ALIEN: RESURRECTION THE ANTI-HERO

Scientifically speaking, Weaver doesn’t play Ripley in the fourth and weakest of her Alien films. She plays clone ‘Ripley 8’ — Ripley plus xenomorph DNA: amoral, supercharged, brimming with acid one-liners. Weaver appreciated inverting the past. Could Ripley be cool? “Faced with the Company’s manipulations, it was natural to be cynical.”

She worked out a mutual body language with Tom Woodruff Jr, the stunt man playing the lead Alien. “I watched Frankenstein,” she says, “for the idea of the monster creating himself.” It’s a mesmerising performance, but the film is weirdly off-kilter. She sighs, “I’m not sure where we got to.”

She was game for Neill Blomkamp restarting the series after Aliens, but Fox lost faith. Recently, producer Walter Hill sent over a 50-page treatment for a fifth Ripley. “I don’t know,” reflects Weaver. “Maybe Ripley has done her bit. She deserves a rest.” Time to enjoy the memories.

Deep-cleaning her New York apartment recently, she found a set of photos from the first film. “Me with the special-effects guys,” she laughs. “I’d be hanging up in the air and they would pipe me tea laced with rum to keep me going, without my asking for it! I was part of the crew, and that was something I loved. I wasn’t dressed in some little dolly dress, trying to keep clean. I was in jumpsuits looking like a grease monkey, in the trenches with the crew.”

Just being Ripley, getting things done.