- - Sigourney Weaver Says Fans Approach Her to Say Her ‘Bad Guy’ Character in 1988’s “Working Girl” Was ‘Wronged’ (Exclusive)

Eric Andersson, Juliet LopezDecember 19, 2025 at 12:00 AM

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Sigourney Weaver looks back on her life in pictures with PEOPLE

Reflecting on the 1988 movie Working Girl, the three-time Oscar nominee says not all fans agree that her character was the "bad guy"

The star of the new movie Avatar: Fire and Ash also shares stories from her childhood and years in Hollywood

Was Sigourney Weaver’s character in Working Girl a scheming corporate gatekeeper — or simply misunderstood? The actress, 76, says some fans tell her they think her “bad guy” character was the one who was ultimately “wronged” in the movie.

Speaking with PEOPLE for a My Life in Pictures feature, the three-time Oscar-nominee reflects on the 1988 Mike Nichols dramedy about plucky N.Y.C. secretary Tess (Melanie Griffith) who believes her slick boss, Katherine (Weaver) has stolen one of her ideas about a potential corporate deal.

While Katherine is out of town — she breaks her leg skiing and can’t immediately come back to New York — Tess uses her boss's office and pretends to be an exec, raids her closet at her luxury townhouse and strikes up a romance with Katherine’s lover Jack (Harrison Ford), with whom Tess is trying to partner on a deal.

The comedy classic earned six Academy Award nominations — including one for Weaver for Best Supporting Actress — and won for Best Original Song, Carly Simon’s “Let the River Run.” Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack (who was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress) and Olympia Dukakis also have featured roles.

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Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver on the set of 'Working Girl.'

“It's wonderful movie, I think. It's a great story, a great Pygmalion story," she says, adding knowingly, "I play this very nice woman named Katharine Parker, who's completely misunderstood and seems to be the bad guy in this movie.”

But Weaver says not everyone thinks Katherine is the villain. “I have had a lot of women come up to me at airports in places like that and go, ‘Katharine Parker, you were wronged. Melanie Griffith was stealing your clothes and your boyfriend. We can't believe you lost!’”

Tess does indeed get the happy ending, walking away with a fancy new job — and Jack, too.

Not that Weaver minds. “I loved it,” she says of working on the movie, which featured Cusack and Griffith’s characters in big hair and big jewelry. (Weaver’s Parker was more refined.)

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Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver in 'Working Girl.'

“We had Ann Roth costumes and the great Alan D'Angerio was doing my hair,” she says of the Oscar-winning costume designer and Oscar-nominated hairstylist, respectively.

“It was just a wonderful ensemble and it was a lot about hair and makeup and costume. But I think that was a very exciting period in the '80s and worth taking another look,” she adds.

Though Weaver lost the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (The Accidental Tourist’s Geena Davis clinched the prize), she did take home the trophy at that year’s Golden Globes.

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Sigourney Weaver at the 1989 Golden Globes.

“I remember Meryl Streep coming up to me at the Golden Globes and saying, ‘You forgot the sleeve of your dress,’” says Weaver. “Yes, I was very surprised and delighted to win the Golden Globe for best supporting actress in Working Girl. It was a delicious part. Mike Nichols loved Katherine, and so we had a lot of fun.”

Weaver takes PEOPLE through several other photos dating back to her childhood when she grew up in New York City.

Her mother, Elizabeth Inglis, was an English actress who appeared on stage and screen in the 1930s and ’40s, and her dad, Pat Weaver, was president of NBC for two years in the 1950s, co-creating the Today show and rubbing elbows with the stars of the day.

“I thought everyone’s family was in show business,” recalls Weaver, 76. “I didn’t realize how odd it was that a guy named Art Linkletter came to see me when I had chickenpox. He had a [TV segment that became] Kids Say the Darndest Things. I can’t remember saying anything, let alone a darndest thing.”

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Sigourney Weaver with her parents and brother Trajan Weaver.

Weaver has said plenty since, delivering some of the most memorable lines in cinema history. As badass space traveler Ellen Ripley protecting a young girl in 1986’s Aliens, she shouted “Get away from her, you bitch!” during the climactic showdown with a terrifying extraterrestrial.

And as Katharine in Working Girl, she condescendingly said to her underling, “Tess, look at me. Who makes it happen?”

Before she made her way to the big screen, Weaver honed her acting skills at Yale School of Drama (Streep was a classmate), where she struggled with unsupportive instructors.

“They told me I had no talent, so I shouldn’t even have gone to that school,” she previously told PEOPLE.

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Sigourney Weaver and husband Jim Simpson in 2023.

Weaver quickly proved them wrong, landing roles on the New York stage — one of which caught the eye of Warren Beatty, who recommended her to Alien producer David Giler.

Weaver has fond memories of working on the groundbreaking 1979 horror movie, which launched her to fame and has spawned eight sequels.

“It was a very dark, pretty tense set,” she recalls. “I loved it because it felt really illegitimate. It didn’t feel like a snazzy film. I was from off-off Broadway, and it felt like the off-off Broadway of movies, so I felt kind of right at home.”

Over the next five decades Weaver — who shares one child, Shar, 35, with husband of 41 years, director Jim Simpson — starred in other massive franchises, including Ghostbusters and Avatar.

courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Sigourney Weaver as Kiri in 'Avatar: Fire and Ash.'

She’s once again far away from Earth in Avatar: Fire and Ash, in theaters Dec. 19. But she doesn’t necessarily think of herself as a sci-fi queen, despite what others may say. “To me,” she says, “they’re all just great stories.”

Watch the video above to see Weaver share some of her own stories.

on People

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