SIGOURNEY WEAVER - WEAVER FASCINATED BY TV NEWS RESEARCH

WEAVER FASCINATED BY TV NEWS RESEARCH

SIGOURNEY WEAVER has a new-found respect for TV news reporters and presenters - after helping to edit breaking stories and footage from battle zones while researching her new role as a hardcore TV executive. Weaver's father Sylvester was one of America's TV news pioneers and the actress once considered becoming a television journalist - and she had the chance to experience a real newsroom as she prepared to play tough-talking Rex Brooks in action thriller Vantage Point. She explains, "I did research over at NBC at Nightly News and the Today show and hung out there for a few days. My father started the Today show, so I'm allowed to go over there. "On one of the later days I was there, the British had found the guys going on the planes with liquids. They let me sit in on all the discussions about what to put out on the air. "I watched the 9/11 tapes, which was the most interesting thing. I think the main thing I learned is the people who have these jobs, whatever emotions they have which will probably come out a day later at the local bar; they really keep cool. They really concentrate on getting the story and putting out the facts. "I had to watch this one reporter during the war between Israel and Lebanon and the missiles were just flying right over his head and he never stopped. He finished his report and said, 'Now I'm gonna have a drink!' The cool these people keep is really quite extraordinary." But the experience put Weaver off a late-life career as a news reporter: "I'd rather work for Animal Planet and do a story about the environment, where I could be half host and half journalist."