Winona Ryder is sharing some of the most intimate details of her personal life and career.
The “Beetlejuice” star sat down for an interview with Esquire this week and said that, while she survived the reign of former Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein without being sexually assaulted, the studio “blacklisted” her for denying his advances.
Recalling a meeting with Weinstein, she told Esquire, “I went to the Miramax office and I extended my hand and he shook my hand and I sat on the couch and we had a conversation and I left. And [afterwards] I got like screamed at [by an agent].”
Ryder suggested Weinstein was expecting something more, noting that he’d barged into her trailer during the production of “The House of the Spirits” (1993) and urged her to star in his adaptation of the play “Little Voice.”
When she suggested he cast Jane Horrocks instead, as the “amazing” actor had starred in the role onstage in London, “he got very weird and he left.”
“I think I knew a little bit too much,” Ryder told the outlet. “He did not like me.”
Ryder was only 16 years old when her performance in “Beetlejuice” (1988) made her a star, and while she nabbed two Oscar nods for “The Age of Innocence” (1994) and “Little Women” (1995), her disillusionment with Hollywood only grew.
The actor told Esquire she had “a couple of difficult experiences” in her 20s with people “who were just blatantly sexually harassing” her, and then “again in my thirties,” which has allowed her to relate to Weinstein’s victims.
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“I was lucky because I was known, so it didn’t happen as much as maybe it would have if I had been a struggling actor,” Ryder told Esquire. “But I remember this feeling in your mind: you’re negotiating, you’re thinking about what’s going to happen if you say something. You’re working it out while this person is being extremely creepy.”
Ryder also discussed being convicted of shoplifting from a Beverly Hills department store in December 2001, describing her mental health issues at the time and musing that it might have been a subconscious way for her to leave Hollywood for good.
Her acting comeback started in the 2010s with roles in “Black Swan” and Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” and Ryder is now starring in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the sequel to her breakout hit, which launches in theaters Sept. 6.
Weinstein was sentenced in New York in 2020 to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault, but his conviction was overturned earlier this year. He remains in prison, however, after being sentenced to 16 years in a separate rape and sexual assault case in California.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
