Written By: Nick Poulimenakos

One of Marvel’s biggest mysteries at the moment comes from its upcoming Netflix series The Defenders. Sigourney Weaver stars as main antagonist Alexandra and the studio has not released any information who what kind of villain she’ll be. Now, Weaver has offered a tidbit about her character and it’s an interestubg one. According to Weaver in an interview with Entertainment Weekly,:

“I’m not a villain,” she says. “I’m an adversary.”

Well that just adds to the growing mystery surrounding Alexandra. What we do know is that she will be acting as the head of the ancient organization, The Hand, and has not faced opposition quite like The Defenders. Showrunner Marco Ramierz jumped in and spoke about the head of The Hand saying:

“In her career, she’s come up against a lot of different people — armies, mercenaries, devoted religious fanatics and all kinds of different groups — who have tried to take her down, but she’s never met four people who are seemingly just interested in taking care of this one little part of New York.” “I think she’s actually really charmed by it, and weirdly, because they’re unlike anybody she’s ever faced off against before, it’s intimidating to her.”

Ramirez went onto say that he believes Alexandra to be a survivor above all else.

“A survivor, who’s more interested in protecting the world — and her vision of it — than in destroying it. “Above all else, she cares about living,” he teases. “She’s about self-preservation, and self-preservation at all costs… She has the long game in mind, and she isn’t thinking about this chess game, she’s thinking about six chess games in the future. As such, I think she’s seen a lot of beauty in humanity and in the world, but there are certain things that to her are expendable, and that’s a really dangerous worldview.”

Weaver was quick to note that her character is not a villain because that would imply that she’s cruel and heartless.

“With my work in general, I try to avoid terms like ‘ice queen’ that are often thrown at women who aren’t completely sympathetic,” she says, adding that when she took the part, she worked with writers to make sure Alexandra avoided the trope. “I encouraged [them] to not think in those terms, because I find them completely meaningless, and to help me understand who I was from a really un-cliché-ed point of view. I think we succeeded in that.”

All in all, Weaver says that Alexandra should be known as an admirable and passionate person. She cares about certain things very deeply but something like The Defenders would be seen as a collision course.

The Defenders starts streaming on Netflix on August 18, 2017