- 3 months ago
Winona Ryder joins GQ as she revisits some of the most iconic characters from her career so far: from her breakout role as Lydia Deetz in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice to the portrayal of Joyce Byers in Stranger Things.
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00:00It was freezing.
00:02He wanted to see, like, the breath coming out of my mouth.
00:07That was very important.
00:08It was actually real, which is kind of beautiful.
00:22We're ghosts!
00:25What do you look like under there?
00:27Aren't you scared?
00:28I'm not scared of sheets.
00:29Are you gross under there?
00:31Are you night of the living dead under there?
00:34Like all bloody veins and pus?
00:36I met Tim when I was 14, I think maybe 15.
00:43I know we shot the movie when I was 15.
00:46You know, I really wanted to go in by myself.
00:50I remember telling my parents, you have to wait in the car.
00:53Like, I want to do this by myself.
00:56I walked into this office.
01:01Tim came in, and I did think he was from the art department.
01:05I remember the first thing we started talking about was Edward Gorey, who I was kind of obsessed with, an incredible illustrator, which was just pure, like, coincidence.
01:19I didn't know Tim's sort of background.
01:21I just knew I was meeting on this script.
01:24We talked for about a half hour about old movies and Edward Gorey before I realized that he was, in fact, the director.
01:33I mean, he was 26, 27, and he looked like someone I would know, you know, like, that I would, like, see at a show, at a concert, or, like, a cool underground gallery or something.
01:50It was such a beautiful first impression, and it also was the first time I was offered something on the spot, which I was prepared to read to audition.
02:05And I remember when, do you know when this Tim Burton guy is going to show up?
02:10He's like, oh, that's me.
02:11And I was like, oh, oh.
02:14I kind of immediately went into, oh, do you want me to, I'm ready to read?
02:18And he was like, no, I'd love you to do it.
02:22It just came so naturally to me.
02:24I feel like it was sort of my baseline was, like, a very, I dressed, not to that extreme, but I, like, was always in black.
02:36I dyed my hair, like, six months before I met with Tim.
02:41Like, I had, like, dyed L'Oreal blue-black hair and very pale skin, and so, like, aesthetically I was there.
02:51But also, I think tonally, there wasn't a ton of direction.
02:57He was so great at giving me an idea, or he doesn't, like, do line readings for you, but just an idea of, like, how to, what part of the line is to yourself and what part of it is directed and who's, you know, like, he was really great at that.
03:16And he was really, he was so beautiful, and I get emotional because I love him so much as a friend and a director and a mentor and everything.
03:31It's like an intimacy that is profoundly safe.
03:38And, and I, I, speaking from, for myself, he was so protective of, of Lydia.
03:46I was at a very tender age, and it's certainly not lost on me that I've watched the kids on Stranger Things acting.
03:57I remember what it was like at that age.
04:00You got your wish.
04:01We're leaving.
04:02So go pack up your things.
04:03I'm driving you back to school.
04:04Wait, what happened?
04:05You wouldn't believe me if I told you.
04:07I will pay for a fleet of movers to take everything back to Manhattan except that model.
04:13We need to chop it up and burn it.
04:15Because we had been talking about it for so many years, it almost happened.
04:21But I, you kind of realize, wow, everything really does happen for a reason because Jenna Ortega is so crucial to that movie.
04:33And she wasn't, you know, she wasn't born yet.
04:38Like, so we were all sort of, I, I think she was a real linchpin.
04:44I was really nervous when, when, because it was sort of like, suddenly it was happening.
04:49It was going to happen.
04:49And I was so used to like, okay, but when is it going to be next year?
04:56Or, you know, it sort of came together and I was probably exactly how Lydia would be handling, like, the news.
05:06Like, okay, I have a kid now.
05:08I'm a mom.
05:09I'm in this weird relationship that doesn't make a lot of sense.
05:13But I'm really just, I have the show, which is sort of so not Lydia.
05:17But in working with Tim about it, these things like happen.
05:22They do.
05:22You find yourself at different points of your life in the weirdest situations, doing things that you never saw yourself doing.
05:30So all the things that I was sort of nervous about inhabiting, I was already internalizing as Lydia.
05:38I could, like, lean on myself, you know, as everything, the stuff that's going on around her is, a lot of it is very puzzling.
05:50It made it weirdly easy to respond to as the character would.
06:02Must have been awful when they told you whose house it was.
06:08Tim, it's so interesting because I remember thinking, really me?
06:25But there was something, actually, I think about Kim that was very similar to Lydia, which was what she sees.
06:35There's, like, a reason Lydia sees, she can see the ghosts.
06:40Like, that's a, there's a purity there.
06:43And Kim, if you really watch the movie, she reacts to Edward in the way, like a normal way, which is she's absolutely terrified and, like, does not understand why everyone's acting like this is normal.
06:59And then she grows to love him, whereas everyone else loves him and then turns on him.
07:07Tim would say, you're, like, the calm in the storm.
07:11You can get, like, hung up on aesthetics.
07:14So what I was in was just, like, the very opposite of me.
07:18And what was going on inside of her was actually not, not dissimilar to Lydia.
07:25Certainly it wasn't out of my comfort zone.
07:28It was actually a brilliant casting choice.
07:32It was a gift.
07:33It was such a gift.
07:34I love that she has this sort of inner moral compass.
07:40That is correct.
07:42We shot most of the movie in Florida in this little neighborhood was being developed, so they let them paint the houses and all of that.
08:04But then we shot the inside of sort of the castle on sound stages in L.A.
08:12I remember for that, it was freezing.
08:17He wanted to see, like, the breath coming out of my mouth.
08:22That was very important.
08:23It was actually real, which is kind of beautiful.
08:28Patti Smith, someone that I admire so much, that I'm a huge fan of, told me that that was her favorite scene.
08:37And I was like, what?
08:39That meant so much to me.
08:47Are you alive?
08:50Are you safe?
09:06I think it took talking into, because I was just given the pilot.
09:12I'd never done a series before.
09:15I didn't know what streaming was.
09:18This is 2015 was when I read it.
09:22And I didn't know where it was going.
09:25I didn't see it as doing what it has done.
09:30Because when we started, I didn't really even know what the end of the season would be.
09:38It's so different making a series.
09:40It's very different than making a film.
09:42To be just completely honest, it was like a big, I think, leap of faith for everybody.
09:48But I do remember meeting the kids, and they're all so different.
09:55They were so, like, authentic and completely just beguiling.
10:01Like, they had, like, that unforced, like, charm that you have when you're that age.
10:09And you're not, like, overanalyzing things.
10:12You're not seeing anything through a different lens.
10:15They were themselves, and it was magic.
10:19One of the great, I think, the best thing about this experience for me has been watching these kids grow up.
10:27It's very moving.
10:28I'm very proud of them.
10:30And I have so much love for them.
10:33All J.D. really did was ruin two pairs of pants.
10:43Maybe not even that.
10:45Can you bleach out urine stains?
10:47I was given that script by Michael McDowell, who wrote Beale Juice.
10:53So he was friends with Dan Waters, who wrote Heathers.
10:58I felt like such an insider, right?
11:01I got slid this script.
11:04I thought it was a masterpiece, which it is.
11:09I remember sitting in my bedroom in Petaluma, where I live with my family.
11:15I tracked down Michael Lehman's phone number, and I, like, cold called him.
11:20And I was sort of like, Michael gave me the script.
11:26But I love it.
11:28I understand I may not be, like, physically what you might be thinking.
11:34But I, you know, I had this phone call, and he was incredibly sweet.
11:40When the movie got, I, you know, found funding and auditions were happening.
11:47I went in, and I did the whole, like, you don't have to, I don't care.
11:53Like, I don't, you don't have to pay me.
11:55Almost, I don't care if it comes out.
11:58I want to, I was obsessed with the role, and I want to save you, please.
12:04Like, I don't think I had wanted anything and felt so connected to something.
12:10They took a chance on me, and I am forever grateful.
12:15Dear Diary, my teen angst bullshit has a body count.
12:21The most popular people in school are dead.
12:24Everybody's sad, but it's a weird kind of sad.
12:28Can I say, though, I have that monocle?
12:31I have the monocle.
12:33I have my Westerberg High ID and the clip.
12:38But it's, like, laminated.
12:39And then I have the copies of the Heather Chandler note.
12:50Because I had to do all the inserts, had to be in my writing.
12:54Sorry.
12:55I'm, like, a fanatic about that movie.
12:59There are lines of other people.
13:00I love that I don't patronize Bunny Rabbit's line.
13:04My teen angst bullshit has a body count.
13:06I mean, I loved her, like, going, wait, Wicked Witch of the West, wait, East, wait, wait.
13:10Like, it's just, like, it's so Eskimo.
13:15Obviously, these are very peculiar.
13:18So, I, but they're, it's just a, I think it's a real masterpiece.
13:22The script was initially, like, over 300 pages.
13:27I, it's, like, one of my most prized possessions.
13:30Yeah.
13:30I feel like you're the child and I'm the grown-up.
13:42I can't ever imagine being inside you.
13:47I can't imagine being anywhere you'd let me hang around for nine straight months.
13:52I loved that I got that part.
13:56That was such a huge moment for me because I loved that Charlotte was this mass of, like,
14:05contradictions, which I think, like, a lot of teenagers are.
14:11She wants to be a nun, but she's, like, madly in love with Joe.
14:16So, it's exactly what you kind of feel like when you're going through, you, it's, like,
14:21you have conflicting feelings all the time, your massive contradictions.
14:28Working with Cher, like, are you kidding me?
14:33That was a huge gift.
14:36I'm forever grateful to her.
14:39And she really, she really had an impact on me.
14:44Her friendship, her mentorship, her humor.
14:49I felt so close to her.
14:52I mean, I felt, like, related to her.
14:56And, obviously, Christina Ricci, who was her first movie, and she was fantastic in it.
15:03Like, we really did become, like, this little family.
15:05Cher was also, like, pivotal in a lot of, like, just personal ways for me.
15:12She started, really, when she was, like, 16.
15:17She had had so much experience.
15:19And nowadays, kids say, like, mother.
15:23It's like a, and, I mean, she's sort of the ultimate, right?
15:27But, also, her friendship was, just meant a lot to me, and still does.
15:36You make mistakes.
15:37You're always screwing up, and we're always paying for it.
15:39Every time you get dumped, every time you dump on somebody, and it's just, it's not fair, Mom.
15:45It is not fair.
15:46Richard Benjamin, having been an actor, it's so interesting.
15:51I would love to, like, watch him, like, have a different perspective.
15:56Like, watch him direct that scene, because it felt like the world went away.
16:02And he brought everything up that we needed to feel.
16:09And it just worked.
16:12It worked for me.
16:13It worked for her.
16:14The way he did it, it was, I don't use this word a lot, but it was sort of magic.
16:23Mermaids felt very raw, very sort of naked, and, like, you're really burying this stuff that may not be that attractive, you know?
16:39Like, it's, I remember shooting the scene with Joe, oh my gosh, where I, like, Richard somehow, like, gave me, I think he just sort of, like, talked to me about, like, little improvised moments that he had done.
16:56And there's, like, ways that directors can do that, where they really are planting it in your head.
17:02You think you're just, like, listening to a story, but I remember we're getting into the boat, and I, like, licked his jacket.
17:09Okay.
17:10Yeah, I'm fine, thanks.
17:12Which is so weird.
17:13But he used that take.
17:16And it did work somehow, and it would be something that this, like, very confused 16-year-old girl would do.
17:23So, Michael Schoffling, by the way, we were doing a scene in the car, and when you shoot scenes in a car, it was, it's just the two of you in the car all day.
17:35Like, the cameras are outside, so it can be awkward, it can be great.
17:41I was super comfortable with him.
17:42He, like, projected the future, because he told me that one day there's going to be computers, and they're going to, like, replace us.
17:52And he was totally, like, playing with me, but I was like, what do you mean?
17:57And I was so, like, freaked out.
18:00I remember, like, getting really, like, what do you, like, what do you mean, computers?
18:04Or, anyway, he's such a wonderful, wonderful guy.
18:11I loved working with him.
18:19Revenge is mine.
18:22Quothi continued in the following edition.
18:30It was heaven.
18:32It truly was heaven.
18:34It was, I remember I read this script, which I think was just a spec script that was, like, it wasn't set up anywhere.
18:44It was such a gorgeous adaptation.
18:46I wasn't particularly looking to do Little Women, because I love the previous versions.
18:56But this one, it was written so beautifully.
19:01I was kind of obsessed with Gillian Armstrong.
19:06And I really, really wanted to work with her ever since my brilliant career.
19:11And I remember, like, begging her to do it.
19:14She was a little bit reluctant because she felt like my brilliant career was about a woman during that time who was trying to be a writer.
19:24She was sort of like, I wanted to make the movie with her.
19:30Like, it was very crucial.
19:33I don't know if I would have done it with anyone.
19:38Like, it just, it was just like this perfect, perfect situation.
19:43And then, obviously, the cast.
19:46Oh, my God.
19:47I mean, how lucky was I?
19:49It was, like, kind of a perfect cast.
19:53It felt like just this sort of warm, like, womb of every part of being a woman, you know?
20:03And because of the sort of the closeness of the sisters, and the sisters were all, like, very unique and very much their own person.
20:15But living, you know, living together and living with this incredible mother that I was so, so happy that Susan came on.
20:25It just felt like everyone really, really wanted to be there and was really happy.
20:32I loved working with Eric Stoltz.
20:35I loved working with Christian.
20:37I felt like Christian and I had a very similar friendship to Joe and Laurie.
20:45And it was just a really special time.
20:49And I loved Jeffrey Simpson, who shot it, who had worked on all of my favorite Peter Weir films since I got to hear stories.
20:59But I just, every sort of detail, Colleen Atwood did the costumes.
21:04We shot in Vancouver, but also all the March House stuff in Victoria in British Columbia.
21:12And it was, you could take carriages.
21:15It was just really, it was a magical, oh, God, I don't want to be like, it was a magical.
21:20It was a beautiful, beautiful experience.
21:24Really profound.
21:25What's money to an artist, to a philosopher?
21:35It's just a green colored paper that floats in and out of his life like snow.
21:40It's nothing you actually have to, I don't know, work for, is it, Troy?
21:43No, not if you have daddy's little gas card.
21:45You shut up.
21:46I loved the script.
21:48It was like a contemporary story.
21:51And I had been doing period pieces.
21:54And a lot of the stuff that was contemporary was not that great that I was being sent anyway.
22:04And there was something about being, I think I was 23, 24, where you're at an age where you're too young, really, to be a district attorney or a detective or a, you know, mother of children, whatever.
22:23But this script just kind of worked, and it was just about these people my age that were trying to just get through life and their friendships and relationships.
22:38I really loved Ben Stiller.
22:41I loved his show.
22:43I remember I was working in, I believe, Portugal, and I was sent a VHS.
22:50And it was like six episodes of his show.
22:54And I was like, God, this guy is so talented.
22:57I really wanted to work with Ethan Hawke.
23:00I loved Ethan Hawke.
23:02I still love Ethan Hawke.
23:04We were both like on location.
23:06And I remember I got his number.
23:09We talked.
23:10I really, really loved him.
23:13I was so happy that that worked out.
23:16And then Janine Garofalo, she's so incredibly talented.
23:22She's hilarious.
23:23But she's also like a really talented actress.
23:27And she was also just the epitome of cool.
23:30Like, I felt so close to coolness.
23:34I loved working with all of them.
23:37I love Steve Zahn.
23:39Oh, my God.
23:41Steve Zahn was such like a little adult already.
23:43I think he had kids.
23:45He was hilarious.
23:47I mean, I just, and then, like, I remember meeting Ben.
23:52I finished the thing in Portugal.
23:56And I feel so grateful that I got to work with him.
24:00And I actually, I found all, I have all of my old call sheets and scripts and notes and everything from each project.
24:09And I told the kids on Stranger Things, I was telling them, you know, we used to handwrite call sheets, you know, and they were like, what?
24:19And I was like, yeah.
24:20Anyway, I found this old handwritten call sheet from Reality Bites.
24:24And I took a picture of it.
24:25And I sent it to Ben.
24:28And he, we both got kind of emotional about it.
24:32Maybe I was just crazy.
24:42Maybe it was the 60s.
24:46Or maybe I was just a girl.
24:50Interrupted.
24:51I remember I read the book when it was in galleys formed, which is, like, before it's published into a book because my parents are writers and they had a connection.
25:01I was very struck by just the way that the book opened, which is sort of, and I'm paraphrasing here, but, like, people ask me, how did I end up in, like, a mental hospital for this time?
25:18And I don't know how to answer it except that it's easy.
25:23That was very sort of striking to me because in the past, if you, like, look back, mental hospitals have mostly been depicted as, like, male, like Cuckoo's Nest or Asylum.
25:38You know, you don't usually think of women in them.
25:42You know, this was 1969.
25:45Mental health was not really talked about at all.
25:49I thought it was so interesting at the time that she talked to a therapist for 20 minutes and she ended up unable to leave this facility for a year, whereas in 1996 or whenever I read it, you could go to a place going, I'm like, I'm really in a bad place.
26:10I need help.
26:11And they were like, well, we can't, we can keep you for a few hours, but then you're on your own.
26:17And so I thought it was a really interesting opportunity to start a dialogue about mental health.
26:25Even then, it was sort of a difficult conversation.
26:30And I remember getting sort of having to do, like, a very personal interview and there will always be, like, stigma around it.
26:40But I think we have come, we have come quite far.
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