Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror classic Alien was a landmark for female representation in action cinema, yet its script didn't necessarily call for a woman in the lead. In the movie, after landing on a strange planet, the crew of the intergalactic freighter Nostromo unwittingly brings a malevolent extraterrestrial back aboard their ship. As they fight for survival, the crew is picked off one by one by the rapidly growing Xenomorph until a single crew member is left standing. The ship’s warrant officer, Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, emerges as the hero as she kicks the alien out of the airlock and blasts it with the rocket thrusters.
Ripley broke new ground for female action heroes, blazing the trail for iconic characters like Sarah Connor, Trinity, and Furiosa, but screenwriter Dan O’Bannon didn’t specifically write her as male or female. The original script for Alien had an important note for the producers casting the movie regarding the gender of the characters. When the movie was picked up by 20th Century Fox, Ridley Scott chose to cast a woman as Ripley. But they could’ve just as easily stuck to the established genre conventions and cast a male actor in the role.
Alien’s Characters Were Written To Be Unisex
Dan O’Bannon’s script for Alien began with a note that said, “The crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men or women” (via Collider). Ultimately, the producers of Alien cast men to play these roles: Dallas, the captain; Parker, the chief engineer; Brett, the engineering technician; Ash, the science officer; and Kane, the executive officer. They cast women to play Lambert, the navigator, and Ripley, the warrant officer. Choosing a woman for the latter role was the most groundbreaking move by Alien’s casting team. Ripley is the sole survivor of the bloodbath on the Nostromo and the badass who kills the Xenomorph in the thrilling climactic set-piece.
At the time, Hollywood was still largely averse to the idea of a female action hero – or, for the most part, the idea of a female character with any agency. Sigourney Weaver’s turn as a relatable everywoman who steps up to the challenge of vanquishing a bloodthirsty extraterrestrial killing machine into the vacuum of space proved that women were just as adept at carrying action movies as their male counterparts. Along with fellow ‘70s movie heroines like Coffy and Princess Leia, Ripley paved the way for Lara Croft, Beatrix Kiddo, and Katniss Everdeen.
Why Ridley Scott Cast A Woman As Ripley
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Ridley Scott credited the idea of casting a woman to then-president of 20th Century Fox Alan Ladd, Jr.: “I think the idea actually came from Alan Ladd, Jr. I think it was Alan Ladd who said, ‘Why can’t Ripley be a woman?’ And there was a long pause that, at that moment, I never thought about it. I thought, why not? It’s a fresh direction, the ways I thought about that. And away we went.” This is a rare example of a note from a studio executive having a positive impact on a movie.
Although Ripley was written as unisex in the original Alien script, James Cameron leaned more into Ripley’s feminine qualities when he wrote the script for the sequel, Aliens. Specifically, Cameron focused on Ripley’s maternal instincts as she went to a distant planet ravaged by Xenomorphs and took the orphaned Newt under her wing as a surrogate daughter. Aliens contrasted Ripley’s role as a protective mother who wants to keep her kid safe with the Xenomorph queen, who wants to do the same thing. After the gender-neutral characterization of the original, Weaver’s Oscar-nominated turn in the Alien sequel proved that an action hero can be both feminine and badass.