Winona Ryder: «The hardest part is admitting you’re not okay»

She is dressed exactly as she was supposed to be in her stellar 90s — faded black jeans, a shirt of the same color, many bracelets and chains, a red cardigan and heavy brown lace-up boots. What’s funny: the masculine-looking boots on her feet seem to be size 35. New age, mix of styles, a little gothic. But she doesn’t look old-fashioned, stuck in a bygone era. She looks… romantically out of place. Not of this world and not of our bustling times, with her pale porcelain skin, dark curls and fine lines around her huge shining black eyes. Berenice, the heroine of Poe’s short story, died young. Winona Ryder is a 44-year-old survivor, matured, overcoming gothic fantasies, Berenice.

She sips lemonade and looks around at the café at the five-star Los Angeles hotel where we meet. But the audience also clearly notes who is sitting in an easy chair at a table in the corner, legs intertwined amusingly — in the end, the series Stranger Things, with which Ryder returned to the screen, was renewed for the third season, and the actress herself received the role of the mother of a mysteriously disappeared boy, a Golden Globe nomination.

But Winona ignores the prying eyes. She got used to them as a child, experienced a storm of fame in her youth, found herself the center of scandal and a high-profile trial at 30, and now she has become someone who «knows the price of both fame and privacy.» The former, she says, can be measured by box office and tabloid mentions, but the latter is priceless. And for what is measurable, she prefers to just … score.

I almost wince at this «score». In the speech of an intellectual bibliophile, this is unexpected jargon, and it does not go well with her soft, reserved, even refined manner. Which is what I notice.

Winona Ryder: Oh, it’s true! A man who was named after the city where he was born — it was Winona in California, and my parents lived there for a while — must take the words seriously …

Psychologies: …and who grew up next to Allen Ginsberg, the greatest of the beat poets, and Philip Dick, the most famous of science fiction writers. Were your parents friends with them?

Yes, and who is trying to pee himself … But the fact of the matter is that I call a spade a spade. What can be neglected is only worthy of jargon. Once upon a provocative question, what would I like to be written on my grave, I answered: “Fuck you!” — I mean, that’s the kind of inscription I would like to see on my tombstone then. And I never regretted what I said, although they condemned me: this girl does not appreciate the attention of the public. I really do not really appreciate, I prefer to live without her attention. I don’t even like lending books I’ve read — I make so many marginal notes, I emphasize so much that it says too much about me. I don’t want people to know so much about me. Recently, my brother took a book by Vaclav Havel from me and returned it with the words: “I want to read it myself, without your guidance …” I do not have accounts in any social network, because there is no need to tell the world something about myself.

How fortunate that we met just for the interview!

Do not be sarcastic, I did not mean a live conversation! And this constant broadcasting of yourself online is narcissism, which is recognized as the new normal.

It seems that early glory — after all, you were the idol of Generation X in the 80s and 90s — this is your childhood trauma …

Not that, but… You know, only now, after 40, I found myself in my time. I would never want to go back to my teens and into my 20s. Despite the amazing experience of working and friendship with Tim Burton, despite the mentorship of Martin Scorsese. Despite love, novels, «Edward Scissorhands» and Jim Jarmusch with his film «Night on Earth», which gave me an acquaintance with, perhaps, the main woman of my life after my mother — with Gena Rowlands, an amazing actress and the most free woman from everyone I know. Despite the fact that then I discovered the novels of Pynchon, Philip Roth and Nabokov, the films of Cassavetes and Hal Ashby. Everything that created me, for which I am grateful, is all those people, those books and those films … Even despite the «Club of the First Wives» — a comedy and at the same time an amazing manifesto of female strength, solidarity and victory over the prejudice about the dangers of age for a woman … I wouldn’t want to go back there. All the casting agents told me then: seize the moment, baby. You are now a star, but this is not for long, because you are «non-standard». In Hollywood, there will always be a demand for stately tall blondes. And not on such dark-haired pigalits like me, I meant.

But you really are «non-standard». And in the best sense of the word.

Thank you. But what was said then was so for me … I felt that it was true — that was all the inconvenience. My parents raised me in such a spirit that the main thing a person should achieve is to become a person. By yourself. After all, they are convinced hippies, I grew up in a commune, their friend and inspirer of almost the entire hippie generation, Timothy Leary, became my godfather. They chose the «LSD Guru», as Leary was then called, to be my spiritual guide! It is natural that I have always been a «non-standard». I was 12 when we moved to another city, to Petaluma, and at the new school they just started bullying me right away — for my funny boyish suit from the Salvation Army store (I’m from a hippie commune!) And for a boy’s haircut. They decided that I was “homo”, and arranged a “dark”… My parents immediately took me out of school, of course. Before high school, I studied at home. And after the tremendous success of Beetlejuice, I thought: now at school they will at least somehow accept me … But no: they called me a freak and a witch, they constantly did something. My parents sent me to a children’s theater school so that at least some other, positive, or something, life would arise outside the home. Then I started acting, even became famous, but I always felt like … how to say … in the wrong time.

For as long as I can remember, I have been attracted to other eras. I read «Jane Eyre» at the age of 9, and I wanted to immediately be transported there — to the end of the XNUMXth century, to the moorlands, to the gray limestone house, to the creaky stairs leading to the mysterious attic floor … I raved about it — exactly until then until my dad explained to me in a popular way that everything romantic has a downside. For example, he spoke about some features of dentistry of the era that enchanted me … But I felt myself out of my time and later. Therefore, of course, I was better off in roles in The Age of Innocence, in Little Women, in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And I’m an «old nose»! I’ve always been more interested in people much older than me. I have a lot from my dad — he found himself in the antique books trade and is now almost the main specialist in this area in Canada. I am also an archivist and junk dealer by nature — for me, things do not get old, do not go out of fashion, but take on new meanings.

Yes, I remember you once excelled — you came to the Oscars in a dress for 10 dollars. From a flea market?

From a vintage store. And not for 10, but for 9,99 plus taxes. So what? There are already quite a few things in the world. Why multiply them? I still feel the same way about clothes.

All the more mysterious… sorry, that would be indelicate… that story about $6 worth of branded items being taken out of Saks Fifth Avenue. That is, it is clear that the person who cut off the electronic sensors with scissors was not going to wear things with holes or darn Chanel … That is, on the contrary — everything is incomprehensible here. It was not clear then, 000 years ago. And still. You never clarified — neither at the trial, nor later.

Yes, I just decided to leave. She went to her parents. She lived a quiet life. Focused. Realized what was wrong with me. More precisely — that it was not so. That I’m entering my XNUMXs with problems the size of Nevada. That apart from my parents — always and invariably my best friends — no one understands me. And he doesn’t accept either. Because in our civilization it is believed that fame and a bank account are adequate to happiness. That happiness is measured by the size of the first and second. That here it is not allowed to be unhappy to those who have the first and second. And I was horrified. I was exhausted. Out of place. Depression. Panic attacks. Painkillers, giving a respite in the form of a short euphoria …

And one day there was an urgent need to do something risky, dangerous — in order to throw out anxiety, fears … And now this happens — a scandal, a trial. And you’re leaving, you’re leaving. And you admit to yourself that you just … didn’t live. You see, I had no time to go through the turmoil of adolescence. I was filming. I was not up to choosing the future at 20, when everyone does it. I filmed again. And as a result, I … didn’t let off steam, or something. And she went off the rails — like a steam locomotive whose boiler was smashed by pressure … Everything is simple — in the end.

Do you think the same thing happened to your longtime friend Johnny Depp? This terrible story with the beating of his wife …

Yes, for me this news was also pitch horror. I really loved Johnny. We have been together for 4 years, since my 19… When we broke up, I was killed, depressed, devastated. Offended, of course. But I can’t imagine Johnny hitting a woman. I knew a completely different person. I don’t believe he could do it. There is simply no craving for violence in it at all. I do not know what led to this, what happened to him or in him. I can’t even guess. I remember a completely different attitude towards women. For me, his accusation was a shock. And I don’t admit for a minute that it’s all true.

Don’t you tend to think better of people than they possibly are?

And you? Always waiting for a catch? Footpegs?

Not really, but…

Come on. We all want the best. And sometimes we make mistakes in people. We choose not our circumstances. We hope for no reason. What annoys me is the optimism that our world is obsessed with. Positive thinking! We should all be happy! Sadness is shameful! Depression is a vice! It’s disgusting, really.

So after all, it originates almost from the Holy Scriptures — the sin of despondency …

I am not religious, but I am familiar with this problem and know a lot about despondency. After all, I’m the one who «early fame — drugs — fall.» The sin of despondency, despair is of two types: a person is powerless and loses hope, and a person is at an impasse due to his own fault, and an extra effort is needed to admit a mistake. But our civilization denies that it is necessary to solve problems. Instead, positive thinking comes to the fore as a way to avoid correcting mistakes. That’s why this «Wineness» in the press infuriates me — it seems like I fell and was reborn. In fact, I overcame the problems. Recognized and resolved. There is nothing pathetic about this! And why, pray tell, do we have to be happy? It just seems to me that the most false of goals is happiness.

Seriously?

Well, I mean happiness as conforming to a canon, an accepted standard. And how self-satisfied.

And there can be no inner harmony?

There may be peace of mind.

But what’s wrong with the accepted standard? In order, for example, to have a family, children. You don’t seem to want it… But why?

You know, life shows that I am a faithful person. I am the daughter of my parents, and they are the best, most devoted mom and dad in the world. And they are not just together for almost half a century, they are still clearly in love with each other. So I didn’t have a serious relationship. I seem to have set the bar too high. It seems to me that only now I have found my man. Scott and I have been together for almost 8 years. I hope he found his man in me.

Do you only hope? Not sure?

Yes, I generally prefer uncertainty. Who knows how I will be tomorrow? And where will I be tomorrow? That’s life. When they say «life strategy», I find it funny. As if you are always, at any age, in different circumstances, one and the same. You never change, you scratch along your route like a biathlete, trying not to slow down and hit all the targets. And I think a UFO may well land on the track! Trite, but true: life has a tendency to surprise. Yes, ask any tree — who only bends under a hurricane wind, and who breaks to death.

Three other riders

Not a brunette

Ryder has naturally blonde hair. But in her debut film «Lucas», she, 14, played a tomboy girl, and for the greater brightness of the character, it was decided to dye the debutante’s hair black. After that, the young actress decided to remain a brunette. The contrast of hair color with snow-white skin made her a «Gothic princess» for the entire 1990s.

Not an actress

Winona served as producer twice. After a month of nervous exhaustion, she hit upon the idea of ​​adapting a book by Suzanne Cazen about girls who were taken to mental hospitals in the 60s by the spirit of protest. She also ensured that Angelina Jolie was approved for the second lead role in the film Girl, Interrupted. For the second time, Ryder became the producer of the documentary The Day My God Died, about prostitute girls in Nepal and India.

Not Cinderella

Ryder refused to star in Sabrina, although Sydney Pollack saw only her in the lead role. Winona saw sexism in the plot. Pollak’s film is a remake of 1954’s Sabrina, in which the butler’s daughter becomes the chosen one of the owner of the house. In that Sabrina, Audrey Hepburn played, which Ryder really looks like. But of course, this is another version of the Cinderella tale, and what could be more sexist?