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Post by ilovewinona on Aug 1, 2009 13:50:29 GMT -5
And now a three page article from January 2000 ---------- Winona's Troubled Past ---------- "At 21, suffering anxiety attacks and sleeplessness, Winona Ryder checked herself into a psychiatric ward." --------- Beverly Hills, California, It was supposed to be a boisterous Hollywood party to mark the launching of Winona Ryder's new movie, "Girl Interrupted". But when the pixie-like actress tried to speak a few words to guests, she burst into tears. The problem was that she related too closely to this film version of Susanna Kaysen's autobiographical novel about a troubled adolescent who ends up being institutionalized. The book, she declared passionately, changed her life. - "It catapulted me back to the first time I read "The Catcher in the Rye" and I discovered I was not the only person who knew what it was like to be lonely and alienated." ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Aug 3, 2009 6:29:47 GMT -5
It was an unexpected admission to hear from a gifted young actress who seems so bright, engaging ----- and together. But the 28-year-old Ryder is anything if not honest. Even when she's away from the strain of a gala premiere and sitting down with reporters to talk about her new movie, she still reiterates that ---- although life has never seemed better ----- she has nevertheless experienced her own dark nights of the soul. ------ ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Aug 7, 2009 5:01:27 GMT -5
Ryder was 21 when she encountered Kaysen's book about a 17-year-old girl who is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and ends up spending two years in an institution. She says now that she was "blown away" by what she read and was determined that her own fledgling production company be involved in developing the film version. "I found it incredibly captivating. And I hadn't encountered a character so beautifully honest since I'd read J.D. Salinger and discovered the Glass family and Franny and Zooey and Holden Caulfield. It's very rare in literature to find brutal honesty without self-indulgence and for it to be cut with so much humor." ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Aug 7, 2009 19:11:24 GMT -5
But there was another reason Ryder related so strongly to the story -- her own brief experience in a psychiatric ward when she was 20. She had checked herself into hospital for five days as a voluntary patient in the midst of doing the film, "The House of the Spirits", because she was suffering from anxiety attacks and sleeplessness. "I think all of you people in your hearts can back me up and say that 19 is a tough year," she smiles. "It is for anybody, whether you're an actress or whether you're cramming for exams or your parents are driving you crazy ot whether you're breaking up with your first love. Whatever you're going through, it's a tough year." ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Aug 10, 2009 5:38:07 GMT -5
And for her it was "a really, really tough year." ----- "I had a week off from this movie where I was playing a political prisoner and doing torture scenes, and I came back home and I was so tired. I've always been a terrible insomniac, and when I came back I was so exhausted that I checked myself into a clinic for sleep deprivation. It was a psychiatric ward, but I got nothing from it. It didn't help me at all." ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by imayne on Aug 11, 2009 11:04:54 GMT -5
I say "Hell Yeah!" about what she's saying about recent films, but somehow I am worrying if Obama can turn it around...
Winona Ryder: “America is too much puritan but with Obama things will change” 26 July 2009 1,148 views 11 Comments
The meeting with jurors has affected her deeply
Black and trimmed with lace dress, short hair, white skin and red lips. The long awaited Winona Ryder, the most controversial Hollywood actress, has been the last star at Giffoni Experience. She has said: “It has been so touching to meet the festival jurors, I have almost started crying. Especially if I think that among those boys there would be the next Coppola, the new Scorsese. Youth are our future”.
She has arrived together with a mysterious man, James, who has photographed her all day long in Giffoni and followed her in the streets and in her meetings. Although his staff had previously told to journalists not to ask her questions about taboos, a journalist has done it and she has directly answered: “Cinema is a different place where it’s possible to explore them. That’s why cinema is also a social medium”. The 38 years old American actress has added: “There are dark periods, in which cinema seems to be puritan, stagnant. I hope that this new time, with Barack Obama, – and I tell this even if I’m an immigrant couple daughter – let us to leave behind this dark atmosphere which derives from the George Bush government. Some months ago, some teachers have got the sack because of the subject they taught. But I feel that everything will change”.
Then she talks about her next films: “After a little role in ‘Star Trek’, I’ll be Sandra Dulles in the film ‘The Private Lives of Pippa Lee’ by Rebecca Miller, with Robin Wright Penn, Monica Bellucci and Julianne Moore and in November I’ll start shooting a new film, but it is not defined”. Moreover she also talks about her pastime: “When I was 20 years old and I started acting, I often felt tired sad and alone. It was very hard to see how different were my life and problems than those of my friends. I had problems with films and screenplays, my friends with paying their house’s rent. I have often felt guilty for this. Today, in Hollywood there aren’t significant feminine roles, nobody wants to risk and I feel at ease only working with the freelance productions, because are more courageous”.
When a journalist has mentioned her justice problems, she has answered that she is trying to reach her balance. In the end, as regards as her favourite film partner, she has said that he is Daniel Day Lewis.
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Post by Charles on Aug 11, 2009 13:20:32 GMT -5
Excellent, thanks, Imayne . . .
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Post by ilovewinona on Aug 12, 2009 7:58:26 GMT -5
Excellent, thanks, Imayne . . . ----- Yes it's great to read a recent interview from Winona. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) ----- At least, it seemed that way at the time. She realizes now that the experience did teach her a lesson -- that psychological illness can strike anyone, that confusion and despair can drive anyone to the precipice, and that ultimately one has to help oneself. "You don't go to a place and have them give you a pill that fixes you. They don't give you a sheet of secret answers ... you can't pay enough money to have a place fix you, which is incredibly upsetting if you think that they can. I thought -- I have money and if I pay them enough they're going to have to give me some sort of cure for just feeling broken and confused and way too sensitive for this insane world." ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Aug 17, 2009 6:13:46 GMT -5
Winona's own situation was different from that faced by Susanna Kaysen in the film, which is set in the late 1960's, a time when it was perfectly legal for parents to commit their children to institutions if they didn't conform to society's values. But Ryder says the same fundamental lesson applies: "You finally accept that it's OK not to have answers for everything. it's OK not to be perfect, and OK just to be a human being and confused -- that actually feeling crazy is normal ..... that it's just feeling like a human being. But you do have to look into yourself for the answers. It's important to understand that the only place you can go is yourself." ----- ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Aug 19, 2009 7:41:51 GMT -5
The film, which opens in Canada January 14th, is written and directed by James Mangold and costars Angelina Jolie as an acid tongued sociopath, Brittany Murphy as a troubled "daddy's girl" and Whoopi Goldberg as a caring nurse, Ryder says Mangold did a remarkable job in bringing dramatic continuity to what was essentially an episodic book. ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Aug 24, 2009 6:53:27 GMT -5
Ryder has delivered critically acclaimed performances in a succession of movies -- among them "Little Women", "The Age of Innocence" and "Edward Scissorhands". But she felt a special responsibility towards "Girl Interrupted", not only because she would be portraying a real person in Susanna Kaysen. ----- It was incredibly exciting when we finally started shooting the movie. Every day on the set I couldn't believe we were actually making it. It seemed so unreal to me -- I don't want to sound like a cliche but it was like a dream come true." ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Sept 2, 2009 7:52:50 GMT -5
"But it did take a lot out of me. I did spend every last cent I had in myself on this girl ..... because Susanna Kaysen is still with us and such a vibrant force and still alive. She cared about this movie and wanted it to be good, so it was important to me that we did a good job. It was important for me to honour her." ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Sept 5, 2009 7:07:27 GMT -5
Yet Ryder was also determined to show her character's blemishes. "I see her as someone I would aspire to be like in terms of her intelligence and her humour and her perception. I think in a way she's too smart for her own good ..... so smart that she kind of thinks herself into corners sometimes, which is why she feels trapped". And yes, in the movie she's capable of extreme cruelty -- particularly in a key scene in which she makes wounding racial to Goldberg's character. ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Sept 14, 2009 5:29:54 GMT -5
"Overall, she's a pretty compassionate person, a very socially conscious person ... but we wanted a scene where she turns into a complete brat. We needed it because she is spoiled. She is sitting in this rich girl's hospital, wasting a lot of money and she is totally absorbed. So it's really important we see her lash out and be put in her place." Ryder's choice of movies continues to be eclectic. She recently wrapped "Autumn in New York", a romantic comedy-drama in which she costars with Richard Gere. But she seems to be reserving her real enthusiasm for her next film "Roustabout", a project of her own company. "It's being directed by Chris Eyre who did "Smoke Signals" and it's about the death of the American circus. It's a kind of smaller scale interesting film." ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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Post by ilovewinona on Sept 16, 2009 5:59:18 GMT -5
After that there's another departure in "Lambs of God". which Ryder describes as "a sort of interesting, socially conscious fairytale about the first woman to be sent to the electric chair in the U.S." However, it's clear that "Girl Interrupted" is something truly special. All the same, Ryder is glad there was a delay in bringing it to the screen, which meant she wasn't able to do it immediately. "I think in the last six years I've learned a lot more and absorbed a lot more of life. So I was able to flesh out the character more because I'm more of a person than I was six years ago." ----- That's all of the article ----- "Winona's Troubled Past" ----- ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Rusty
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