coast. Wildflower meadows have been restored, ponds have been created for wildlife, seating areas, artwork and interpretation have been specially designed to reflect the heritage of the area. Marine life has returned to the area in abundance.
The England Coast Path runs through Nose’s Point and the car park here provides a great opportunity to explore the area. Just further south on the Coastal Path is Hawthorn Dene and Meadows, the views on this stretch of coastline are stunning and on a clear day there are clear views all the way to North Yorkshire.
Such was the state of the area prior to its recent clean-up that the headland used to protrude further out to sea thanks to the dumping of industrial waste – and a platform, or crust, of compacted slag and slurry covered the beach, again extending far out into the waves (you can still see the edge, or lip, of this artificial surface where the rocky beach abuts the land). It looked so barren that it was used in the opening scenes of the film Alien 3 in 1992.
Vintage postcard in the Movie's Images series, no. 52. Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, Sigourney Weaver, and Winona Ryder in Alien - Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997).
Delicate American actress Winona Ryder (1971) is known for her dark hair, brown eyes and pale skin. She starred in films such as Beetlejuice (1988), Heathers (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and the television series Stranger Things. In 1994, she won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in the film The Age of Innocence (1993), and Ryder was nominated twice for an Oscar.
Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Winona (Olmsted County), Minnesota, in 1971. Yes, her name is very much the same as her birthplace. Her parents, Cindy Horowitz (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller, were part of the hippie movement. She has a brother named Uri Horowitz (1976), who got his first name after Yuri Gagarin, a half-sister named Sunyata Palmer (1968), and a half-brother named Jubal Palmer (1970) from her mother Cindy's first marriage. From 1978, Winona grew up in a commune near Mendocino in California, which had no electricity. When Winona was seven, her mother began to manage an old cinema in a nearby barn and would screen films all day. She allowed Winona to miss school to watch movies with her. In 1981, the family moved to Petaluma, California. Since Winona was considered an outsider in public school, she was sent to a public school and later to the American Conservatory Theater acting school. She was discovered at the age of thirteen by a talent scout at a theatre performance at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. In 1985, she applied for a role in the film Desert Bloom (David Seltzer, 1986) with a video in which she performed a monologue from the book 'Franny and Zooey' by J. D. Salinger. Although the casting choice was fellow actress Annabeth Gish, director and writer David Seltzer recognised her talent and cast her as Rina in his film Lucas (David Seltzer, 1986) about a teenager (Corey Haim) and his life in high school. When telephoned to ask what name she wanted to be called in the credits, she chose Ryder as her stage name because her father's Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels album was playing in the background. Her real hair colour is blonde but when she made Lucas (1986), her hair color was dyed black. She was told to keep it that colour and with the exception of Edward Scissorhands (1990), it has stayed that color since. Her next film was Square Dance (Daniel Petrie, 1987), in which the protagonist she portrays lives a life between two worlds: on a traditional farm and in a big city. Ryder's performance received good reviews, although neither film was a commercial success. Her acting in Lucas led director Tim Burton to cast her in his film Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 1988). In this comedy, she played Lydia Deetz, who moves with her family into a house inhabited by ghosts (played by Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Keaton). Ryder, as well as the film, received positive reviews, and Beetlejuice was also successful at the box office. In 1989, she starred as Veronica Sawyer in the independent film Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1989) about a couple (Ryder and Christian Slater) who kill popular schoolgirls. Ryder's agent had previously advised her against the role. The film was a financial failure, but Ryder received positive reviews. The Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire! (Jim McBride, 1989) was also a flop. That same year, Ryder appeared in Mojo Nixon's music video 'Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child'. At the premiere of Great Balls of Fire (1989), Ryder met fellow actor and later film partner Johnny Depp. The couple became engaged a few months later, but their relationship ended in 1993. He had a tattoo of her name and after they broke up, he had this reduced to "Wino forever".
In 1990, Winona Ryder had her breakthrough performance alongside her boyfriend Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990). The fantasy film was an international box-office success. Ryder was selected for the role of Mary Corleone in The Godfather: Part III (Francis Ford Coppola, 1990) but had to drop out of the role after catching the flu from the strain of doing the films Welcome Home Roxy (Jim Abrahams, 1990) and Mermaids (Richard Benjamin, 1990) back-to-back. Ryder's performance alongside Cher and Christina Ricci in the family comedy Mermaids (1990) was praised by critics and she was nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Supporting Actress category. Ryder also appeared with Cher and Ricci in the music video for 'The Shoop Shoop Song', the film's theme song. Independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch wrote a role specifically for her in Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch, 1991), as a tattooed, chain-smoking cabdriver who dreams of becoming a mechanic. Ryder was cast in a dual role as Mina Murray and Elisabeta in Bram Stoker's Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992). In 1993, she starred as Blanca in the drama The House of the Spirits (Bille August, 1993) alongside Antonio Banderas, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. It is the film adaptation of Isabel Allende's bestseller of the same name. Together with Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis, she starred in Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993), the film adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel. She was Martin Scorsese's first and only choice for the role of May Welland. For years, she kept the message he left on her voicemail, informing her she got the role. Her part earned her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and an Oscar nomination. She also earned positive reviews for her role in the comedy Reality Bites (Ben Stiller, 1994). She received critical acclaim and another Oscar nomination the same year as Jo in the drama Little Women (Gillian Armstrong, 1994). In 1996, she starred alongside Daniel Day-Lewis and Joan Allen in The Crucible (Nicholas Hytner, 1996), an adaptation of Arthur Miller's stage play about the Puritan witch hunt in Salem. The film was not a success; however, Ryder's performance was favourably reviewed. A year later she portrayed an android in the successful horror film Alien: Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) alongside Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. In 1998 she starred in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998). after Drew Barrymore turned down the role. In 1999 she starred as a psychiatric patient with borderline syndrome in the drama Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold, 1999), based on Susanna Kaysen's autobiographical novel. Girl, Interrupted, the first film on which she served as executive producer, was supposed to be Ryder's comeback in Hollywood after the flops of the past years. However, the film became the breakthrough for her colleague Angelina Jolie, who won an Oscar for her role. In this decade, she was involved with Dave Pirner, the lead singer of the group Soul Asylum, from 1993 to 1996 and with Matt Damon from December 1997 to April 2000.
Winona Ryder appeared alongside Richard Gere in Autumn in New York (Joan Chen, 2000), a romance about an older man's love for a younger woman. She also made a cameo appearance in the comedy Zoolander (Ben Stiller, 2000). The comedy Mr. Deeds (Steven Brill, 2002) with Adam Sandler became her biggest financial success to date. The film failed with critics and Ryder was nominated for the Golden Raspberry award. Also in 2002, she was sentenced to three years probation and 480 hours of work for repeatedly shoplifting $5,000 worth of clothes. The incident caused a career setback. She withdrew from the public eye in the following years and did not appear in front of the camera again until 2006. In that year, she appeared in the novel adaptation A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater, 2006) alongside Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., and Woody Harrelson. In 2009, she made an appearance in Star Trek: The Future Begins (J. J. Abrams, 2009) as Spock (Zachary Quinto)'s mother Amanda Grayson. The prequel became a huge success at the box office and Ryder earned a Scream Award for Best Guest Appearance. She also appeared alongside Robin Wright and Julianne Moore in Rebecca Miller's Pippa Lee (2009), and alongside Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (2010). Ryder starred in the television film When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story (John Kent Harrison, 2010), for which she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. She starred in the comedy The Dilemma (Ron Howard, 2011), and the thrillers The Iceman (Ariel Vromen, 2012), and The Letter (Jay Anania, 2012) opposite James Franco. In Tim Burton's Frankenweenie (2012) she lent her voice to the character Elsa Van Helsing. Since 2016, she has embodied the main character, Joyce Byers, in the Netflix series Stranger Things (2016-2022), for which she received positive responses. Her role in the series has been described by many as a comeback. Since 2011 Winona Ryder is in a relationship with Scott MacKinlay Hahn.
Sources: Pedro Borges (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and German), and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Sigourney Weaver being interviewed at the 60th Edinburgh International Film Festival two days ago. I got there an hour and a half early and managed to get a seat in the front row right in front of her...although she was seated facing away from me for the most part.
Having done a lot of stage/concert photography in the past, with all the challenges it provides...it really was a joy to be able to take these shots with the benefits of my new Canon EOS-5D and autofocus lenses that work under these conditions. The lighting wasn't the best...but I really like this portrait of her.
Oh...and I got to ask her the first question from the audience and she said...and I quote..."I love your accent!". I'd like that on my tomb as an attributed quote please. :-)
(Compression Suit)
At first I wasn't planning on picking up this figure, but once I saw the reviews I changed my mind.