Winona Ryder Elle Magazine January 2011

Elle Magazine interviews Black Swan star Winona Ryder about the new film and life.

• On her upbringing: Her upbringing undoubtedly shaped her: Her parents, stalwarts of the San Francisco counterculture, hung with Allen Ginsberg and John Lennon. Ryder's father, Michael Horowitz, is a rare-books dealer and Timothy Leary's archivist. "My dad just gave me [Leary's] watch for my birthday," she says. "It's called the Borel Kaleidoscope; it's, like, this interesting kind of watch that when you look at it, you can stare at it forever--it moves in this weird way."




• On reading real books: She's a voracious reader (both Mom and Dad are writers) and begins a lot of her sentences with "Have you ever read that book?" As an avid collector of first editions, she's a big believer in "paper and pen" and writing letters, and has yet to use the iPad Ron Howard recently gave her after wrapping this month's date movie The Dilemma.




• On the Internet: "I don't use the Internet, but apparently you can find out everything on it," she says sounding genuinely bewildered. "I have my e-mail on my BlackBerry, and that's about it. I've never read a blog, ever. I feel like it's taking away that great anticipation of seeing a movie. It used to be you'd hear, like, Al Pacino was making a movie, and you wouldn't know anything about it. And nowadays, you know it all, like how much [the actors] are being paid. I would hate to see a picture of me and the caption reads, 'Is she worth it?' "




• On her disappearing act from film for a few years: Ryder sees it as a self-inflicted dry spell. "If I don't relate to the [project], even if it's something that I should do, it's hard for me to say yes," she says. "I'm the type who'd rather not work than work on something I'm not into. I've done that a couple of times, and I feel like I can totally see it in my performance."




• Can she say which films? "No, but it's kind of obvious." She laughs. "I mean, there's a couple of times that I did it, for the, you know, paycheck. Even when I was younger--I remember I did this movie that wasn't good, called 1969. I totally did it 'cause I could get out of school. I can see it in even great actors' performances, when they're phoning it in."




• Aging as an actress: "I did relate to Beth [in Black Swan] on a certain level," she says. "Just that thing of, you know, when I'm told I'm not the ingenue anymore. And now I'm 39. I remember when I was younger, I couldn't wait to be older, because I was always the kid on the set, I was always younger than everyone else. And now I'm older than a lot of the people I work with. I've been doing this for 25 years, which is so strange. I was watching TV, and there was this oldies-but-goodies film fest, and Lucas came on. I was like, Oh my God, I'm an oldie!"




• Winona chased the part in Ron Howard's The Dilemma (with Vince Vaughn): These days, she seems more willing to explore new territory and isn't afraid to hustle for something she wants. This month, Ryder plays Kevin James' cheating wife, who's caught in the act by her husband's best bro Vince Vaughn, in the Ron Howard comedy The Dilemma. "She definitely chased it," Howard says. "She was really willing to come in and read with Vince, to see what it all felt like. And it was great when somebody of her stature volunteers that sort of thing. We pretty much cast her on the spot."




• On meeting men who used to crush on her: "I remember being at this bar called Tosca in San Francisco, and I met this guy one night. He was really cute, and we were talking, and then, like, he just said something about how he had always had a crush on me. And I was suddenly mistrustful about why he was talking to me. I wanted to be just a normal girl flirting with a normal guy. It's like you meet people, and they know this stuff about you. It's why you want to meet somebody who's in the same business, only because they understand more. But you don't necessarily want to be with another actor."




• On having babies: Ryder says she's not seeing anyone seriously now but has thought about what course her career might take when she, "knock on wood," has kids. "I would at least take a couple of years off." Just don't expect her to disappear altogether.




• A Sean Penn story: "I remember when I was about 18," she says, pausing for a moment. "Sean Penn made a bet with me. He had just directed his first movie, and he's like, 'By the time you're 30, I will bet you $500 that you'll be sick of acting.' I'm still waiting to collect, because I'm not."