Winona Ryder has been around the block and back. The actor burst onto the big screen in the ’80s with big roles in Tim Burton films like Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. She climbed the Hollywood ladder after that, but experienced her share of hardship and adversity along the way. At one point it seemed like she’d fallen off the radar, but she had a comeback as the scrappy single mother Joyce Byers on Stranger Things, which debut the final two episodes of its fourth season later this week.
Naturally, Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer would want an ’80s icon like Ryder in their show — Stranger Things is one part supernatural drama, one part celebration of whatever the Duffers liked as kids in the ’80s — but she came in useful in other ways; namely, someone who actually lived through the ’80s might know more about them than someone who’s merely obsessed with them.
“She’d tell them, ‘This song actually came out in ’85, and you have it in ’83,’” Ryder’s co-star David Harbour (Sheriff Hopper) told Harper’s Bazaar. “She knew all of these minute, tiny details they didn’t even know, and they had to change things in the script based on that…It’s just kind of epic how wild her mind is and how it goes to all these different corners.”
Winona Ryder helped Millie Bobby Brown “work through that”
As the member of the cast who’s had the most experience with fame, Ryder also acts as a mentor to the younger cast members. She knows how fortunate any actor is to be on a hit show, and wants them to know it, too. “I want the kids to understand, this does not happen,” Ryder said. “This is really unusual. And I’m always telling them, ‘The work is the reward!’ Because when I was that age, it was so hard to enjoy the fruits of my labor.”
"This business is brutal. You’re working constantly, but if you want to take a break, they tell you, ‘If you slow down, it’s going to stop.’ And then it did slow down. So then you’re hearing, ‘It’s going to be impossible to come back.’ And then that changes to, ‘You’re not even part of the conversation.’ Like, it was brutal."
Ross Duffer said that Ryder has been a particular help to Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), the breakout star of the show who at a young has already experienced a lot of the downsides of fame. “ talked to the kids about what celebrity is like and how the press can be and the anxiety and confusion that comes along with celebrity,” he said. “I think she’s really helped them. I know she’s specifically helped Millie a lot to work through that. And that’s something that no one else can help with, really, because so few people have experienced it. It’s not something I understand. It’s not something that, you know, even a parent would understand.”
The final two episodes of Stranger Things season 4 premiere on Netflix this Friday, July 2.
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