Winona Ryder

Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz, the daughter of authors and editors Cynthia Palmer and Michael Horowitz. She has a younger brother, Urie, as well as a half-brother, Jubal, and a half-sister, Sunyata. Her father worked as an archivist for psychologist Timothy Leary, who became Ryder's godfather, and her parents' friends included Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Philip K. Dick.

When Ryder was seven, her family moved to a Northern California ranch commune with several other families. The property had no electricity or television, so she spent much of her time reading. At 10, she moved with her family to Petaluma, California, and at 12 enrolled in acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. A near-drowning in 1983 led to aquaphobia, which later complicated the filming of underwater scenes for Alien Resurrection.

Ryder made her film debut in Lucas (1986), after director David Seltzer noticed her audition for Desert Bloom. She selected “Ryder” as her professional surname while a Mitch Ryder album belonging to her father was playing in the background. Her performance in Square Dance (1987) brought early critical praise.

Her breakthrough came when Tim Burton cast her as Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice (1988), a goth teenager who moves into a haunted house. The film became her first box-office success, and Ryder later credited Burton with helping establish her career. She followed it with Heathers (1989), playing Veronica Sawyer in a satirical story about high-school popularity and violence. Although initially unsuccessful commercially, Heathers became a cult film and a landmark teen movie.

Ryder reunited with Burton for Edward Scissorhands (1990), starring opposite Johnny Depp, and also appeared with Cher in Mermaids (1990). She then played Mina Murray and Princess Elisabeta in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Her work in these films established her as an actress associated with both unconventional young characters and literary or period roles.

For her portrayal of May Welland in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993), Ryder won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and received Academy Award and BAFTA nominations. She earned a second consecutive Oscar nomination for playing Jo March in Little Women (1994). Other significant roles during the decade included Reality Bites, How to Make an American Quilt, The Crucible, Alien Resurrection, and Girl, Interrupted, which she also executive-produced. She narrated The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, receiving a Grammy Award nomination for the recording.

In December 2001, Ryder was arrested after being accused of taking designer clothing and accessories from a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills. She was convicted of grand theft and shoplifting, acquitted of burglary, and sentenced to probation, community service, fines, restitution, and counseling. The felony convictions were reduced to misdemeanors in 2004, and she completed probation in 2005.

Ryder took a break from acting during the early 2000s. She later connected the incident with a period of clinical depression and said prescription pain medication had clouded her judgment. She returned to film with projects including The Darwin Awards and A Scanner Darkly in 2006, followed by Star Trek, Black Swan, The Dilemma, The Iceman, and Homefront. She also earned praise and a Screen Actors Guild nomination for the television movie When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story.

In 2016, Ryder began starring as Joyce Byers in the Netflix science-fiction horror series Stranger Things. Joyce is a single mother whose son disappears under mysterious circumstances. Ryder's performance received critical praise, and the ensemble won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. The series renewed public interest in Ryder's work and became the defining television role of her later career.

Ryder subsequently appeared in HBO's The Plot Against America (2020), playing Evelyn Finkel, and reunited with Tim Burton for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024), reprising Lydia Deetz. She also played opposite Keanu Reeves in Destination Wedding (2018) and returned as Kim Boggs in a 2021 advertisement inspired by Edward Scissorhands.

Ryder has supported the American Indian College Fund since her twenties. In 1993, she offered a reward for information that could lead to the safe return of kidnapped child Polly Klaas, who had lived in Petaluma. After Klaas's death, Ryder dedicated her performance in Little Women to her memory.

Ryder received the Peter J. Owens Award at the San Francisco Film Festival in 2000 and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that same year. Her acting recognition includes a Golden Globe win, multiple Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations, two Academy Award nominations, and a Grammy Award nomination.