Sigourney Weaver turned the Venice International Film Festival into a family affair as she hit the red carpet with her child, Shar Simpson.

The Alien actress, 74, attended the Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice premiere with Shar, 34, at the glittering film festival on Wednesday.

The duo held hands as they posed up a storm, dressed to the nines from head-to-toe.

Sigourney wowed in a sequined black top and flared skirt while Shar, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, opted for something a little more classic.

Shar donned a chic single-shoulder black dress combined with beaded earrings and a bold red lip.

The duo posed alongside filmmaker Nemo Allen on the red carpet and Shar held hands with both their mother and Allen in the group poses.

Sigourney has been married to Shar’s father, Jim Simpson, since 1984. They welcomed Shar in 1990.

Unlike their famous mother, Shar has pursued a career in education – they work as an adjunct assistant professor at the Digital Storytelling Lab at Columbia University School of the Arts.

It comes after the actress broke down in tears earlier the same day when she was asked about the electoral prospects of Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris during a press conference in Venice.

‘To think for one moment that my work would have anything to do with her rise makes me very happy,’ she said.

The Alien star added: ‘Actually I have so many women who come and thank me..’ before trailing off, unable to complete her sentence.

Offered a drink of water to help her gather her thought she joked: ‘Sorry I need my vodka!’

Weaver is being awarded the Golden Lion by the Venice Film Festival, its highest honour, tonight after a career which has seen her play Ripley in the Alien movies, plus appear in Ghostbusters, Avatar, Working Girl and many more.
She reflected on her good fortune in playing: ‘strong women’ which had started in 1979 with Ridley Scott’s Alien.

‘Why do I play strong women? I just play women and women are strong – and do you know why because we don’t give up, because we don’t get to. We do it,’ she said.

She added: ‘You know what I appreciated about what Water Hill and David Giler wrote and how Ridley Scott put it together was that my character in Alien was a person not a woman. There are very few writers who can write a script and its just a person.

‘You don’t see her having to be girly or womanly – look, it’s great and women can be everything – but I got to play an ‘everyperson’ part. She is all of us. She is what you become when you have to find the ingenuity and don’t even have the time to be brave or anything else.’

Weaver revealed that her original costume for the role was sky blue with pink piping, but that director Ridley Scott had told her: ‘You look like f***ing Jackie O in space!’ and insisted on an authentic space flight suit.

Weaver added: ‘Women are on the front lines of climate change and crises. It’s the women who are taking care of their families of their children often doing work they are on the front lines.

‘I take my inspiration from actual women. To me women were always so capable and we are everything.’

She said that prospects for older women working in film and television have never been better. She is planning to work in a further two Avatar films having already filmed her roles for the first three.

She added: ‘I just think I’m very lucky. I have always had a great appetite, always respected the work loved the work.

‘What happened was suddenly they decided somehow in the world that older women could actually play interesting characters, and started writing them. We stopped being a joke and the mother in law and whatever, and being real people.’
The actress has also not ruled out returning as Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise.

She played the iconic heroine in the sci-fi series from the 1979 original to its fourth installment ‘Alien: Resurrection’ in 1997 and has now revealed she hasn’t completely closed the door on reprising her role in a future flick, even if she feels it is unlikely.

Speaking to Deadline, Weaver said: ‘I feel like she’s never far away from me, but on the other hand I have yet to read a script that said ‘you have got to do this.’

‘So for me, she is in this other dimension, safe from the Alien for the time being. I don’t really think about it, but you know, it’s not completely impossible, and certainly a lot of good filmmakers are inspired by the material.
The actress admitted she doesn’t often think about returning as the character and added she is currently too ‘busy doing other things’ that have stopped her from seriously considering playing Ripley again, such as her undisclosed role in the upcoming ‘Star Wars’ film ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’.

She said: ‘How much does the public really need or want another Ripley movie? I don’t really sit around and think about it, but if it came up, I would consider it.

‘It has come up a bunch of times, but I’m also busy doing other things. Ripley has earned her rest.’

Reflecting on the legacy of the heroine, the ‘Ghostbusters’ star explained she loved that Ripley was written as an ‘everyman character’ that everyone could identify with.

She said: ‘What I love about it, which I think endures, is that the character of Ripley is almost an everyman character.

‘That freed me up from ever having to act like a girl, or dress like a girl. That was very astute of the writers. At a certain point you even forget that it’s a woman. You just know it’s Ripley and you’re hoping she survives.’
When quizzed on the latest entry into the franchise ‘Alien: Romulus’ – which stars Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced, Archie Renaux and Aileen Wu – Weaver revealed ‘there wasn’t a discussion’ about Ripley being a part of the movie, but stressed she wishes the cast ‘all the best for it’.

(Armani)