Winona talks
Winona Laura Horowitz was born in Winona (Minessota), on October 1971, the 29th : my mother was visiting some friends. She would have come back to New York to give me birth, but I had a lead over her. By the way, if you have no idea on the Minessota, watch Fargo by the Cohen brothers. She's grown up with her sister and her two brothers in San-Fransisco, California. A great city, I'm proud of it because people here are realy nice, friendly. When she was 7, she moved to what her godfather T. Leary (leader of the 'peace & love, don't forget the LSD' generation) describes as the most popular hippy comunauty. It was not as hippy as it sounds. So many people confound life in comunauty and 'every body naked taking drugs etc'. It was just a few families who lived together. We had animals and gardens. There wasn't electricity, which is weird, neither TV, threfore we had to create games. It was a weird weird childhood. I mean it was great !Since her school and her father's job were too far, they moved to Petaluma in 1981. On the third day at school, she was beaten up because she was dressed in a kinda weird way. She changed of school and attended the ACT (American Conservatory Theater) in S-F. At 13 she had a video audition to the film Desert Bloom (1986), but didn't get the part. Director David Seltzer, however, spotted her and cast her in Lucas the same year.I had a terrible first day in front of the camera ; I didn't know anything about the cinema language. Too shy to ask anything, I pretended to know. It was the first time I had so much adults around me, it's not that they were unpleasent, but on a set, they usualy don't know how to behave withs kids, especialy with th girls, because of the fear to be called a perverse. Then it was her first hit : Beetlejuice. I remember my first meeting with Tim. In those times I looked gloomy, as I was coming inside, he was here but I didn't imagine it could be him : I didn't think a movie director could look so young and so trendy. We chated and I got the part ! I think the way I was dressed helped me : I wear my own clothes during the main part of the film. She found Burton again in 1990, for Edward Scissorhands. I read the script while I shot Mermaids in Boston. I agreed because of Tim, with whom I could do anything, and because it was a chance for Johnny [Deep] and I to work together. Between Edward and Dracula, I haven't shoot within two years. The only scripts I was given were just shits. Then I saw the Dracula's script, and I gave it to Francis, who decided to make it. On the set, there was a lot of pressure, but I got well on with Francis (the rumours didn't agree). I can't bear the film : my part, the make up, the costums, the whole thingis a miss (to me). All the more that I had personal reasons to feel unhappy. In those times, she was accursed : an old friend deceased in a car crash, a former love suffering from AIDS and her break-up which would have lasted several months. I was insomniac, it got worse and worse every night. I had identity problems ; I looked at me only trough the screen, without having the consciousness of my "me". A lot of things have changed since then : she's now mentally gorgeous and is to marry Matt Damon. She's made film after film, without worrying about the commercial impact or her reputation : I do not regret any film I've done. Sometimes, I'm told 'you have to do this one, it's gonna be huge hit'. I don't wanna do films for this reason. In Hollywood, there's this stupid theory which says 'you can do two small films, but then you've got to do one bid. Then you can think to a small one, only if the next is a hit. this strategy doesn't deal with the actor's performance, the creativity or whatever. It's just about money, box office. When I made 1969, I was 16, I just wanted to work. And now, I can see 14 years old kidsdrinking and smoking just to be 'in', 'cause they don't know what to do with the money they've quickly made. You were very young when you started, no regrets ? I know tha while I was on sets, kids of my age went to High or College, they enjoyed the time the shared together... but I don't regrets anything. Believe me or not, but I wasn't very popular. The kind of stufs we descibed in Heathers, that's that ! I visited a friend in College, I was amazed to see that the whole thing was like in the film, teens were just a little bit older. That's freaky I think. I'm proud not to have been influenced in my choices, even when I was 16 : people implored me not to shoot Heathers...it's still now one of my most outstanding films. Noni is in fact known for her choices, often surprising but never hazardous. Like this she fell on an autobiographical scriptfrom a young scenarist (Helen Childless) : Reality Bites Many people told me : 'you've just shot with Martin Scorsese, you cannot do this film'. For many reasons, people think it's less serious to make films with young people, they think too that this kind of film is childish to do, but they're wrong. She's very interested by this "just be yourself" kind of roles, but she'd like to go further : I don't wannabe 'Winona Ryder being cute'. If I had only played with my sex-appeal, I wouldn't be here today. Playing cute and confused doesn't interest me anymore. And that's why she shot The Crucible, in which she plays anything but a little king girl. But the audience didn't follow ; I'm very proud of The Crucible...you've got to understand that I had fake in the story, I thought it would change the world ! If I had been asked to play it in a small theater in Winnipeg, I would have done it. It's like when they proposed me to do Heathers, telling me I couldn't be paid, the film would never be distributed...
One of her last part : Analee Call in Alien Resurrection. When the guys from the Fox asked me to play in the Saga, I didn't believe him, and I agreed without reading the script ! I didn't care wether I died in the first scene, the only thing tha mattered was that I could now say 'I've done an Alien movie'. I've always wanted to play in, 'cause it was like a revelation to me : can you imagine, a woman was the heroine in a male action movie. Before the shooting, I was scared to be completely ridiculous in such a physical part, kinda little girl lurching in the background. Then, in the difficults periods, I took cover with Dominique [Pinon, the great frenchy;-)] Well, that all falks ! Seriously, I'd just like to tell you I think Alien Resurection is realy great, I even wonder wether it's not the best one ! And I'm glad to be able to see that Winona Ryder agrees with me : as always I can't stand myself on screen. I'm on the second plan, but I love the final cut, and I'm enthousiastic to shoot the next one, if there's a next one.Que Sera Sera...
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