Winona Ryder’s favourite TV show of all time: “I’ve watched it hundreds of times”
In the 2000s and 2010s, the prestige of television rivalled – and arguably eclipsed – that of the movies for the first time in decades. There were so many critically acclaimed shows coming out from networks like HBO, Showtime, and AMC, and then streamers like Netflix, that many actors who had classically been known for movie work began accepting TV jobs – something that would have been almost unheard of in the ’90s. In 2013, Winona Ryder admitted that she’d been looking at television with envy – and it was all because she fell in love with one particular show that many consider the most remarkable example of the Golden Age of Television.
These days, Ryder is arguably best known for her role on Netflix’s Stranger Things, one of the most iconic shows of the last decade. Interestingly, though, when she signed on for the first season of the Duffer Brothers ’80s-set supernatural teen adventure in June 2015, she was only two years removed from giving an interview in which she first expressed an interest in what was happening in TV. At that time, she hadn’t appeared in a scripted television show since a memorable episode of Friends in 2001, but like everyone else, she had noticed TV had changed significantly since then.
While speaking with Collider in 2013, Ryder was asked, “You’ve primarily been in the movie world. Have you started thinking, maybe I’d like to play a character on TV for a few years? Or is that something that doesn’t interest you?” She replied, “To be honest, it just hasn’t come up,” but then confessed that she would love to work in TV – especially if it was on a show as worthy as the pioneering crime drama she was still obsessed with.
“I’m part of the crew obsessed with The Wire,” Ryder smiled. “Like, I’m not over that yet.” To the interviewer’s shock, Ryder claimed she’d actually watched David Simon’s labyrinthine Baltimore drug epic “hundreds of times” and loved re-watching it. In fact, she ranked it alongside the Coen brothers’ stoner classic The Big Lebowski – a movie she loves and regularly quotes – in her affections. “I’m like a superfan,” she smiled. “It’s in the Lebowski category to me.”
When the interview noted that The Wire was also one of their favourite shows but admitted they’d only watched it once all the way through, Ryder joked, “I’ve seen it like a million.” She then proceeded to wax lyrical about loving season four, “where it goes into the school system in Baltimore. Then the boys are becoming, and the guy becomes a teacher, and it’s being set up that that kid is going to become like Bubbles…The whole thing is so good.”
Heartwarmingly, in March 2014, Ryder was still talking about her love for the show – but this time, she was also putting something out into the universe. She told Red magazine that she desperately wanted to collaborate on a project with Simon, a former journalist turned screenwriter. “I’ve been trying to write a letter to tell him I want to work with him,” she said. “But how do you write a letter to a writer? He’s the person that I hope to work with one day.”
Amazingly, by August of that same year, Ryder was announced as one of the stars of Simon’s HBO miniseries Show Me A Hero. In just a few short months, she’d gone from being a movie star fan of Simon and his magnum opus, The Wire, to an actress dipping her toe in the waters of television on a show created by her idol. A year after that, she was cast in Stranger Things, and now she’s the star of a show a whole new generation will cite as one of their favourites.
