Topics: Celebrity, Film and TV, Hollywood, Jenna Ortega, Entertainment, Stranger Things
Winona Ryder has revealed a director was pretty 'inappropriate' to her while on the set of a movie.
The veteran Hollywood actress was catapulted to fame when she starred in the iconic movie Beetlejuice when she was just a teen.
Since then, Ryder has become well-decorated with accolades throughout her lengthy movie career, having starred in Edward Scissorhands, Little Women, Girl, Interrupted, and, more recently, the Netflix series Stranger Things, to name just a few.
However, the decorated actress has revealed in a tell-all interview that it hasn't all been plain sailing, having had an apparent bust-up with a director once.
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Speaking to Jeff Giles at Elle, the 53-year-old commented on the increasing pressure female actresses face in Hollywood to try to halt the signs of ageing through cosmetic procedures like botox.
"They’ll say, 'Just relax your forehead. Relax.' I’m trying to be a great actor, and they’re saying that over and over," she said. "It’s nice that people are talking about how it’s OK to age, but there’s still enormous pressure. Every role I get is for a mother, you know? My career has definitely shifted."
"I was the oldest person on the set," she added when talking about her role as Joyce Byers in Stranger Things.
Yet, even as a younger woman, Ryder said she felt the pressure in the industry.
While she was nominated for her first Oscar at the age of 22 for The Age of Innocence and again when she was 23 for Little Women, Ryder said she was told 'I was never gonna work again if I did Heathers' and admitted the movie did actually cost her a job - a role in The Freshman.
"They thought it was making fun of teen suicide. They were deeply offended and, yeah, they revoked the offer," she said. "I’m like, 'I can’t work with Marlon Brando?' But I had to stand my ground. I wasn’t gonna apologise.'"
And that's not the only time Ryder had to stand on her own two feet, recalling another time when she reported to the producers that a director had been 'inappropriate' to her, which seemingly backfired.
"The next day I had a big scene," she explained when the director approached her and allegedly whispered in her ear.
"He came up to me, and he was like, 'OK, so, um, if we just try it like – you f***ing c**t, I’m gonna destroy your f*cking life. OK? So let’s just do it like that?’ And I had to f***ing act. And what’s so crazy is my brother was working as a PA on the movie, and I didn’t even tell him, and I didn’t complain."
Ryder said it was only recently when she shared the anecdote to Jenna Ortega while on the set of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a sequel to the 1988 movie, that she had a realization.
"I was almost telling it like it was this funny story. Then I’m looking at Jenna’s face and imagining it happening to her. It wasn’t until that moment that I was like, 'Oh my God, this is bad,'" she said.
Her comments come as Ryder also revealed last year that she was 'screamed at' following a meeting with the now disgraced former film producer Harvey Weinstein.
While she said the convicted sex offender did not do anything untoward her, after shaking his hand in the Miramax office an agent allegedly shouted at her: "‘What the f*** did you do?’"
Ryder added: "I was like, ‘What?’ Apparently, I offended him because I extended my hand?… I guess.”
