Sigourney Weaver recalls tensions against James Cameron during Aliens Return

“Jim was always organizing screenings for them, but no one came…”

Present this weekend at New York Comic Con, actress Sigourney Weaver came to talk about her new experience with James Cameron, on Avatar 3.

A long-standing collaboration, dating back 40 years, when she filmed Aliens, the return (1986), with a young filmmaker who had just made Terminatorbehind the camera.

James Cameron took over from Ridley Scott, removed from the saga, and according to the 76-year-old star, the atmosphere was not exactly calm between the Canadian director and the British team at Pinewood Studios, loyal to Scott. She says (via EW):

“What I remember is that they loved Ridley and wanted him to direct this second film. They didn’t know who Jim Cameron was. I didn’t really know him either. I just thought he wrote a great script.”

Problem: the technical team was not very welcoming. She would even have been quite hostile, if we are to believe Sigourney Weaver:

“Jim kept organizing screenings for them, but no one came. IThey definitely had an attitude, and it took a while for that to work out.”

The actress says she tried to ease tensions, aware of the young director’s talent:

“I liked Jim from the start, so I was telling everyone: I love Ridley, but this guy wrote Terminatorhe knows what he’s doing. He’s a real director, an instinctive one.”

James Cameron eventually earned the respect of the team. "In the end, they were devoted to him," concludes Weaver.

A story with a happy ending? Yes and no. The frictions of the time were reported more starkly in the book The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron (written by Rebecca Keegan and published in 2009), where the filmmaker described the staff ofAliens, the return as “lazy, insolent and arrogant”. According to the book, tensions centered around tea breaks, the director’s supposed inexperience and the dismissal of his first assistant Derek Cracknell. At the end of filming, Cameron made a famous speech: “It was a long and difficult shoot, full of problems. But what kept me going was the certainty that one day I would walk through the gates of Pinewood and never return… while you poor guys would still be there…”