Winona Ryder Lost ‘Eternal Sunshine’ Role Due to Excessive Media Attention

At the height of her fame in the nineties and early 2000s, Winona Ryder revealed that she missed out on numerous roles, including a lead part in the Charlie Kaufman romantic drama Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , which eventually went to Kate Winslet. The veteran actress attributes this to the overwhelming media and paparazzi attention she was receiving at the time.

“It was such a brilliant script, and [director Michel Gondry and I] were at this little restaurant,” Ryder said during a recent cover story with Esquire. “People kept coming up to me, and there was a random paparazzi guy outside, which was unusual for me. I just remember [Gondry’s] face and trying to convince him that this isn’t normal, and I know it’s not normal.”

This casting meeting was just one of many opportunities Ryder said she missed out on due to the constant media circus surrounding her personal life, including her relationships, mental health, and a well-publicized shoplifting incident.

“There was baggage,” Ryder explained. “Trying to convince someone to ignore the noise around me was tough. I saw it in their eyes. I lost a lot of parts because of that.”

Not only did the Stranger Things star receive feedback that her astonishing fame would detract from her performance, but she also faced increasingly narrowing options for roles because of Hollywood’s ageism and the growing influence of studios.

“I’m not in any way complaining,” she clarified. “But there was this whole time when I felt like I would be a distraction as well. I got it. Certainly, in the 1990s, I became aware of that. And there was a switching-of-the-guard feeling, too. As you get older, there are these new, younger actresses. It’s so drilled into you how disposable actresses can be, our shelf life. You hear it all the time.”

She continued, “Things were changing. Studios were getting much more powerful. Suddenly, it wasn’t about working with Jim Jarmusch; it was all about numbers, how much things were making. It felt like you were under this weird threat all the time, which was a lot of pressure. And all you ever heard was, if you take a break, you can’t come back. That was drilled into you.”

Currently, Ryder is filming the fifth and final season of the popular Netflix series Stranger Things . She will also return to the silver screen as Lydia, the iconic goth teen from Beetlejuice , now grown up with a moody daughter of her own, played by Jenna Ortega, in the upcoming Beetlejuice Beetlejuice .

Ryder’s most notable works include Edward Scissorhands , Heathers , Black Swan , The Age of Innocence , Reality Bites , Little Women , Bram Stoker’s Dracula , and Girl, Interrupted .