Winona Ryder has been famous since she was 16 years old in her breakthrough role as Lydia Deetz in 1988’s Beetlejuice. Heathers, Great Balls of Fire!, and Edward Scissorhands soon followed in succession, but the white, hot spotlight wasn’t easy for her.
It didn’t help that she was only 17 and engaged to the equally-as-famous Johnny Depp — they were one of the most iconic couples of the 1990s. Ryder told Esquire that the intense interest in her work and personal life caused her to lose “a lot of parts.” Describing it as “baggage,” she added, “I’m not in any way complaining, but there was this whole time when I felt like I would be a distraction, as well. I got it. Certainly, in the 1990s, I became aware of that.”
To combat that level of fame, she took a break from acting in the early aughts which was also coupled with an arrest for shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills in 2001. She was ultimately convicted of grand theft and shoplifting and sentenced to three years of probation, along with community service, $3,700 in fines, and $6,355 in restitution to the department store. Ryder underwent psychological and drug counseling as a part of her sentence.
“In a weird way, it was almost like the best thing that could have happened because I’d never asked myself the question before of, ‘Is it okay if I’m not going to act? Is there anything else?’ because that was all that I really knew,” she explained to Interview in 2013. Ryder told Esquire that she knew “things were changing” in Hollywood right around the time she took her acting break. “Studios were getting so much more powerful. Suddenly it wasn’t about working with Jim Jarmusch, it was all about numbers, how much things were making. It was like you were under this weird threat all the time, which felt like so much pressure. And all you ever heard was, ‘If you take a break, you can’t come back.’ That was drilled into you.”
But, before long, Hollywood was calling again, but this time, she was doing it on her terms. “And I’m, like, where was I? There’s a big part of me that just wants to do good work and not have that pressure. I don’t have any interest in being a movie star,” Ryder said to The Telegraph in 2014. Ryder is promising that she’s not going anywhere, especially after finding a second chapter of success with Netflix’s hit series, Stranger Things.
“I’ve gone from being the youngest person on set to being the oldest,” she summed up to Esquire. “I never thought. [At first] I was like, ‘I don’t want to be doing this when I’m in my fifties!’ It’s nuts, and it’s extra nuts to be my age.” A Hollywood career well-earned!
Before you go, click here to see the most romantic movie kisses you’ll wish would happen to you IRL.
