Photography by Monica Schipper/FilmMagic
By Alexandra Breen
When Winona Ryder speaks, there is defiance in her voice that sounds earned. “I don’t want to do the crazy thing and try to hold onto my youth,” she says while promoting her latest film, The Iceman, at the Toronto International Film Festival. “And I don’t want to work just to work, either. At this point in my life, I just want to be a good person. I’m 40, and I’m psyched, because with age comes experience. I’ve paid some dues and had some ups and downs.”
Ryder’s story started with a childhood spent on a commune with hippie parents and quickly led to her discovery by director Tim Burton, who cast her in the film Beetlejuice. Stellar reviews and a relationship with heartthrob Johnny Depp followed—Who could forget his “Winona Forever”-turned-“Wino Forever” tattoo?—as well as Oscar nods for Little Women and The Age of Innocence and a genre-defining role in Reality Bites. Blockbuster flops were the precursors to Ryder’s now-infamous shoplifting scandal, and she signed on to do a few indie flicks before officially resurfacing in the Oscar-winning Black Swan.
“In the ’90s, I experienced a lot of success, and to be honest I wasn’t expecting it to last. You’re told that you get a couple of years if you’re lucky. It was great, but it came with a lot of pressure,” Ryder reflects. “I wasn’t like, ‘Boo hoo, poor me,’ but I realized that I want a home and I want to spend time with my family and friends. It takes something very special for me to want to leave that now.”
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