Meryl Streep was originally cast as Ellen Ripley in Ridley Scott’s ALIEN

Here’s an interesting “what if?” casting scenario that almost happened! Meryl Streep was originally cast as Ellen Ripley in Ridley ScottThe 1979 horror movie Alien. It’s hard to imagine her in that role because Sigourney Weaver it’s damn amazing how this character is!

Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver actually attended college together at Yale Drama School and regularly competed for the same acting roles. Streep ended up winning many of these roles, including Alien… At the start.

Ellen Ripley is the heart of Alien and an extremely badass character who is forced to survive a situation where she is confronted by the deadly Xenomorph alien species. In the original script, the character was written in such a way that she could be played by both a male and a female.

When they settled on a female character, several actresses auditioned for the role, including Elena Mirren, Katharine Ross (Graduation), Genevieve Bujold (Dead players), And Veronica Cartwrightwhich she read for the part of Ripley, but was ultimately cast as her doomed teammate Lambert.

Ultimately, the two finalists settled on Streep and Weaver and it was offered to Streep because casting director Mary Goldberg felt that Streep was the best fit for the character. So why didn’t it work? One report says Scott decided she “was too delicate and fragile to play a rugged space miner.”

Another report claims that production on the film began shortly after the death of John CazzaleStreep’s associate. She died of lung cancer in March 1978. It is said the producers wanted to give Streep more time to mourn her loss, so they let her go and replaced her with Weaver.

In the end, Weaver was 100% the right choice! While Streep has won a ton of Oscars over the course of her career, I honestly don’t think she would have been able to effectively pull it off, but we’ll never know!

Now, while Streep playing Ellen Ripley in Alien is one thing, you might imagine her in the other films in the series like James Cameron’S aliens?! It’s just insane to think what that would have been like!

What do you think about Steep who almost played Ripley in the Alien franchise?