(^184) | marieclaire.com.au
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Following the attack she was
homeschooled, but remained focused
on acting – a decision that paid off
when director David Seltzer cast her
in his 1986 film Lucas.
Ryder defied the all-American ’80s
teen-star mould, all perfect teeth and
bouncy blow-dries, as exemplified by
reigning It girls Phoebe Cates and
Molly Ringwald. Rather, her porcelain
skin, cropped-black hair and prevailing
aura of guilelessness stood out in
blatant, slightly confusing contrast.
“I was in the middle of auditioning,
and I was mid-sentence when the
casting director said, ‘Listen, kid. You
should not be an actress. You are not
pretty enough. You should go back
to wherever you came from and you
should go to school. You don’t have it.’
I honestly think that she thought she
was doing me a favour,” Ryder recalled.
However, director Tim Burton saw
“it” straight away. When it came time
for him to cast the role of Lydia Deetz
in Beetlejuice, Ryder was his only
choice. The 1988 film was a surprise
hit, its oddball story and horror/
comedy mix winning over cinemagoers
and critics alike to become one of the
year’s biggest box-office successes.
Ryder’s star was firmly ascending
when she got a script for a dark teen
comedy. She loved it but her “agents
were ... on their knees telling me my
career was over if I made Heathers”,
Ryder has said. Ignoring their advice,
she took the part, even wearing her
own clothes to play Veronica Sawyer,
a homicidal teenager who upends
the school’s social pecking order.
But it was a romance with
Hollywood’s reigning bad boy that
transformed her into a bona fide A-listcelebrity. After she met 21 Jump Street
star Johnny Depp in 1989, their love
affair became the stuff of perennial
tabloid fodder, forcing Ryder into
the harrowing reality of life in the
paparazzi glare. At the age of 19
she told an interviewer, “To get off
a plane after you’ve worked all day
and flown six hours and to have 50
photographers trip you and call you
a whore to get a response is repulsive.”
Five months after their first date,
Depp infamously tattooed “Winona
Forever” on his arm, then promptly
proposed, telling People magazine,
“There’s been nothing in my 27
years that’s comparable to the
feeling I have with Winona.”
The couple then starred together in
Burton’s Edward Scissorhands.
Raking in $121 million at the box
office, the 1990 film firmly established
Ryder’s Hollywood It-girl status.
The first hint of controversy
came when, after filming Mermaids
alongside Cher and Christina Ricci,
Ryder flew to Rome to take up a role
in the much-hyped The Godfather
Part III. Arriving in the city, she got no
further than her hotel room and pulled
out of the film. Rumours swirled: she
was having a nervous breakdown!
Depp had threatened to break-up with
her if she didn’t return to LA with him!
She was pregnant! The truth was far
less salacious – she was suffering froma bad chest infection. Facing criticism
for her sudden resignation from the
movie, she went home to her parents.
Yet heartbreak hit hard in 1993
when the Winona and Johnny show
came to a halt, Ryder’s rep blaming
the split on the impetuosity of young
love and stardom. “He was my first
everything,” Ryder said. “My first real
kiss. My first real boyfriend. My first
fiancé. The first guy I had sex with.”
The following year, Ryder went to
Vancouver to star in director Gillian
Armstrong’s adaptation of Little
Women. Arriving a month early,
she and co-star Christian Bale took
ice-skating lessons and she bonded with
her on-screen sisters Kirsten Dunst and
Claire Danes. “She was vibrant, funny,
well-read and smart,” Armstrong tells
marie claire. “She’s a natural performer
and happy to try anything. The camera
loves her. And so did the crew.”
Despite being far from the LA
crucible, the then-23-year-old was
still contending with intense public
scrutiny. “Winona was a superstar,
with paparazzi and fans chasing
her,” says Armstrong.
Reality Bites was never really
meant to be a big film. Shot over five
weeks in Houston, the low-budget
production was directed by then
little-known Saturday Night Live
comedian Ben Stiller. Ryder
championed the film and fought for
Ethan Hawke and Janeane Garofalo
to be cast alongside her as unemployed
college graduates trying to make sense
of 20-something life. Despite Ryder’s
celebrity, studios were sceptical
audiences would watch a movie about
a group of slackers, and Stiller said
they struggled to find a distributor.CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT
A loved-up Johnny Depp
and Ryder; posing for a
portrait for Reality Bites
in 1994; with Ethan
Hawke during filming;
and a young Ryder with
Mermaids co-stars Cher and
Christina Ricci circa 1990.