‘The Godfather Part III’: The movie that almost killed Winona Ryder’s career for good
The pressures of being a Hollywood star can certainly get to even the most seasoned, and what’s truly important is knowing when to step back and actually rest.
Too many of us are guilty of pushing through bouts of illness or poor mental health for the sake of work, and this includes Winona Ryder, but she soon realised that she had to cease her forward march for the time before it was too late.
The 1980s was a big decade for Ryder, who had risen to acclaim following performances in the likes of Beetlejuice and Heathers. Her potential as a leading actor was soon realised with the latter, even though she wasn’t your typical teen star. Ryder was no Molly Ringwald-type; she occupied a much darker niche, playing characters who were engrossed by thoughts of nihilism or even murder.
Ryder became a sensation nonetheless, and acting offers came flying in thick and fast. Everyone wanted her in their films, including legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, director of some of cinema’s most coveted movies. While his ‘80s period wasn’t as successful as his previous decade (can you really compete with the time that saw The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now?), he had a trilogy to finish, and he wanted Ryder in it.
Ryder was cast as Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III, the daughter of Al Pacino’s Michael, but soon she came to realise that she was pushing herself too far. Talking to the LA Times, Ryder explained, “I’d done three films in a row: Great Balls of Fire, Roxy Carmichael and Mermaids. Right after Mermaids wrapped, I flew to Rome with a terrible upper-respiratory infection and a 104-degree fever. I literally couldn’t move. The studio doctor told me to go home, said I was too sick to work.”
It turned out, the actor was stretching herself like a trampoline and risking her health, as her agent informed her that turning down the role could cause problems for her career, and she could risk destroying her reputation; but this diagnosis left her no choice.
That’s how Sofia Coppola ended up in the role of Mary, instead. An infamous instance of poor casting, the future director claimed she only took on the role as a favour to her father, having no real interest in being in front of the camera, behind which she is a weapon to reckon with.
The young Coppola subsequently earned two Golden Raspberry Awards, including ‘Worst New Star’, so it’s safe to say that Ryder would’ve done a much better job in the role. The Godfather Part III was torn apart by many critics who thought that Coppola’s performance significantly let the film down, although it was unfair to pin so much of the movie’s commercial failure on a relatively small performance.
We can only speculate if the much derided third instalment would have been able to hold a candle to its older brethren had Ryder been able to go forward as planned. Nevertheless, she had to do what was best for herself, and her career remained intact, where she built herself to strength and snagged an Oscar nomination just a few years later for The Age of Innocence.
