Actor Winona Ryder had turned into a bit of a household name after her starring role in films like Heathers. Since then, Ryder had only expanded her career even further by starring in a string of successful films throughout the 90s.
Despite Ryder’s accomplishments, however, the actor confided she was ashamed to be an actor at one point.
Why Winona Ryder was ashamed of being an actor
Ryder would’ve never predicted that she’d become an actor. When she was a child, the Stranger Things star saw herself gravitating more towards writing. But Ryder’s parents convinced her to take acting classes after having just moved to a new town. She’d developed a passion for the craft afterwards, and the acting class led her towards being cast in her first project.
This would kick off Ryder’s career, but perhaps she underestimated how big of an actor she was going to become. Ryder found success early with projects such as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. Looking back at her rise to stardom, a much more mature Ryder opened up about her response to fame. And how she felt constantly being in the public eye.
“They’d be judging me: ‘Look at her shoes. I bet they cost $400.’ In fact, I grew up with no money – we lived without electricity, running water or heating except for a stove,” Ryder once said according to Irish Examiner.
This led towards Ryder resenting her profession.
“I know how nauseating it is when actors complain about their lives. We’re sickeningly well-paid people who have very charmed lives. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have problems,” she said. “For a long time I was ashamed of being an actress. I felt like it was a shallow occupation.”
Winona Ryder got over her anxiety with help from ‘Girl, Interrupted’
The film industry eventually started to have a psychological impact on Ryder. The actor had already been experiencing anxiety from an early age thanks to pressures of the film industry.
“I had had panic attacks from the age of 12 – probably from the pressure of working and then going through adolescence onscreen,” she once told Highly Sensitive.
This led to Ryder seeking therapy. But therapy wasn’t the full solution to the actor’s problems.
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“It was mainly exhaustion, but the anxiety attacks were getting worse, and I didn’t know what to do about them. I needed help, but I certainly didn’t find it in the place I went to,” she said in a 2000 interview with Tampa Bay Times. “But at that age, you think that grown-ups have all the answers, so you feel that if you go to someplace like that, and pay enough money, they’ll give you a pill or the answers to why you’re so confused.”
Ryder figured that her tireless work was the real source of her anxieties, something she confided wasn’t learned from the hospital. After discovering the root of her problems, her outlook improved tremendously.
Her 1999 movie Girl, Interrupted only further helped Ryder’s attitude. Girl, Interrupted was a critically acclaimed project that saw Ryder playing a young girl administered in a psych ward. Ryder read the book the film was based on, which helped her discover something cathartic about her own problems.
“I wasn’t the only girl having these thoughts,” she realized after reading the book.
Winona Ryder took a long and ‘dangerous’ break from her career after shoplifting
Ryder went through a troubling time in her career during her 30s. The actor was arrested for shoplifting in 2001, resulting in a very public scandal. This helped inspire Ryder to take a long break away from the spotlight.
“It was really important for me to get out,” Ryder reflected in a 2016 interview with Time.
Although getting out benefited Ryder’s emotional health, it was thought to be detrimental to her future as an actor.
“I took some years off, and I didn’t realize that was very dangerous in terms of my career. I was constantly being told, ‘You have to keep working so you stay relevant,’” Ryder said. “When I was ready to come back, I was like, ‘Oh, where did everyone go?’ A lot of actors have ups and downs. I think mine were—people might see them as awful—but I learned, and I appreciated the time away.”
But Ryder managed to make her comeback despite these odds with roles in features like A Scanner Darkly and Black Swan. But it was securing her now famous role in Stranger Things that may have breathed new life into her career. Apart from becoming one of Ryder’s biggest roles, it also gave her the satisfaction of playing a character her own age.
“I started acting so young, I secretly wanted to be older,” she said. “I know there’s a lot of conversations right now about ageism, and I know a lot of actresses who have a tough time, and I’ve gotten offered those mom parts. But you can make something of it. For me, I’m finally getting to play my own age, and it’s liberating. I would not want to go back to playing the ingénue.”
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