- - Sigourney Weaver Reveals the Unlikely Person Who Told Her She Should Play the 'Really Awful Woman' in “Holes”

Meredith WilshereDecember 27, 2025 at 1:00 PM

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Sigourney Weaver, 'Holes' -

Sigourney Weaver shared that her then-8-year-old child inspired her to join the cast of Holes

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the actress, 76, said her child, Shar Simpson, was reading the book in school

"I remember being very proud of her that she was able to separate from the book and be able to say to me, ‘There’s a really awful person, and you should play her, Mom,'" she recalled

It wasn't a casting director or producer who first asked Sigourney Weaver about joining the cast of Holes, but rather her child.

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Weaver recounted the time her child, Shar Simpson, came home from school with the perfect project in mind for the actress.

"Holes is funny because my daughter, who was about 8, was given Holes to read in school," Weaver shares. "One day, she came up to me and said, ‘Mom, there’s this really awful woman in my book, and you should play her.’ "

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Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Shia LaBeouf in 'Holes'

"I remember being very proud of her that she was able to separate from the book and be able to say to me, ‘There’s a really awful person, and you should play her, Mom,’ cause I think she knew I would enjoy it,” the actress, 76, added. Weaver married theater director Jim Simpson in 1984, and they share one child, 35-year-old Shar.

Once the film adaptation was made in 2003, Weaver landed the role of The Warden. Her character ran Camp Green Lake, a boys' juvenile detention camp, where she forced the teens to dig for buried treasure believed to be on the camp grounds.

“It was incredible to me to actually end up in the movie, you know, directed and I think, produced by Andy Davis, with Louis Sachar writing the script, and such an amazing young cast,” the Alien actress told Vanity Fair.

Holes was inspired by the 1998 novel by the same name, both written by Sachar. In addition to Weaver, the film featured Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Patricia Arquette, Tim Blake Nelson, Khleo Thomas, Dule Hill, Eartha Kitt, and more.

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RGR Collection / Alamy Stock Photo

Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Shia LaBeouf in 'Holes'

Weaver went on to say that her character is “quite a creation, I mean, really nightmare-ish," especially "from a children’s point of view.”

“But what I found so unexpectedly touching about The Warden was that she had spent her childhood looking for that treasure, doing what she had the boys doing nonstop. The idea that she was so damaged, probably had some PTSD that was still active in her, so she was driven to continue to look,” she said.

“In the last scene, I think before she’s taken away, I said to Andy [Davis], ‘You have to let her see what they found, and then she can rest,’ and so I did get to see it in the back of the car,” she added.

Holes is available to stream on Disney+.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”