At the press junket for Tim Burton’s new animated movie Frankenweenie, frequent Burton player Winona Ryder reminisced about coming of age in Hollywood in the ’90s and meeting Burton for the first time when he was casting Beetlejuice. “I was talking to someone in the waiting room for awhile, just about movies and music. And then, after about 30 minutes, I was like, “Do you know when this Tim Burton guy is showing up, ‘cause I may be in the wrong building?” And he was like, “Oh, that’s me.”
When asked why she doesn’t often play sex symbols in movies, Ryder responded:
It’s interesting because, even with Beetlejuice, I was an awkward kid. I started at puberty, and went through it on film. Lydia was one of my favorite roles because I related to her a lot. That did lead to Heathers, but I had to really fight quite hard to be cast in Heathers because I wasn’t considered attractive enough to be a popular girl. But, I have just been really lucky that the directors that I’ve worked with don’t gravitate that way.
OK, so an industry that once asked us to watch 2 hours of Arnold Schwarzenegger being pregnant and a SCIENTIST (lololol) told her that there was too much willing suspension of disbelief necessary to entertain the idea that a woman who looks like her would be popular. Got it. Go on.
I was watching First Wives’ Club, and there’s this line where one of them is like, “There are three roles in Hollywood for women – babe, district attorney and Driving Miss Daisy,” and I was like, “Oh, my god, that’s not funny!” What Tim has given me is the in between.
‘Winona Ryder talks Frankenweenie, Beetlejuice, Heathers, and the first time she met Tim Burton’ [Oh No They Didn’t]