Sigourney Weaver plays an overbearing network president in the comedy movie, The TV Set, written and directed by a man who knows the television industry well - Jake Kasdan. Weaver's role was originally supposed to be filled by a man, but the actor had to back out due to scheduling conflicts. That turned out to be a great opportunity for Kasdan to re-examine the character. Kasdan ultimately changed the character, Lenny, from a guy in his early 50s to a powerful and very intimidating woman, and it became the perfect role for an actress of Sigourney Weaver's caliber.
Getting Into Character: Weaver’s inspiration for the character didn’t come from anyone she knows in the industry. “I couldn’t base her on my father who ran NBC in the ‘50s because he believed that television could uplift people and expand our horizons, so he was really the polar opposite. But, you know, ironically enough because I don’t really know many executives in the business, I based her on someone I adore - a woman who runs a non-profit who’s so energetic and believes so strongly in what she’s doing. You just can’t say no to her, you know? I just kept channeling this friend of mine because I thought even though it’s so well-written, I didn’t want to make Lenny someone you could dismiss. I wanted her to be smart enough and real enough, so you went, ‘Hmm, this person’s in charge for better or worse.’ That’s what I was after.”
Pushing a Show Called Slut Wars: Weaver’s character is promoting a TV series called Slut Wars, an interesting title for a television program if ever there was one. On first learning that was the name of the series, Weaver said she was captivated. “You know, actually the part was written for a man and the wonderful actor who was playing it had to drop out. We have the same agent so it was my agent who said, ‘What about Sigourney?’ I loved the script and I just said to Jake, ‘Please just don’t change one word of it because it’s such a good part as written.’ And thinking of it as a male executive who’s obsessed with women’s breasts - are they real or not? - is funny. I think having a woman executive who probably has fake breasts being obsessed with whether women’s breasts are real or not and talking about it, I think that’s funnier. Whatever women have done to the workplace, it has certainly not humanized it. The expectation…it’s not quite happened that way.”
This isn’t the first time Weaver’s tackled a role written for a man. “I know! I know, it’s funny. You know if a role is well-written it will work for either sex, I think, unless it’s a love story or something. I actually think there’s so many women in these positions now that it really shouldn’t make a difference. I did it in Vantage Point, too, which is coming out later.”
Crazy Pitches and Weird Ideas for Scripts: Fortunately for Weaver, she’s not one of those in Hollywood who gets bombarded with crazy pitches at every turn. “I don’t think people do that with me,” said Weaver. “I have had some strange situations where people bring me scripts. They just appear, you know, when you’re with your family or in a dentist’s office or something like that. [They say] ‘I’ve written a script and I’m filling your tank, but here’s my script!’ But usually people don’t pitch things. I think a lot of actors are protected by agents and what have you. There is a kind of thing you have to go through because actually you couldn’t stop someone from pitching you something. But a pitch, by its nature, if it happens in the wrong place makes you want to run away. It’s kind of got to be an aggressive, focused thing.”
The Brits vs Americans: What does Weaver think about British television compared to American TV series? “It’s funny you should ask that because my husband and I are addicted to these really terrible BBC programs: How Clean Is Your House, Cash in the Attic, and all those things,” answered Weaver. “I mean I’m so obsessed with those shows, those are TiVoed. And then [my husband] loves the Food Channel so anytime we have to watch Barefoot Contessa and then Good Eats… I mean I’m eating wonderful meals because of it, but we don’t TiVo anything like Rome or The Sopranos. We only watch these weird things!”
The Process of Getting a TV Series in Production: Weaver admits to being totally unaware of how it all worked before taking part in The TV Set. “I had no idea. I didn’t even know about the upfronts. Of course I had to watch everyone’s upfront from the year before and I knew nothing about this. I really didn’t. I don’t think they had that when my father was running the network. He’d just recently wrenched the creative control from the toothpaste people to creating a programmer, so all of this has evolved in the last few years. It’s like a big kind of pep rally for your shows and of course the big joke on our set was some of the shows sounded ludicrous - like Prison Break. It’s like, ‘What’s that?’ But it’s a huge hit!”
Working with David Duchovny: “He was wonderful,” offered Weaver. “The part…I guess it’s supposed to be like Judd Apatow…you have to have someone who’s very smart and very warm and very funny, so I thought it was a wonderful performance. My favorite scene to watch was the audition scene, which was hair-raising as an actor. We had some executives in the room who were real executives. Cold as ice. They kept saying, ‘You’re being too warm,’ and so many of the actors had actually done auditions like this and been in a series of pilots and I just thought, ‘They’re so courageous.’ The way they kind of pick you apart, and I’m sure that goes on, it’s just you don’t want to sit around as an actor and think about what they’re saying about you, but that was wonderful. He had to be our host for that whole afternoon and it was really a wonderful scene to watch.”
Page 2: Sigourney Weaver Reunites with James Cameron for Avatar
