Sigourney Weaver Isn't Slowing Down

Some say Hollywood doesn't care about veteran actresses but don't say that to Sigourney Weaver.

Thirty years since her movie career began with the 1977 film "Manhattan," she seems busier than ever and is currently starring in two very different movies.

In "The TV Set" Weaver plays the head of a network, which isn't a role that far removed from her life as her father was a major player at NBC and helped found the "Today" show.

"I will say paying his bipolar polar opposite, you know," she told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith. "The terrible executive — who contrary to my father, who thought television should try to be good for people — she really feels it's bad for people to watch anything demanding at night. It's just bad. They worked hard. They deserve to see sluts and food."

On this fictitious network, the biggest show is "Slut Wars," and Weaver's character Lenny thinks the rest of the programming should be just as mindless. When Mike, a television writer played by David Duchovny, tries to do a scene about suicide, she immediately dismisses him.

"You know, this is not just an opinion here. We have the research from other shows. Suicide is depressing to like 82 percent of everybody," Lenny says.

The other movie she is starring in is called "Snow Cake." It is about an adult woman who is living with autism. It is the first movie written by Angela Pell, who has a son with autism.

"She didn't want to write a movie about autism but she wanted to write a movie in which there was an autistic character who could share with the audience the heaven and hell of what it is to have autism," said Weaver.

In order to prepare herself for the role, Weaver, who has been nominated for three Oscars, said she turned to the Autism Spectrum community. She spent a year looking for the right people to teacher her how to behave and eventually found Roz Blackburn, who is a highly functional woman with autism.

"She didn't speak for the first seven years of her life," Weaver said. "She basically taught me everything. I feel very fortunate that I spent so much time with them."

Meanwhile, she's working on the highly-anticipated James Cameron film, "Avatar," which is set to come out in 2009. Weaver is also narrating a Discovering Channel documentary called "Planet Earth" and is starring in a play called "Crazy Mary" by A.R. Gurney, which is set to open in May.