“It would be him”: the musician Winona Ryder called her “personal god”
Winona Ryder is one of the most authentic figures in the current Hollywood landscape, and someone who isn’t afraid to be completely honest and vulnerable both on and off screen.
This is one of the reasons why she became one of the most respectable and sought-after actors in the first place – her characters, whether the more off-kilter, quirky outcasts like Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice or emotional powerhouses like Joyce Byers in Stranger Things, Ryder appears entirely human, almost as though, for those brief moments on set, she truly embodies the stories.
This is something you can only achieve if you’re emotionally complex yourself, because after all, Ryder’s characters might have seemed, to borrow her own phrase, “strange and unusual”, but at their core, they all epitomise the complexities of the human experience, whether that concerns the spirit of teen angst or the frustration of a mother losing her son.
Part of this also comes from being a little fearless with your own approach and mindset. After all, it takes guts to be able to do what Ryder does, even more so when the characters she plays are as emotionally demanding as they are; something that will always be challenging, no matter how many years she’s been in the game.
And that fearlessness also comes with growing and maturing in the spotlight, and realising that many of the things that people tell you to be afraid of are actually not that scary at all. For instance, as a woman in the film world, Ryder is no stranger to the harsh views of critics. She’s also no exception when it comes to encountering all the ways that audiences – and peers – often try to tear women in the field down.
However, her response to that is about as dignified as you’d expect. As she recently told Interview when addressing the concept of ageing and personal progression, these things are all a matter of perspective, and even those who want to develop personally and professionally are often shackled to what it all means to not be a young star anymore.
“There’s a saying, ‘You’ll always be the age of your biggest or your first thing,’” she said, adding that it’s hard to reckon with that if “you are interested in growing”. Getting older, she argues, is great for the most part, but people often forget why when they become disconnected from the rest of the world.
Perhaps that’s it: Ryder’s ability to constantly connect with both her own art and the art created by others is what keeps her grounded on such topics, making her constantly immersed in the beauty of feeling rather than any trivial matters that don’t actually matter. And as a music fan, Ryder knows what it means to get lost in the moment and love something beyond what is truly comprehensible.
As she explained while discussing her “favourite band of all time”, The Replacements: “Paul Westerberg is like, I swear, I get teary-eyed when I think about him. If I were to have a hero or a personal god, it would be him. Actually, a song The Replacements sing really inspired my performance in Mermaids.”
The song – ‘Sixteen Blue’ – helped her tap into the anguish of “inconsistency” as a teenager, and how, when you’re 16, you can think you’re “crazy”. As such, she channelled this energy while portraying her character’s personal uncertainty.
