Image Popularies: 01/28/11

sigourney weaver film career

Sigourney Weaver born October 8, 1949 is an American actress best known for her role as Ellen Ripley in the Alien film series, a role for which she has received worldwide recognition. Other notable roles include the Ghostbusters films, Gorillas in the Mist, The Ice Storm, Working Girl, Prayers for Bobby and Avatar.
She is a three-time Academy Award nominee for her performances in Aliens (1986), Gorillas in the Mist (1988), and Working Girl (1988) winning Golden Globe Awards in the latter two films. Weaver has been called "The Sci-Fi Queen" by many on account of her many science fiction and fantasy films.
Contents
* 1 Early life
* 2 Film career
* 3 Personal life
* 4 Filmography
* 5 Stage credits
* 6 References
* 7 External links
early life
Weaver with her father Pat Weaver in 1989
Weaver was born Susan Alexandra Weaver in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Elizabeth Inglis (née Desiree Mary Lucy Hawkins; 1913–2007), an English actress, and the NBC television executive and television pioneer Sylvester "Pat" Laflin Weaver (1908–2002). Her uncle, Doodles Weaver, was a comedian and actor. She began using the name "Sigourney Weaver" in 1963 after a minor character (Sigourney Howard) in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby.
Weaver attended the Ethel Walker School, a prep school in Simsbury, Connecticut, where she was regularly teased for being a nerd and for her height. She also attended The Chapin School. Sigourney was reportedly 5′ 10½″ (179 cm) tall by the age of 14, although she only grew another inch during her teens to her adult height of 5′ 11½″ (182 cm). Weaver graduated from Stanford University, with a bachelor of arts degree in English in 1972, but she had already begun her involvement in acting, by living in Stanford's co-ed Beta Chi Community for the Performing Arts. earned her Master of Fine Arts degree at the Yale University School of Drama in 1974,where one of her appearances was in the chorus in a production of Stephen Sondheim's musical version of The Frogs, and another was as one of a mob of Roman soldiers alongside Meryl Streep in another production. Weaver later acted in original plays by her friend and classmate Christopher Durang. She later appeared in an "Off Broadway" production of Durang's comedy Beyond Therapy in 1981, which was directed by the up-and-coming director Jerry Zaks.
Film career
Weaver's first role was in Woody Allen's 1977 comedy Annie Hall playing a minor role opposite Allen. Weaver appeared two years later as Warrant Officer/Lieutenant Ellen Ripley in the blockbuster Alien movie franchise. She first appeared as Ripley in Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien. She reprised the role in three sequels, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection. Ty Burr of The Boston Globe states, "One of the real pleasures of "Alien" is to watch the emergence of both Ellen Ripley as a character and Sigourney Weaver as a star. In the sequel Aliens directed by James Cameron critic Roger Ebert exclaims, "Weaver, who is onscreen almost all the time, comes through with a very strong, sympathetic performance: She's the thread that holds everything together." She was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award in Aliens, one of the very few actresses honored for a role in a science fiction film. Weaver followed the success of Aliens appearing opposite Mel Gibson in The Year of Living Dangerously released to critical acclaim and as Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II.
Sigourney Weaver at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Baby Mama; she played a role in the film.
By the end of the decade Weaver appeared in two of her most memorable and critically acclaimed performances in 1988 as Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist. The same year she appeared opposite Harrison Ford in a supporting role as Katharine Parker in the film Working Girl. Weaver won Golden Globe awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for her two roles that year. She received two Academy Award nominations in 1988, for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Working Girl and Best Actress for Gorillas in the Mist making her one of the few actors nominated for two acting awards in the same year. By the early 1990's Weaver appeared in several films including Ang Lee's The Ice Storm earning her another Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress and winning a BAFTA Award, followed by Dave opposite Kevin Kline and Frank Langella. She played the role of agoraphobic criminal psychologist Helen Hudson in the 1995 movie Copycat. Weaver also concentrated on smaller and supporting roles throughout the decade such as Jeffrey (1994), Galaxy Quest (1999), and A Map of the World (1999) earning her another Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.
In 2001 she appeared in the comedy Heartbreakers playing the lead role of a con artist alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Gene Hackman and Anne Bancroft. She appeared in several films throughout the decade including Holes (2003), the M. Night Shyamalan horror film The Village (2004), Vantage Point (2008), and Baby Mama (2008). Weaver also returned to Rwanda for the BBC special Gorillas Revisited. She was voted 20th in Channel 4's countdown of the 100 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time, being one of only two women in the Top 20 (the other was Audrey Hepburn).
In 2009, Weaver starred as Mary Griffith in her first made-for-TV movie, Prayers for Bobby, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award. She also guest starred in the TV show Eli Stone in the fall of 2008.[13] She reunited with Aliens director James Cameron for his 2009 film Avatar with Weaver playing a major part as Dr. Grace Augustine, leader of the AVTR (avatar) program on the film's fictional moon Pandora. The film has the distinction of being the highest grossing film of all time.
Weaver in December 2009
Weaver has done voice work in television and film. She had a guest role in the Futurama episode "Love and Rocket" in February 2002, playing the female Planet Express Ship. In 2006, she was the narrator for the American version of the Emmy Award-winning series Planet Earth. Also in 2006, Weaver narrated "A Matter of Degrees", a short film that plays daily at The Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks (The Wild Center) in Tupper Lake, New York. In 2008, Weaver was featured as the voice of the ship's computer in the Pixar and Disney release, WALL•E. She also voiced a narrating role in another computer-animated film, 2008's The Tale of Despereaux, based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo. Weaver has also expressed interest in starring in a fifth Alien film. Ivan Reitman has confirmed that Weaver will reprise her role as Dana Barrett the rumored third Ghostbusters movie due for release in 2012.
Weaver at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Weaver has hosted two episodes of the long-running NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live: once on the 12th season premiere in 1986, and again, on a season 35 episode in January, 2010. Weaver has now broken Madeline Kahn's record for longest gap between hosting appearances on SNL. Kahn had an 18-year gap between her second appearance in 1977 and her third and final appearance in 1995; Weaver, on the other hand, has a 24-year gap between her first appearance in 1986 and her second and most recent appearance in 2010. In March 2010, she was cast for the lead role as Queen of the Vampire in Amy Heckerling's Vamps. She was honored at the 2010 Scream Awards earning The Heroine Award which honored her work in science fiction, horror and fantasy films. In May 2010, there were reports that Weaver had been cast for the lead role Margaret Matheson in the Spanish thriller film Red Lights, Award for Spoken Word Album at the 53rd Grammy Awards, and because of this, she is currently the only person in history to receive at least one nomination for each of the EGOT awards (Emmy, Oscar, Grammy, and Tony), without winning any of them.

sigourney weaver

pam beasley overview

Pamela Morgan "Pam" Halpert (née Beesly) March 25, 1979 is a fictional character on the U.S. television sitcom The Office, played by Jenna Fischer. Her counterpart in the original UK series of The Office is Dawn Tinsley.
Contents
* 1 Overview
* 2 Casting and character development
* 3 Character history
o 3.1 Seasons 1–3
o 3.2 Seasons 4–6
o 3.3 Season 7
* 4 Coworker relations
o 4.1 Jim
o 4.2 Roy
o 4.3 Toby
* 5 Appearances
* 6 References
Overview
Pam Halpert is one of the office employees at the Scranton branch of the fictitious paper-distributor Dunder Mifflin. Many episodes of the series revolve around her desire to be more assertive and have an artistic career, as well as her relationship with co-worker and husband Jim Halpert. The office pranks she and Jim play on his deskmate Dwight Schrute are a cornerstone of the series, as are the often bizarre tasks, assignments, and advice questions given to her by the branch's boss Michael Scott. At the beginning of the series, she was engaged to warehouse worker Roy Anderson, leading to several story arcs of "will they or won't they" tension between her and Jim. She later married and had a baby with Jim. Pam is portrayed as a friendly and generally amicable employee of Dunder Mifflin.
Casting and character development
The character was originally created to be very similar to the British counterpart, Dawn Tinsley. Even minute details, such as how Pam wore her hair each day, were considered by executive producer, Greg Daniels.
"When I went in for The Office, the casting director said to me, 'Please look normal'," recalls Jenna Fischer. "Don't make yourself all pretty, and dare to bore me with your audition. Those were her words. Dare to bore me."
Heeding the advice, Fischer said little during the auditions, during which she was interviewed in character by show producers, in an improvisational format, to imitate the show's documentary premise. "My take on the character of Pam was that she didn't have any media training, so she didn't know how to be a good interview. And also, she didn't care about this interview," she told NPR. "So, I gave very short one-word answers and I tried very hard not to be funny or clever, because I thought that the comedy would come out of just, you know, the real human reactions to the situation...and they liked that take on it."
"When I went in to the audition, the first question that they asked me in the character of Pam - they said, 'Do you like working as a receptionist?' I said, 'No.' And that was it. I didn't speak anymore than that. And they started laughing."
Fischer found herself creating a very elaborate backstory for the character. For the first few seasons, she kept a list of the character history revealed on-screen by the creators, as well as her own imaginative thoughts on Pam's history. She created a rule with the set's hair and make-up department that it couldn't look as though it took Pam more than 30 minutes to do her hair, she formulated ideas as to who gave Pam each piece of jewelry she wore or where she went to college. Fischer also carefully crafted Pam's quiet persona. "Well, my character of Pam is really stuck," she explained to NPR. "I mean, she's a subordinate in this office. And so, I think that for her, the only way she can express herself is in the silences, but you can say so much by not saying anything."
Originally meek and passive, the character grew more assertive as the seasons passed, prompting Fischer to reassess her portrayal. "I have to approach Pam differently [now]," she explained in Season 4, a defining season in which her character finally begins a long awaited relationship with Jim and is accepted into the Pratt Institute. "She is in a loving relationship, she has found her voice, she has started taking art classes. All of these things must inform the character and we need to see changes in the way she moves, speaks, dresses, etc."
Character history
Seasons 1–3
At the beginning of the series, Pam and Roy have been dating for eight years and engaged for three. Their open-ended engagement has become one of Michael's running gags and a sore spot for Pam.
Pam does not want her current job to become permanent, remarking that "I don't think it's many little girls' dream to be a receptionist." Pam is apathetic toward her work, evidenced by her frequent games of FreeCell on her office computer. However, in the pilot episode, she breaks down crying when Michael pulls an ill-advised prank by telling her that she will be fired.
Michael has criticized Pam for simply forwarding calls to voice mail without answering and (in a deleted scene) for not sounding enthusiastic enough when speaking on the telephone. Pam is usually happy to abandon her work if asked to do something else by Jim. She will do extra, unnecessary work (such as making a casket for a dead bird or paper doves for the Office Olympics) to make other people happy, however she is no longer allowed to be served at the Chili’s Restaurant chain because she got too drunk at the 2005 Dundie Awards Show.
Despite the abuse she takes from Michael, she never goes any farther than calling him a jerk in the pilot. In later seasons, however, she becomes more honest and forward with Michael and will often make sarcastic comments toward him.
Pam denied, or was in denial about, having any romantic feelings for her friend Jim. After Jim confesses his love for her at the Dunder Mifflin "Casino Night" she turns him down. She later talks to her mom on the phone and says Jim is her best friend (though she doesn't say his name), and says "Yeah, I think I am" to an unheard question.
Season three marks a turning point for Pam's character; she gains self-confidence and appears less passive and more self-assured as the season progresses. In "Gay Witch Hunt," the season's opener, it is revealed that Pam got cold feet before her wedding and did not marry Roy after all (to the dismay of Roy), and that Jim transferred to a different Dunder Mifflin branch, in Stamford, shortly after Pam rejected him. Pam moves into her own apartment, begins taking art classes, a pursuit that Roy had previously dismissed as a waste of time, and buys a new car, a blue Toyota Yaris. Jim returns to Scranton later on as a result of "The Merger", and brings along a female co-worker, Karen Filippelli, whom he begins dating. Jim and Pam appeared to have ended all communication after Jim transfers to the Stamford branch (aside from an episode in which Jim accidentally calls Pam at the end of the work day), and their episodes together following the branch merge are tense, despite both admitting to still harboring feelings for the other during the presence of the documentary cameras.
Meanwhile, Roy—who was arrested for a D.U.I. shortly after his and Pam's break-up—vows to clean up his act and win Pam back. Roy's efforts to improve his relationship with Pam are quite successful, but once Pam and Roy are back together, he falls back into old habits almost immediately. When Roy and Pam attend an after work get-together at a local bar with their co-workers, Pam, feeling that she should be more honest with Roy, tells him about Jim kissing her at "Casino Night." Roy yells, smashes a mirror, and trashes the bar. Pam, frightened and embarrassed by his reaction, breaks up with Roy immediately. Roy vows to kill Jim, and in "The Negotiation", Roy unsuccessfully tries to attack Jim at work (Jim is saved by Dwight's intervention), and is subsequently fired. Pam later reluctantly agrees to meet Roy for coffee at his request, and after the polite but brief meeting, it appears that their relationship has ended amicably with Roy encouraging Pam to pursue Jim.
Pam participates in an art show, but few people attend. Her co-worker, Oscar, brings his partner along who, not knowing that Pam is standing behind him, criticizes her work by proclaiming that "real art requires courage." Oscar then goes on to say that courage isn't one of Pam's strong points. Affected by this statement, Pam tells the documentary crew that she is going to be more honest, culminating in a dramatic coal walk during the next-to-last episode of the season, "Beach Games", and a sincere speech to Jim about their relationship. Michael also comes to the art show and reveals his erratically kind heart and loyalty by buying, framing and hanging Pam's drawing of the Dunder Mifflin building in the office. In the season finale, "The Job," she leaves an affectionate note in Jim's briefcase, which he sees during an interview for a job in New York City. He then withdraws from consideration, driving back to the office and interrupting a talking head Pam is doing for the documentary crew about their relationship, and asks her out for dinner. She happily accepts, visibly moved, forgetting what she was previously saying.

pam beasley