Sigourney Weaver is a Political Animal

Sigourney Weaver is a world famous actress best known for her role in the “Alien” series of films, and for her role in “Ghostbusters” and “Avatar”.  She has also received widespread critical acclaim for her work in many other films like “Gorillas in the Mist”, “Working Girl”, “Dave”, “Copycat”, “Avatar” and so many more. Over the course of her career she has received three Academy Award nominations, two Emmy and Six Golden Globe awards.  She recently stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about her new series on the USA Network, “Political Animals”.  Excerpts from the interview appear below.

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Ron Bennington: Brand new TV show “Political Animals”. And much different from I think any political show I’ve ever seen on TV before. It moves very very fast. It’s pretty edgy. And it seems like you guys are just from the start of this, you can go in like a million different directions.

Sigourney Weaver: Well, I think that’s true. And I think actually in the course of these 6 episodes, you see us go backward and forward in time. It’s very unpredictable.

Ron Bennington: Well, the family, it’s a political family. And I’ve always been curious about those kind of people because I guess it gets in your blood somehow, but in a way that I can’t even understand.

Sigourney Weaver: I think Greg Berlanti who created the show, has always been fascinated by families who spent time in the White House because it seems to exact a price from these families, especially from the kids. And also, the family often wants to get back in the White House.

Ron Bennington: It’s very addictive. It’s an addictive thing.

Sigourney Weaver: It’s very addictive. So you see our, hopefully fascinating, but also dysfunctional family. (laughs)

Ron Bennington: Have you ever met a sitting President?

Sigourney Weaver: I have. Sigourney Weaver: I went to the Reagan White House. I was the guest of, you know, I guess one of the little Saudi princes had just seen “Ghostbusters” and wanted to meet Zuul. (laughs) So, I was actually not….you know being a Democrat, I at first said I was busy and then my father lectured me on if you’re invited by the President, you go.

Ron Bennington: Sure.

Sigourney Weaver: So I went. And I did try, it was a very beautiful and glamorous night and I did actually try to speak to President Reagan about abortion rights. (laughs) And that didn’t go over very well. I was picked up and moved away from the President very quickly.

Ron Bennington: And you see what happens, not so much with your character, but because I think there’s somewhat of a moral center there, but the person who plays your husband will move to whatever needs to be done politically. That becomes the game. That becomes the purpose.

Sigourney Weaver: I think, it’s true, my character Elaine has a very strong moral compass and a very, a real gut idea of what the big picture is all the time. It’s one of the reasons why she was so interesting to play. My husband, as played by Ciarán Hinds, I do think that he is on the side of right, but he is much more of a politician than Elaine. Elaine is much more of sort of a Girl Scout. She speaks out. She’s always who she is. Where as I think Bud Hammond does play the game very well.

Ron Bennington: I have this theory that a lot of men, that when they work, on their way home remember oh yeah, I’m a dad too, so I’ve got some other stuff. But I don’t think it’s ever out of the mother’s mind, 24 hours a day.

Sigourney Weaver: I think that’s true. And I think it’s one reason why I think mothers make very good, practical politicians. Because our DNA is all about keeping the child from falling in the fire, where as men’s DNA is much about how to get the carcass of the deer back to the cave. And frankly at this point in our culture, in our country’s history, I think we need more people in Congress who are worried about the children falling in the fire.

Ron Bennington: And we don’t seem to have that many women that even run.

Sigourney Weaver: They don’t.

Ron Bennington: So why do you think women stay out of politics?

Sigourney Weaver: I think that women’s ambition is…women and ambition is still a very, an area that…we discuss this in the show, ambition doesn’t look good on women. And in fact, I think it’s going to change because we’re almost 51% of the population. If you talk to girls who are in middle school or something, they say we need more people in Congress because they’re 51% of us in this country. So I think it’s going to change, but I think these things oddly, change very slowly.

Ron Bennington: Yeah and also because I think that we still act like it’s masculine ambition and to somehow act masculine. When I think what we need is feminine ambition.

Sigourney Weaver: Yes. Exactly. And I think one of the reasons I wanted to do the show and play Elaine because I’ve often played people really on the periphery. I’ve played a lot of eccentric people in my opinion, really what I call sort of character parts, even if their leading parts. Elaine is really mainstream, a very normal person. And in that way, it’s very challenging, but I thought if I can play Elaine and show how effective a woman is in Washington because she’s not afraid to ask questions. She is team building. She is listening. She is pointing out what’s important. She’s not playing games. She doesn’t pursue power by intimidating and pushing around. It’s just a different energy completely. If we can show how powerful that is, maybe it will encourage more women to run regardless of how it’s reacted to.

Ron Bennington: And the first part of her life, she just was the person behind the power. She pushed the power, then becomes this point where I’m going to go for it myself. And that’s where the story picks up now. But you said you are going to show flashbacks back to when they were in the White House before?

Sigourney Weaver: Yes.

Ron Bennington: That will be…(Sigourney laughs)..Weren’t suppose to give that away yet?

Sigourney Weaver: No, no. I think it’s fine. It’s just that it’s a mixed bag to be the First Lady, I think.

Ron Bennington: The other part of this though and I find it so interesting, when the whole family is together, they talk one way in public, but then whenthey get behind…and I wonder when you’re in that kind of power, do you almost start to look at the rest of the citizens as if they’re rubes. Like we have to go in and talk to you one way and then when we get behind closed doors, we can say what the actual truth is.

Sigourney Weaver: I guess I have a more simple view of that. I think that people are so high functioning in their jobs, but it’s much more difficult to be high functioning and clear in your personal life. So I think that you see someone like Elaine be very effective in a world crisis, then she comes back and her mother screams at her and my son is having a breakdown, what have you, and I have no clue. I don’t think it’s about us being better. I think the fact that when you see the family in the privacy of their own living room, you just go my God, this family is just like us.

Ron Bennington: Right. But they don’t let on that when they’re in public. There becomes a public way of acting and then a private way which is something else.

Sigourney Weaver: That’s true. Because they’ve been in the bubble as they call it. I think because of what happened in the bubble, they become very protective of whatever is going on in the family, good or bad. And the press is, I guess, a group to be feared, especially when it’s represented by someone like Susan Berg played by Carla Gugino who won a Pulitzer by exposing my ex-husband’s philandering and made me a target because I stayed with him.

Ron Bennington: Yeah. And then there seems to be a connection between you two that is going to kind of change. Because again, why do we reward people too of writing the gossip part of it, rather than breaking down the real important stuff. It’s almost as consumers, we don’t care about the important stuff. We love the gossip stuff.

Sigourney Weaver: I don’t know that that’s true. I think that you can only take so much gossip. I think it’s easier to understand the gossip, that’s pretty simple facts. And a lot of what’s going on in the world is somewhat overwhelming. But I really don’t think that people are interested in that. I just that, look, people listen to Sirius and people listen to NPR. People are desperate for the other kind of entertainment and for information. I think that’s really true. It’s very hard to find straight news these days. And to have a story covered properly. So I think that we’re interested in much more than gossip, it’s just that the gossip is always in our face.

Ron Bennington: Have you always been a political person? Even when you were younger, does politics interest you?

Sigourney Weaver: My father ran Rockefeller’s campaigns in New York state. And even I as a teenager, campaigned for Rockefeller in the state and actually against Nixon. I worked on Capitol Hill when I was in college, but I think I’ve always been much more cause or issue related than candidate related. I’ve been to Washington, well for a long time now just to talk about different things that are important to me.

Ron Bennington: Well, cause related stuff seems to be so more effective than getting involved in a political party. If you could just push parties…we have trouble working back and forth between party lines now, more than any time in my life.

Sigourney Weaver: I think that’s true.

Ron Bennington: For you, working on a series after doing film for so long, is it a different experience? Is it faster?

Sigourney Weaver: It’s very very different. It’s not necessarily faster than say doing an independent film, but what’s interesting is that films are very much a director’s medium and the shape of the story is pretty economical, it’s going to tell one story. Where as with the series, what’s interesting is it’s much more like a growing organic thing. I think the writers like to see what’s happening between the characters and then they’ll maybe write more for that aspect of the story. So it’s very much in flux. It makes it quite exciting to get the new script every week. We have the most wonderful cast, Ciarán Hinds, Ellen Burstyn, my two sons Sebastian Stan, Jimmy Wolk and the wonderful Carla Gugino. We just have an excellent group and it’s been really fun.

Ron Bennington: Well, the change has been made that you can work in both now. At one time, I remember when we were younger, you had to make a choice between TV and film. And now, there’s all kinds, particularly once you get off the networks. Once you get off the networks, there’s all kinds of opportunities I think opening up in TV.

Sigourney Weaver: I think that’s true and the irony is of course that nowadays people are going to see something on a huge home screen or a tiny iPod. It doesn’t matter what medium you make it for, it’s going to end up in the kind of device of their choice and I think that’s really exciting. For me, if you want to use a restaurant analogy, it was very clear suddenly to me as an audience member as well an actor that cable is where the top chefs are working. That’s where the hot writers are. That’s where the most exciting work is being done and I didn’t have a chance to go to my agent “oh I want to work in cable”. This happened very coincidentally, but I was very delighted to get this opportunity because it’s really like after a couple of years of salads, suddenly I was given this big juicy steak.

Ron Bennington: Yeah. And you weren’t expecting this to come along.

Sigourney Weaver: Not at all. Not at all.

Ron Bennington: So it wasn’t even that this was written for you? It was already out there?

Sigourney Weaver: Oh gosh no. I think if someone was going to write something for me it would like some mountain woman in Alaska. (laughs) I don’t think I would have been a Secretary of State.

Ron Bennington: It’s so great to have you stop by. “Political Animals”, it’s on USA. That’s Sunday, July 15th, 10 o’clock, 9PM central on USA. Go to politicalanimals.tv and the twitter is @politicalanimal. It’s so great to have you stop by and congratulations on this too.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kZ80kAT03g]

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You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Not yet a subscriber?  Click here for a free trial subscription.

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You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews at RonBenningtonInterviews.com.

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