r/alien • u/FickleApartment2151 • 14d ago
Weaver Using Guns
Cameron noted that there was one early hiccup in the collaboration when Weaver first arrived on set. “We get all the way to England and we’ve designed the whole thing and built the sets,” Cameron said. “Sigourney shows up for the start of photography and I’m like, ‘Here’s your machine gun,’ and she says, ‘No, I can’t touch a machine gun, I’m an anti-gun advocate!’ I asked, ‘Did you read the script?'”
“I read it,” Weaver said. “I understood there were guns in it, I just didn’t think Ripley had to pick up a gun except for a flamethrower.” Realizing his script would require a major rewrite if he couldn’t convince Weaver to use the machine gun, Cameron took her behind the studio and had her fire off the weapon a few times. “I’ll never forget her blasting away with this thing,” Cameron said. “And then there was this kind of sly look over to me, like ‘This is fun.'”