Winona Ryder Quotes
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There's a scene [in the 1990 film Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael] in my bedroom where I start eating Almond Roca. I was so young. It was before I knew the tricks of moviemaking, and I didn't know you shoot a lot of different angles. I gobbled them and didn't realize I had to keep doing it. So I had to eat 64 Almond Roca that day. I got so sick. In the beginning you're like, 'Ooh, that looks good.' But hours later, no.
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I was never strategic really, but back when I was starting out no one cared. In the acting community, box office didn't matter. I really think it was a mistake when they started paying people like $20 million to do a movie because now it's all people think about. Is she worth it? Is he worth it?
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As an actress, you go where the stories are. I don't really care where it's seen, at this point. I just want to tell good stories and do good roles that I haven't done before.
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I think it's important to have as much as a normal life and take the time to get perspective because it only helps your work in the long run.
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You try to get out there and live. I've always had good friends who've been very supportive and help make me feel good and grounded because I've never felt attached to the film industry.
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I'm very attached to movie theaters and I love going to them. Nothing will ever replace that. It's very romantic and beautiful. I used to want to live inside of one, with a bathtub, a bike and a bed, and just watch movies.
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I was raised to believe that religion is a beautiful thing, but it's fiction.
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If a film is well made, then great, whatever it's about.
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I would love to someday do a play. I did one when I was very young in San Francisco, where I grew up. A girl can dream.
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My father believes that Western religions are death cults, which I agree with.
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I think I really scored with my parents. All of my friends pretty much came from broken homes, and my parents are still together, but not only that, they're still in love and still write together.
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One thing you have to have when you act is energy.
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You have good days and bad days, and depression's something that, you know, is always with you.
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I am not a person who can really sit around and think about regrets because with every bad experience that you have, there is weirdly something good that comes from it.
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Bette Davis in All About Eve was huge for me. Her acting was staggering.
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For a long time, I was almost ashamed of being an actress. I felt like it was a shallow occupation. People would be watching my every move.
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In the '80s, I loved the movies of the '70s. Also I remember loving Klute [1971]. I loved Jane Fonda. Actually, I auditioned for the last movie she made before she retired for a while, Stanley and Iris [1990], which Martha Plimpton got.
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I was so lucky that I got to meet certain people. It came through Roddy McDowall, who had become a photographer and would do these portraits of celebrities. Then he would get another well-known person to write a thing. He photographed me when I was 15 or 16, and he got Jason Robards to write the thing because he was sort of my mentor. And Roddy would invite me to these dinner parties that were insane. Like, Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen O'Hara and people that were just crazy. I still can't really believe that I met them.
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If I showed you scripts from my first few movies, the descriptions of my characters all said 'the ugly girl'.
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I was regarded as the school freak which further reinforced a lot of inhibitions and doubts I had about myself. I was a shy, frightened teenager for a long time.
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When I was young, I was really, really obsessed with Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes. Because my mom was a projectionist in college, she was somehow able to get a real projector. And she had some connections, so she would get real prints, and we'd put up a sheet. The first movies I saw were To Kill a Mockingbird [1962], Gigi [1958], A Woman Under the Influence [1974]. Then when I was old enough to be able to rent movies, I went through a very big Cassavetes phase.
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There was a time when I was 19 when I really, really, really thought I was going crazy. I was exhausted and going through a terrible depression.
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My dad took me to all the best rock and punk shows when I was growing up and music has always been a part of my life. So I'm very interested in the music scene and I suppose that's why I've ended up going out with musicians. Dave Pirner is still one of my best friends.
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I don't use the Internet, but apparently you can find out everything on it.
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I will say, though, that San Francisco is a very friendly city. It's the kind of place where people smile at you and you can strike up conversations on the street, so there's always an adjustment when I come back to New York. If I smile at someone on the street in New York, then they think there's something up - like, "Why is she smiling?"
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My problems seemed so glamorous to other people, and everyone just thought I was so lucky. But then, I was lucky because my family was really there for me. I think I just felt like I really wanted to hold on to who I was as a person, and try to have as much of a normal life as I could.
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The fact that I got into acting at all was kind of fluke-ish. I loved movies, but I can't remember ever really wanting to be an actress, and I certainly didn't imagine ever being in a movie. I think I wanted to be a writer.
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I approached work very seriously. I never went out. I couldn't fathom people who could go out to clubs... But I definitely went through a time where I was just terrified and exhausted and I didn't really understand. Hollywood... It just got to be too much for me.
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Life's short, so if you're going to spend months doing something, it's gotta be pretty special... But I'm very happy to enter my Baby Jane years, and hopefully segue into the Ruth Gordon years.
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Suddenly you're the mom, or you go from ... You're not an ingénue, you don't want to play an ingénue, but it's like that line in The First Wives Club [1996]: "There are only three ages for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy."
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