104 | W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K
was during that weird [bird’s eye view] shot
where the birds are circling above the town. Being so young at the time, how much
of an affect did the fi lm have on you?
Well, years later I had a wooden shingled roof
house and a big eucalyptus tree outside and
the crows would nest there. One day I heard
this horrifi c stuff going on and I could hear all
these things running on my roof and I saw 30
birds pulling my shingles to make a nest! It was
so creepy and I told them that I’d done that
movie already and they should just go away! On Alien you played Lambert but you
were originally considered for the role
of Ripley weren’t you?
Originally that was the only part I read for so
I assumed that was the part I had. I called my
agent and said, ‘it’s for Ripley right?’ because
they were saying I was Lambert! I hadn’t
even read the script from the point of view of
Lambert. It bothered me that the character was
so weepy, so I tried to make her not such a
campy ass! But in a weird way that character
was the audience and the way they were
feeling; they wanted to get out of there too! In the Director’s Cut, there was a scene,
following the quarantine altercation
with Kane, where you slap Sigourney
Weaver across the face! Was that real?
That was real. But every time I went to slap her
she kept ducking. Then, Ridley Scott said to me
‘would you just get her this time!’ So, I went to
hit her and then I back-handed her and she
was not a happy camper. Oh, she was pissed!
She felt it wasn’t right for the character that
I would cry and so it was cut out of the fi lm.
However, I thought it was a perfect reaction; of
course you’d be pissed!Ripley and Lambert didn’t really get
along anyway did they?
I think we’d all been in space too long. We
were all aggregated with one another and that
was what the whole thing was. After Dallas
died Ripley becomes the captain but she has to
earn that; nobody was just going to let her be
the captain. I was sort of the voice of reason
that thinks, ‘let’s get the fuck out of here!’. You get the most blood splattered
on you during the iconic alien
chest-burster scene. What are your
memories shooting that?
Those were real reactions from everybody.
John Hurt had a false chest fi lled with [animal]
kidneys and livers... and then there was this
puppeteer underneath doing the monster stuff,
so we all saw the creature break through,
turn around and look at us. I was told that I
would get a little blood on me, but the blood
jet was pointed directly in my face! I had no
idea. I started getting so fascinated watching
that thing and I then was just covered! Thatwas the cut they used, as it was the only take
we ever did. Well, it worked! And everybody
remembers it that’s for sure! It is infamous for being a pretty
tough shoot too. Was it as tense
on set as reported?
It was a very tense shoot. The Nostromo set
was interconnected and you had to literally go
through this maze to get off the set so it was
very claustrophobic. Those space suits weren’t
comfortable either and they forgot to give us
air holes so we kept passing out. It was diffi cult
and when we shot all that stuff there was a heat
wave in England and all the bottles of beers
were popping in the pubs. I’d lost ten pounds in
just one week. It was grotesque. It was a rough
shoot but we all made it work. You were similarly cast in a ‘voice
of reason’ role in Phillip Kaufman’s
1978 version of Invasion Of The Body
Snatchers. Tell us about that.
The fi lm is about people being afraid of really
loving or hating or of any true emotion...
making it so much easier to live in that grey
world. That’s what makes it so creepy. I said
to Phillip [Kaufman], can we just try something
here... it builds to a point where I say, ’they’re
like monkeys and apes...’ and that ended up
being in the movie. The information becomes a
stimulating topic of conversation and again my
character is the voice of reason. Your character is essentially the only
real human left at the end. The twist
when Donald Sutherland’s character
is revealed to be a pod person and
emits that infamous shriek... that was
a surprise to you too wasn’t it?
At the end of the movie when Donald
Sutherland’s character screams at me I just
freaked out! Both of us were told different
things; so when he was revealed to have turned
into one of [the pod people] I fl ipped out! My
character, Nancy, was the voice of reason
again. I even thought they might make a sequel,
because she’d taken every precaution not to
be found out and made sure nobody else was
around, but of course, I did not know Donald
was going to do that!With George Miller’s The Witches
Of Eastwick you play what
ultimately became a very outlandish
character. How fun was that role?
She’s just fantastic and it was so much fun. You
just don’t get parts like that anymore. You think
she’s so prim and proper but she wasn’t. You
just don’t get scripts where you get to go
ballistic and nuts and come up with things off
the top of your head: growling, galloping and
feeling oneself up – she was just a wacko! But
the script made me do all those things!Tell us about fi lming the infamous
vomiting scene...VERONICA CARTWRIGHT
FLASHBACK
Facing terror in
Hit c h’s The Birds.About to meet the
monster in Alien...104 | W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K
was during that weird [bird’s eye view] shot
where the birds are circling above the town. Being so young at the time, how much
of an affect did the fi lm have on you?
Well, years later I had a wooden shingled roof
house and a big eucalyptus tree outside and
the crows would nest there. One day I heard
this horrifi c stuff going on and I could hear all
these things running on my roof and I saw 30
birds pulling my shingles to make a nest! It was
so creepy and I told them that I’d done that
movie already and they should just go away! On AlienAlienAlien you played Lambert but you you played Lambert but you
were originally considered for the role
of Ripley weren’t you?
Originally that was the only part I read for so
I assumed that was the part I had. I called my
agent and said, ‘it’s for Ripley right?’ because
they were saying I was Lambert! I hadn’t
even read the script from the point of view of
Lambert. It bothered me that the character was
so weepy, so I tried to make her not such a
campy ass! But in a weird way that character
was the audience and the way they were
feeling; they wanted to get out of there too! In the Director’s Cut, there was a scene,
following the quarantine altercation
with Kane, where you slap Sigourney
Weaver across the face! Was that real?
That was real. But every time I went to slap her
she kept ducking. Then, Ridley Scott said to me
‘would you just get her this time!’ So, I went to
hit her and then I back-handed her and she
was not a happy camper. Oh, she was pissed!
She felt it wasn’t right for the character that
I would cry and so it was cut out of the fi lm.
However, I thought it was a perfect reaction; of
course you’d be pissed!Ripley and Lambert didn’t really get
along anyway did they?
I think we’d all been in space too long. We
were all aggregated with one another and that
was what the whole thing was. After Dallas
died Ripley becomes the captain but she has to
earn that; nobody was just going to let her be
the captain. I was sort of the voice of reason
that thinks, ‘let’s get the fuck out of here!’. You get the most blood splattered
on you during the iconic alien
chest-burster scene. What are your
memories shooting that?
Those were real reactions from everybody.
John Hurt had a false chest fi lled with [animal]
kidneys and livers... and then there was this
puppeteer underneath doing the monster stuff,
so we all saw the creature break through,
turn around and look at us. I was told that I
would get a little blood on me, but the blood
jet was pointed directly in my face! I had no
idea. I started getting so fascinated watching
that thing and I then was just covered! Thatwas the cut they used, as it was the only take
we ever did. Well, it worked! And everybody
remembers it that’s for sure! It is infamous for being a pretty
tough shoot too. Was it as tense
on set as reported?
It was a very tense shoot. The Nostromo set
was interconnected and you had to literally go
through this maze to get off the set so it was
very claustrophobic. Those space suits weren’t
comfortable either and they forgot to give us
air holes so we kept passing out. It was diffi cult
and when we shot all that stuff there was a heat
wave in England and all the bottles of beers
were popping in the pubs. I’d lost ten pounds in
just one week. It was grotesque. It was a rough
shoot but we all made it work. You were similarly cast in a ‘voice
of reason’ role in Phillip Kaufman’s
1978 version of Invasion Of The Body
Snatchers.Snatchers.Snatchers. Tell us about that. Tell us about that.
The fi lm is about people being afraid of really
loving or hating or of any true emotion...
making it so much easier to live in that grey
world. That’s what makes it so creepy. I said
to Phillip [Kaufman], can we just try something
here... it builds to a point where I say, ’they’re
like monkeys and apes...’ and that ended up
being in the movie. The information becomes a
stimulating topic of conversation and again my
character is the voice of reason. Your character is essentially the only
real human left at the end. The twist
when Donald Sutherland’s character
is revealed to be a pod person and
emits that infamous shriek... that was
a surprise to you too wasn’t it?
At the end of the movie when Donald
Sutherland’s character screams at me I just
freaked out! Both of us were told different
things; so when he was revealed to have turned
into one of [the pod people] I fl ipped out! My
character, Nancy, was the voice of reason
again. I even thought they might make a sequel,
because she’d taken every precaution not to
be found out and made sure nobody else was
around, but of course, I did not know Donald
was going to do that!With George Miller’s The Witches
Of EastwickOf EastwickOf Eastwick you play what you play what
ultimately became a very outlandish
character. How fun was that role?
She’s just fantastic and it was so much fun. You
just don’t get parts like that anymore. You think
she’s so prim and proper but she wasn’t. You
just don’t get scripts where you get to go
ballistic and nuts and come up with things off
the top of your head: growling, galloping and
feeling oneself up – she was just a wacko! But
the script made me do all those things!Tell us about fi lming the infamous
vomiting scene...VERONICA CARTWRIGHT
FLASHBACK
was not a happy camper. Oh, she was pissed!
She felt it wasn’t right for the character that
I would cry and so it was cut out of the fi lm.
However, I thought it was a perfect reaction; of
course you’d be pissed!Ripley and Lambert didn’t really get
along anyway did they?
I think we’d all been in space too long. We
were all aggregated with one another and that
was what the whole thing was. After Dallas
died Ripley becomes the captain but she has to
earn that; nobody was just going to let her be
the captain. I was sort of the voice of reason
that thinks, ‘let’s get the fuck out of here!’. You get the most blood splattered
on you during the iconic alien
chest-burster scene. What are your
memories shooting that?
Those were real reactions from everybody.
John Hurt had a false chest fi lled with [animal]
kidneys and livers... and then there was this
puppeteer underneath doing the monster stuff,
so we all saw the creature break through,Facing terror in
Hit c h’s The Birds.About to meet the
monster in Alien...