Winona Ryder names the best actors she ever worked with: “A very rare and very special thing”
Not to state the obvious, but good actors tend to work with good actors. The better the actor, the more opportunity they have to dictate the direction of their career, which led Winona Ryder directly into the orbit of some of the best in the business.
Hailed as one of the brightest young talents in Hollywood in the wake of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, which hit cinemas when she was only 16 years old, Ryder wasted little time in justifying the label by proving herself in movies like the cult classic Heathers, Edward Scissorhands, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and The Age of Innocence.
By the age of 23, she’d collaborated with Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Jim Jarmusch and could list Anthony Hopkins, Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Keanu Reeves, Johnny Depp, Gena Rowlands, and Cher among her colleagues, never mind her two Academy Award nominations, one apiece for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ and ‘Best Actress’.
It was a rapid rise to the top, and along the way, Ryder struggled with the pressure that comes with finding fame at such a young age. Needless to say, the relentless grind of the celebrity circuit had a profound effect on her, and she retreated from the public eye following the shoplifting scandal that seemed blown way out of proportion, at least compared to some of the other things movie stars have found themselves in the headlines for.
It’s unfair to call Stranger Things a comeback when she never really went away, although it was the first time in a long time that a major role had garnered Ryder so much attention. One of her most underrated performances came in co-writer and director Ariel Vromen’s biographical crime drama The Iceman opposite Michael Shannon, who quickly became a personal favourite.
Playing the onscreen wife of Shannon’s fearsome mob hitman Richard Kuklinski, it was an understated turn that offered a reminder of Ryder’s talents. Not that she would take the credit for the film’s positive reception, though, instead crediting her co-star for helping reignite her love for her profession.
“I’ve worked with some great leading men over the years: Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman, Richard Gere, and Michael is right up there with them,” she said. “Michael is one of these actors who has a certain spark, who reminds me of why I wanted to be an actor in the first place. Nothing against any of the other wonderful actors I’ve worked with, but that is a very rare and special thing.”
That puts Ryder in the company of Werner Herzog, who branded Shannon as the single greatest thespian of his generation. She might have worked with Oscar winners, icons, and legends, but a small-scale crime drama that bombed at the box office was more than enough to get Shannon into the same pantheon as Day-Lewis, Oldman, and Gere.
