Why Sigourney Weaver needed years of therapy

Sigourney Weaver thought she was far too homely to be an actress, says Olga Craig in the London Daily Telegraph. “I was teased at school for being a too-tall beanpole and I yearned to be the pretty one. When I was about 8 I asked my mom if I was pretty. She said, ‘No dear, you’re just plain.’ That was, well, hard. My mother meant well; she was worried her kids would grow up conceited. She said it for the best of reasons. But I became a really awkward teenager. I thought, Gosh, if my mother doesn’t think I’m pretty, I had better crawl under the couch.” Things didn’t improve when Weaver studied drama at Yale. “I was never going to be a producer’s dream—a petite, blue-eyed blonde.” In fact, her teachers told her she would never find work. “It was tough to hear that. I had no confidence. You think, Well, if my teachers don’t think I have any talent then I mustn’t have any talent.” Only after Weaver underwent “lots and lots of therapy” did her self-confidence improve, and only after she became a household name in films like Alien, Ghostbusters, and Dave did her teachers change their tune. “They took back the mean things they said. Eventually.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up