The Audrey Hepburn remake that Winona Ryder turned down: “I just remember getting yelled at”
Audrey Hepburn defied all the common knowledge of the studio system to become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. At a time when curvaceous blondes were the gold standard of beauty, her waifish frame and impish screen presence were in direct opposition to the trend. Of all the stars who emerged from the era to become timeless icons, her only rival is Marilyn Monroe.
There have been many actors over the years to earn comparisons to the Breakfast at Tiffany’s star. Natalie Portman, Rooney Mara, and Lily Collins have all been mentioned in the same breath as her, but although there are plenty of physical resemblances, no one has ever matched Hepburn’s otherworldly charisma on screen. She was at turns shy, effervescent, heartbreaking, and wise, a cocktail of magnetism that has never been replicated.
Any actor who has dared stand in her shoes is destined for failure, which was something Winona Ryder recognised immediately. In the mid-1990s, after she had shot to stardom in movies like Edward Scissorhands and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Ryder was offered the title role in a remake of the 1954 Hepburn vehicle Sabrina, which had been directed by cinematic master Billy Wilder.
Despite Ryder’s fame, it was a delicate time in her life. She was in her early twenties and the pressures of stardom were just as challenging behind the scenes as they were in the public eye. Her agents were trying to get her parts in big budgetmainstream movies even though she had no interest in them, and the conflict spiraled into abuse.
In a 2024 interview with Esquire, Ryder said, “Those big movies, you have an entire agency yelling at you to do it. I remember leaving agencies because they would scream at me [when she was reluctant to take a role in a big commercial film], ‘Are you fucking kidding? Who the fuck do you think you are?'”
Sabrina was one of them. When she was offered the title role of a chauffeur’s daughter who enchants the wealthy sons of her father’s employer, she wanted nothing to do with it even though she was a huge fan of the director. “I fucking love Sydney Pollack, of course,” she said. “He’s brilliant. And of course I went on that meeting. But I was like, ‘It’s Audrey Hepburn!'” Her refusal to take the part didn’t go down well. “I just remember getting yelled at,” she said.
Ultimately, the role went to Julia Ormond, who was hot off the success of Legends of the Fall. Ryder was much closer in appearance and charisma to Hepburn, but her instinct to avoid retreading holy ground was spot on. The film was bad, even if you tried to separate it from the baggage of the original, and it did little for Ormond’s career.
Ryder went on to make several passion projects, including an adaptation of The Crucible and the Oscar winner Girl, Interrupted, which she co-produced, but her career took a downturn, and she struggled to regain the opportunities that she’d had in the early part of the ’90s. It would take decades for her to be offered the sort of roles that were worthy of her again.
