Biography
Following her breakthrough in 1988's
Beetlejuice, Winona Ryder emerged as one of the most celebrated actresses of her generation. Adept at playing characters ranging from depressed, angst-ridden goths to Edith Wharton debutantes, the saucer-eyed, porcelain-skinned Ryder has attained critical respect in addition to widespread popularity.
Ryder was born in and named after the city of Winona, MN, on October 29, 1971. The daughter of communal hippies and the goddaughter of LSD guru Timothy Leary, she grew up on a commune in Northern California. Ryder's family moved to Petaluma when she was ten; following regular abuse from her classmates, who targeted her for her unconventional, androgynous appearance (she was once jumped by a group of boys who had mistaken her for a gay boy), she was home schooled. At the age of 11, she joined the American Conservatory Theatre, and was soon trying out for movie roles. An audition for the part of
Jon Voight's daughter in
Desert Bloom failed to yield a role but did land the actress an agent, and at the age of 14, Ryder -- who had changed her last name from Horowitz -- made her film debut in
Lucas (1986).
Finding popularity with her turn as a suicidal teen who has more in common with the ghosts living in her attic than with her yuppie parents in
Tim Burton's black comedy
Beetlejuice, Ryder quickly became one of the most steadily employed actresses in Hollywood. She continued to corner the alienated and/or confused teen market with starring roles in a number of offbeat films, including the 1989 cult classic
Heathers,
Great Balls of Fire (in which she played
Jerry Lee Lewis' 13-year-old bride), Burton's
Edward Scissorhands, and
Mermaids.
The early '90s saw Ryder begin to branch out from teen roles toward parts requiring greater maturity. Following a turn as a taxi driver in
Jim Jarmusch's
Night on Earth (1991), the actress starred in
Francis Ford Coppola's lavish adaptation
Bram Stoker's Dracula and then went on to play
Antonio Banderas' lover in the critically disembowelled
The House of the Spirits. Greater success came with
Martin Scorsese's 1993 adaptation of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. Ryder won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her portrayal of
Daniel Day-Lewis' picture-perfect wife, and in the process started getting taken seriously as an actress capable of playing more adult characters.
A second Oscar nomination -- this time for Best Actress -- followed the next year for Ryder's portrayal of Jo March in
Gillian Armstrong's adaptation of Little Women. The same year, the actress took on an entirely different role in
Reality Bites, in which she played a twentysomething suffering from post-graduation angst. Similar twentysomething angst followed in
How to Make an American Quilt (1995) but was then traded for Puritanical adultery, hair extensions, and another turn with
Daniel Day-Lewis in
Nicholas Hytner's 1996 adaptation of The Crucible.
Following a starring role in the highly anticipated and almost as highly criticized
Alien Resurrection in 1997, Ryder had a turn as the waif-ish object of
Kenneth Branagh's affections in
Woody Allen's
Celebrity. She managed to escape much of the criticism leveled at both of these films, and in 1999 and 2000, she reappeared with lead roles in two films, Girl, Interrupted, in which she played a mental institution inmate in the female answer to
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and the supernatural thriller
Lost Souls.
Winona shed her skin once more in 2002, when she took the romantic lead in Mr. Deeds, a typically goofy
Adam Sandler vehicle. This was a surprising move for Ryder, who, despite making a niche for herself in nearly every imaginable genre, has rarely delved into the world of madcap romantic comedies. Of course, 2001-2002 wouldn't be complete without mention of Winona's inexplicable thievery; the young millionaire was convicted for stealing $5,500 worth of merchandise from a Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue. 2003, meanwhile, meant more unfamiliar territory for Ryder -- she left fiction behind for a part in the documentary
The Day My God Died. An uncredited turn as a warped child psychologist in director
Asia Argento's The Heart is Decietful Above all Things showed without question that Ryder was still willing to shake things up on the silver screen, and in 2006 she would play an insurance claims investigator assigned the task of investigating a curious death in the aptly titled comedy
The Darwin Awards. Later that same year, Ryder would be rotoscoped for a supporting role in director
Richard Linklater's animated adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel
A Scanner Darkly. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide