The horrifying way Francis Ford Coppola made Winona Ryder cry on set
Among the most important auteurs to emerge during the New Hollywood movement, Francis Ford Coppola changed American cinema forever. Through masterpieces like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, Coppola ushered in a new way of conceptualising the medium, which ended up inspiring countless aspiring filmmakers all over the world. However, not every addition to his coveted filmography received the same kind of acknowledgement.
One perfect example of the latter is Coppola’s 1992 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a seminal text that has had a definitive impact on the horror genre. While critics and fans praised individual elements such as set and costume design, the movie is frequently included in Coppola’s list of obviously flawed projects. This is exacerbated by Keanu Reeves’ terrible performance and his unbelievably bad English accent, leading many to claim that he was miscast.
Although the production has a lot of strange behind-the-scenes stories, one particularly harrowing account revolves around Coppola’s mistreatment of Winona Ryder. According to the reports that emerged at the time, Ryder’s character, Mina Harker, had to cry after being consumed by guilt and feelings of intense conflict. In an interview, the actor pointed out that it was especially difficult because guilt “is an emotion that I don’t really like to tap into.”
In order to complete the scene, Coppola secretly instructed Reeves to insult her while he himself started screaming: “You WHORE! YOU FUCKING WHORE!… You! Look at you! Look at yourself!… And your own husband’s looking at you.” Stunned and disoriented by the barrage of abuse, Ryder broke down, but Coppola shot the scene multiple times before the actor begged him to stop. Afterwards, he held Ryder in his arms and said: “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…. I don’t mean it.”
“I always try to disrupt the actor,” Coppola later explained, talking about his approach. “‘Try it this way, try it that way. Eat this pizza, close your eyes, and walk into the wall.’ The more I do to them, the more I’m enabling them to enrich themselves — so when they do it, it’s going to be really truthful.” According to Coppola, he tries to “capture something that is happening rather than something that’s preplanned. It gets pretty crazy, but they like it.”
Ryder wasn’t just disturbed by Coppola’s manipulation, she was also scared of Gary Oldman’s behaviour on the set, as the two had a lot of conflicts. Put off by Oldman’s intensity, Ryder later revealed that the shooting process was traumatic for her and that she always “felt there was a danger” when she was working with Oldman on Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
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