Sigourney Weaver Paid Tribute To ‘Alien’ Co-Star Yaphet Kotto Following His Death

Sigourney Weaver paid tribute on Wednesday to her Alien co-star Yaphet Kotto, who died earlier this week. He was 81 years old.

“Every day Yaphet Kotto blew me away on the set of Alien,” she wrote. “He just went for it in every scene, making the stakes higher and higher and giving each scene a terrifying reality. It was a nonstop master class for me and I will always be grateful to him.”

“Rest In Peace Parker… Over and out, Ripley.”

Kotto, who played Nostromo chief engineer Dennis Parker in the sci-fi classic, also starred on NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street and appeared in The Running Man, Midnight Run, and the James Bond film, Live and Let Die (he was the franchise’s first Black villain). He was remembered as a “brilliant magnetic presence” by Edgar Wright, while Ava DuVernay said he was “one of those actors who deserved more than the parts he got. But he took those parts and made them wonderful all the same. A star.”

In one of his final interviews before his death, Kotto told IGN that he was surprised that “we’re still talking about [Alien] all these years later. I knew it was good, but I am surprised… I was such a believer in Alien and the script and the role of Parker that I turned down other roles that offered far more money.”