The clash between Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder that made filming ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ living hell
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Credit: Karon Liu
How ‘Normal People’ saved Winona Ryder
In terms of Hollywood stars, you don’t get much more cherished than Winona Ryder. Beloved by everyone, bar maybe Gwyneth Paltrow, she has experienced a meandering career that has seen her star in a string of iconic films such as Beetlejuice, Heathers, Mermaids, Edward Scissorhands and Girl, Interrupted. She’s tackled almost every subject under the sun in her work, indicating why she is so adored, as she’s a terrific actor as well as a queen of cool.
Ryder’s evident talents have led to her working with some of the most respected contemporary auteurs such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Jonze, and Darren Aronofsky. Working with the best behind the camera has allowed her to take her work to the next level, meaning that there is a consistency in her filmography that many of her contemporaries should be envious of.
In recent years, Ryder has experienced an outstanding resurgence via her work on the Netflix series Stranger Things which has reminded everyone of just how talented she is. The 1980s-based sci-fi show has become everpresent in contemporary popular culture, and her pivotal performance as Joyce Byers has rightly received universal acclaim.
As well as being an icon of cinema, Ryder is also a keen consumer of it. Across her career she’s been keen to discuss her tastes in film, and has cited the works of pioneers such as Peter Weir and John Cassavetes as favourites, as well as more mainstream titles.
Ranking among her most coveted movies are Terry Gilliam’s steampunk chef-d’œuvre Brazil, a pertinent investigation of the surveillance state, starring Jonathan Pryce and Robert De Niro, and the celebrated 1985 Swedish drama My Life as a Dog, a touching coming-of-age story following a young boy who has to adapt to a new life after being separated from his family.
It is not just films that Ryder is a huge fan of either, she’s also a big fan of great TV, and back in 2020, she found herself rapt by the year’s most heartbreaking hit, Normal People, the adaptation of the Sally Rooney novel of the same name.
It had such an effect on Ryder that when speaking to The Times that year, she revealed that she’d watched it numerous times and that it “saved” her from the cabin fever that lockdown induced. “You know what’s saved me?”, Ryder said before showering love on Normal People.
“I’ll be weeping all day [because of the Black Lives Matter protests] and then I’ll be weeping all night because I’m watching Normal People”, she explained. “I watched it for the third time last night. And I’m planning on watching it more.”
“It’s just so good. I felt like I was that age again. And I am obsessed with those two!’ she said of the show’s stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal. “I feel like, weirdly, because I’m older, I’m so proud of them … I’m going to write them letters, I just don’t know what to say!”
