Winona Ryder

Big eyes, prominent rosy cheekbones, a petite body, standing barely five feet tall. The impression when contemplating her in nature is that you are in front of a real porcelain doll. But behind her languid and almost ethereal beauty, her apparent fragility, she reveals herself to be an actress of tremendous strength, intelligent and mature in her precocity. Away from the molds created in Hollywood, she moves freely in thought and deed – she doesn’t give a damn what people say and she stands out from the shackles of her physique with a grounge look , the antipodes of glamour . That is why Ben Stiller put on her the big questions of the twenty-something “Yankees” and turned her into an icon of “Generation X”, in Bites of reality (1994) .A film that raises the difficulty of making your way among adults; something that, of course, did not happen with little Winona when she agreed to female roles, after making magnificent and disparate adolescents.

His name is the same as the town where he was born, Winona (Minnesota), on October 29, 1971. His real last name, Horowitz, changed it to that of singer Mitch Ryder. Her parents belonged to the hippie movement and raised her according to the countercultural philosophy of the ’60s, “questioning authority, acting as individuals”, as she has once recognized. She lived in a commune, without water or electricity, and she felt the literary atmosphere of the moment: Aldous Huxley , the poet “Beat” Allen Ginsberg or Timothy Leary (who was her godfather), were part of her family environment. It is to her intellectual formation that she must have breathed this world closely. She also has an avidity for reading that she was able to guide him in paths other than cinematographic ones. But she always dreamed of emulatingGreer Garson and Natalie Wood .

The truth is that Winona has spent more than half of her life in the movies. Her debut was produced with Lucas in 1986, but her name did not appear until her work in Bitelchús (1988). Here she stands out as a sharp-tongued teenager, dressed a la Morticia Adams. The film’s success was resounding and she quickly led him to star in School for Young Assassins . The controversy surrounded this film about two students who are dedicated to giving the passport to the other neighborhood, as if they were suicides, to the most undesirable classmates. Although she was criticized a lot, it is the role that Winona is most proud of.

At that time Winona’s star shone in the teenage firmament . His name also appeared on glossy paper and the list of romances began to swell names like Christian Slater , Dennis Quaid (with whom he made Great Ball of Fire , 1989) or Johnny Deep. His love for the latter lasted several years and was symbolized by a tattoo he got on his arm: “Winona forever.” It didn’t last that long, but it did last long enough to take part together in Tim Burton ‘s wonderful fable , Edward Scissorhands (1990). Wearing a blonde wig, Ryder is the impossible love of a strange being with a big heart who suffers from her cutting and sharp hands.

With Mermaids (1990), he shows enough that there was no adolescent character, in comedy or drama, who could resist him. She urged the transition from girl to woman. This was produced in a spectacular way and by the hand of established directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese . With the first she made Dracula, by Bram Stocker (1992). She is the object of the Count’s desire and Coppola knew how to exploit the most sensual side of her. In the same way, Scorsese got the most out of her in the costumbrist drama The Age of Innocence (1993).

After filming The House of the Spirits (1993), the role of Joe March, the more intellectual and enterprising sister of Little Women (1994), came to her like a glove. Winona embroiders every last loophole of her character by being herself the one we see on the screen, with the only detail that she is dressed in period clothing. It is the consummation of her maturity as an actress, of her incredible versatility that will allow her to later dazzle in Where Love Resides (1995) , El Crucible (1996)  and above all in Interrupted Girl (1999), the magnificent story of a young woman admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

Lately we have seen her in Possessed (2000), where the devil himself enters her body; and she as in love with a tall millionaire whose batteries she changes and paints his life pink, in Autumn in New York (2000). She currently has a project for a remake of Frank Capra ‘s classic , The Secret of Living . A good reason, surely, to continue enjoying this excellent actress.