Sigourney Weaver may be a huge Hollywood star, but the 76-year-old is intensely private about her personal life, including her decades-long marriage to director Jim Simpson, whom she met in 1983.
Despite both attending Yale Drama School in their college years, the pair didn't cross paths until the Williamstown Theater Festival in New York in 1983, where she was starring in a play and he was working as a bartender and directing. She was 34 at the time, and Jim was 27.
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© Ron Galella Collection via GettyMeet cute
"I remember going [to the bar] with Christopher Walken – we were not dating – and I took my shoes off to dance on the dirt floor, and it was so dark," Sigourney recalled to Interview magazine.
"Anyway, this man who's my husband now rescued my shoes and put them up on a pipe somewhere so that I had to go to him, and say, 'Please, sir, where are my shoes?'"
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© Ron Galella Collection via GettyWhirlwind romance
"He was so cute," she continued. "[But] I had a boyfriend at the time…within six months, I had invited him to a party, and he stayed late to help me put away the decorations, and then I asked him out to dinner, and three months later we decided to get married. That's how it happens."
The couple were married in October 1984 and waited almost six years before welcoming their only child, Shar.
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© Patrick McMullan via Getty ImageShowbiz
Jim is also in showbiz like Sigourney, having been an actor in The Guys and West is West. He is best known for his directing work, including being an assistant director on Spice World and Event Horizon, and helming an episode of Tales from the Crypt, as well as directing the 2002 film The Guys, which starred his wife.
"He is an absolutely amazing director," Sigourney said on SmartLess. "I feel very fortunate – since we hardly knew each other when we got married – that I ended up marrying someone who totally got what I did, respected the time it took, really enjoys working with me on the occasional script…I can run lines with him, we can talk about stuff."
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© Getty ImagesTeamwork
Sigourney and Jim co-founded The Flea theater in New York in 1996, and he worked as the artistic director until stepping back in 2015 to make way for new talent.
"I feel very proud of what Jim has done," Sigourney said, adding that it was "essentially the greenhouse, where all talent germinates in theater in the city."
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© Getty ImagesTaking turns
Sigourney shared with IndieWire that part of the reason their marriage was so successful was that they rarely worked together.
"We don't usually work together, so we can take turns [parenting]," she explained. "We also like to complain about whom we're working with when we get home, and you can't do that when you're working together because you're looking at 'em."
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© FilmMagicThe secret to their success
Jim grew up in Hawai'i and brought the aloha spirit to their marriage, as Sigourney explained.
"Honestly, it's such a huge leap of faith!" she told Red of their union. "Of course, you have to work at it and be willing to communicate, and you have to marry the right person, but you're also taking a huge gamble."
"I just feel so fortunate that I married someone with so much 'aloha' because I lead a weird life." She added that they enjoyed spending time outdoors together and "walking around Britain".
