NEW YORK - Nearly four decades since Sigourney Weaver became a sci-fi icon, audiences still can't get enough.
In January, an image of her rehearsing for Aliens went viral. The photo was taken 35 years ago.
"I just remember that day because, of course I was a big gun control fanatic and I still am, and suddenly Jim Cameron confronted me with having to shoot machine guns, bazookas, flame throwers," she said during an interview with Evening Magazine. "But I'm glad I did it or I would've scorched a few stunt people!"
In Chappie, Weaver returns to science fiction. Though this time, she trades weapons for spreadsheets, as a profit-driven CEO.
Her own father was an executive, though in a far different industry. He ran NBC in the mid-1950's, inventing programming like The Today Show.
"I wanted to be a journalist, a writing journalist," Weaver said. "It really never occurred to me to work for a television station. You know how everyone has their thing, so that was sort of my dad's thing, so I went into theater."
Since then, she's made more than 50 films, won two Golden Globes, and starred in the highest-grossing movie of all time. And she's always embraced her roles, whether hero or villain.
"I think what's fun for an actor is to always go back and forth," she said. "You play a nun in one thing, then a prostitute in another. It's the extremes that I think are interesting."
She's also never tired of the genre that launched her.
"The one thing about science fiction that's cool is that because it's always in the future, it's still kind of relevant," she said.
Chappie is rated R and comes out in theaters Friday, March 6.
