After a huge fall from grace in the early ’00s, Winona Ryder has managed to climb her way back to the top.
She stars as Joyce Byers on Netflix’s Stranger Things , but she’ll always be remembered for her iconic roles in Beetlejuice , Girl, Interrupted , and Edward Scissorhands .
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She was even besties with Gwyneth Paltrow at one point. Here are 10+ other random facts.
1. She was arrested for shoplifting.
In 2001, she made headlines for stealing $5,560 of stuff from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills.
In the end, she was convicted of grand theft and vandalism. No one understood why she stole.
To this day, she still downplays the incident.
“Psychologically, I must have been at a place where I just wanted to stop. I won’t get into what happened, but it wasn’t what people think,” Ryder told Porter magazine .
2. She quit acting for a while after the infamous shoplifting incident.
‘My hiatus,’ she said, rolling her eyes to Marie Claire U.K. .
“Whatever they want to call it – I did take time off. It was mutual, I think. I just went through a tough time.”
3. She dated Johnny Depp for four years.
The pair first met at the 1989 premiere of Great Balls of Fire! in New York.
Winona was 17 at the time and Depp was 26. They are still one of the most famous couples of all time.
Their romance was a whirlwind to say the least, as Depp proposed after just five months of dating!
“There’s been nothing in my 27 years that’s comparable to the feeling I have with Winona,” he once told People about Ryder.
While they called off the engagement in ’93, they’ve remained friends since.
“When I met Johnny, I was pure virgin,” she once said .
“He changed that. He was my first everything. My first real kiss. My first real boyfriend. My first fiancé. The first guy I had sex with. So he’ll always be in my heart. Forever.”
4. She was cast as Joyce Byers on *Stranger Things* thanks to her “anxious energy.”
“When you cast Winona, she has this very distinct, anxious energy about her. David [Harbour, who plays Chief Hopper] described her as like a ‘live wire,'” one of the co-creators, Matt Duffer, told Bustle .
5. She has the sweetest friendship with Keanu Reeves.
He’s a true ryde-or-die.
The actors first became friends when they worked on Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film, Dracula . Since then, they’ve done four films together, with Destination Wedding being their latest.
When they filmed *Dracula*, Keanu even refused to make Winona cry.
In an interview with The Sunday Times , Winona said that the director asked Keanu and the other actors to hurl horrible insults at hr to make her cry.
But they all — including Keanu — refused.
6. She was a huge ’90s movie star.
While a lot of younger fans know her as Joyce Byers from Stranger Things , back in the ’90s, she was somewhat of a big thing.
She starred in beloved movies, such as Beetlejuice , Girl, Interrupted , and Edward Scissorhands .
7. She had a huge falling out with Gwyneth Paltrow.
Back in the ’90s, these actresses were thicker than thieves.
But speaking of thieves, that’s allegedly what broke their friendship up… The rumor has it that Paltrow stole the lead role in Shakespeare in Love from Ryder.
This happened after she stumbled upon the script in Ryder’s home.
To add insult to injury, Gwynweh went on to win an Oscar for Best Actress for the role.
Hopefully, Winona can take comfort in the fact that Paltrow’s acceptance speech is super cringe-y…
8. She uses a stage name.
Her real name is Winona Laura Horowitz.
She got the idea for her stage name simply by being in the right place at the right time.
When someone asked how she would like her name to appear in movie credits, Mitch Ryder’s album was playing in the background at the same time.
9. She was on *Friends*.
She’s part of a huge list of celebrities who have had cameos on the show. This includes Susan Sarandon, Bruce Willis, and even Brad Pitt.
Ryder played Melissa, Rachel’s college friend who was secretly still in love with her.
10. She was almost named Laura.
Plans changed when Ryder’s parents were at a laundromat in the Minnesota city of Winona.
“She bent over to pick up this pamphlet with a girl on the cover, which said The Legend of Winona, and she went into labor,” she told Vogue .
11. She was bullied at school.
This was even after she starred in Beetlejuice as a teen.
“I remember thinking, ‘Ooh, it’s, like, the number-one movie. This is going to make things great at school,” she told Marie Claire U.K.
Sadly, it only made things worse.
“They called me a witch,” she said.
Well, with a successful career under her belt and the fact that she’s best friends with Keanu Reeves, we say that she’s doing okay.
12. She hasn’t seen the new *Little Women* film yet.
She was in the 1994 version, which also starred Susan Sarandon, Kirsten Dunst, and Claire Danes.
“The one that I made was a really, really special movie for me, one of my very, very personal favorites,” she told Vogue .
13. She came to Johnny Depp’s defense in his court battle against ex-wife, Amber Heard.
She’s got Johnny’sback.
In court files, she said that she was “absolutely shocked, confused and upset” over the allegations that her ex had been violent with Heard.
