I am often asked about Timothy Leary, who was he, and what was his connection with Winona Ryder. Timothy Leary was the key figure in the 1960s counterculture movement and would probably be best described as a social renegade before it was fashionable to be one. He was kicked out of the West Point Military Acadmey and also dismissed from Harvard University for experimenting with hallucinating drugs on his students, and that of course, won him both notoriety and jail time. It was that whole “turn on, tune in and drop out” thing that made Leary a controversial figure some years before the entire world felt the need to go to San Francisco and put flowers in its hair.

The connection with Winona and Timothy Leary was that he was her godfather, and that came about three months after Winona was born when her father Michael Horowitz, who by then was working both as a bookseller of counterculture literature and also as Leary’s archivist.

Read more at Nigel Goodall blog.

Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Winona Ryder won audience’s hearts for being quirky and dark, with films like 1988′s ‘Beetlejuice’ and 1990′s ‘Edward Scissorhands’ (both helmed by Tim Burton) and, my personal favorite, 1989′s ‘Heathers.’ She made her mark as the first “manic pixie dream girl” — sure, she’s slightly different, but you can’t help but fall in love with her.

Ryder’s expressive, big eyes and penchant for sad, relatable characters made her super lovable. As the young emo-goth Lydia Deetz in ‘Beetlejuice,’ one of her first roles, she gained stand-out praise alongside established actors Michael Keaton and Alec Baldwin.

Her follow-up, as Veronica Sawyer, in the super-dark high school satire ‘Heathers,’ solidified her place as a movie star.

In 1994, Ryder won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award nomination for her role in ‘The Age of Innocence.’ She was nominated again for the Best Actress Oscar in 1995 for ‘Little Women.’ Then she showed real chops in 1999′s ‘Girl, Interrupted,’ holding her own against Angelina Jolie’s tour-de-force performance and really making an impact on audiences. In 2000, Ryder was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (more…)

It took six years off, presumable prescription drug treatment, and a lot of community service for Winona Ryder to make it back. And it’s a testament to the enduring appeal of her early work that three appropriately quirky supporting parts—as Commander Spock’s artificially-aged mother in Star Trek, as a deranged ballerina in Black Swan, and as Kevin James’ cheating wife upgrading to Channing Tatum in The Dilemma, in theaters on Friday—was all it took to resurrect a certain kind of American’s crush on Ryder, for GQ to declare as Johnny Depp once did, that it’s Winona Forever all over again. (more…)

Winona Ryder has a great 2010 year, and so we did. As fans all we wanted was a comeback, and it’s here. So, the year is ending and I think it would be cool to compile a list with her best moments of 2010. Feel free to add yours or complete mine.

Best News
I really can’t tell you what was the most exciting news from 2010. Her good reviews for “When Love Is Not Enough”, she joining a Ron Howard’s movie, the buzz around her comeback because the performance in Black Swan, a SAG and Satellite Awards nomination, or she working together with Tim Burton again. I really cannot choose one, can you?

Favorite Photoshoot

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With a new year quickly approaching, we’re doing more than stocking up on Champagne and re-remembering the lyrics to “Auld Lang Syne.” We’re also stopping to reflect on the year that was: and what a year 2010 was for fashion, music, and film. Ke$ha convinced us to throw away our toothbrushes; Justin Bieber melted 12-year-old hearts worldwide; and James Franco managed to juggle about nine careers at once. They (and 15 others) deserve to be recognized for their efforts! And so, without further ado, we are proud to present: Interview’s Faces of 2010.

The Cameo Queen: Winona Ryder
It’s been two decades since Heathers and Edward Scissorhands, but Winona Ryder proved this year that she’s definitely still got it. Though she wasn’t onscreen long, Ryder still managed to deliver one of the year’s most memorable performances as an ousted prima ballerina in Black Swan. She played her creepy, menacing role to such perfection that we found ourselves looking over our shoulders as we left the theater-just in case she happened to be lurking behind us. This may be the start of a legit comeback for Ryder, who has booked upcoming roles in Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, Ron Howard’s The Dilemma, and Armand Mastroianni’s Gardel.

Quotable in 2010: “Sometimes I’ll watch a movie, and it’s got some big star in it playing a working-class person, and the character is in a grocery store, and you can kind of tell, from just watching the scene, that this actor doesn’t do their own shopping. So you have to have some sense of reality. That’s why, at the height of everything, I used to go to the Laundromat to do my laundry-just because I had to sort of maintain,” Ryder said in October.

Source

As announced, Winona is featured in the January issue of GQ magazine. The official website has posted the article and the breathtaking photoshoot. She can’t be more beautiful, can she?

Winona Forever
Is it possible we will always be obsessed with Winona Ryder? If she keeps doing films such as Black Swan, the answer is yes. Alex Pappademas talks with our eternal crush

Winona Ryder has this problem, and as problems go it’s pretty solidly in the first-world category, she knows, but it’s a problem, still: She’ll be having a conversation with somebody—an interesting conversation, the kind two regular people have when they discover a mutual admiration for, like, Philip Roth’s American Pastoral or something. And then suddenly the person she’s having the conversation with will say something to her that reminds her that (a) she is Winona Ryder, the famous actress, and (b) nearly everyone she meets already has “this whole idea” of who she is, already thinks they know everything there is to know about her, more or less. And inevitably when this happens, she starts thinking about what it is people think they know about her, which is never a good idea, and the conversation never really recovers.

Read More

With two scene-stealing performances on the way, Winona Ryder is about to make us fall in love with her all over again

In director Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, a disturbing psycho-thriller set in the physically harrowing world of professional ballet, it’s slightly jarring to see Winona Ryder take on such a small part, not to mention see her play an aging principal dancer, Beth, who has been strong-armed into retirement by her New York company and tidily replaced by Nina, an ambitious innocent portrayed by a gaunt Natalie Portman. The film takes on a creepy hallucinogenic bent, focusing on Nina’s mental unraveling as she obsessively prepares for her starmaking turn in the company’s risqué version of Swan Lake. Ryder can’t be on-screen for more than 20 minutes—her role lands somewhere between cameo and supporting actress. And yet, as pallid as ever, with impossibly dark eyes that dominate her valentine-shaped face, she manages to make her presence seem big. The movie wouldn’t have the same palpable tension without her.

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My Fox Orlando – Winona Ryder is back on the red carpet after a lengthy absence from Hollywood.

Ryder, 38, attended the Toronto Film Festival premiere of the ballet psychodrama “Black Swan” in which she made a cameo. She posed for photos with co-star Natalie Portman wearing a low-cut black dress with a below-the-knee skirt, according to Yahoo! Movies .

There was also talk of her new tattoo on her left forearm, which fans are saying is a combination of the Indonesian symbol for “compassion” and the Tibetan symbol for “enlightenment.”

Her iconic presence in the 90’s and early millennium in movies like “Edward Scissorhands”, “Reality Bites” and “Little Women” had all been halted when she was charged with shoplifting in 2001 by Saks Fifth Avenue where she was caught on camera stealing $5,500 worth of designer items. She was arrested and put on three years probation.

Now at 38 at 5’4” frame Winona Ryder was one of Hollywood’s original waif but she isn’t as waify looking anymore as she catches the world’s attention once again as an ageing ballerina who can’t perform in a New York City Production of Swan Lake and was taken over by Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”.

Recently seen in the Toronto Film Festival premiere of the psychodrama she showed her womanly curves in a black dress with a demure below-the-knee skirt and bustier-style neckline. A tattoo (meaning compassion and enlightenment in both its Indonesian and Tibetan meanings) on her left forearm didn’t go noticed.

Her iconic presence in the 90’s and early millennium in movies like “Edward Scissorhands”, “Reality Bites” and “Little Women” had all been halted when she was charged with shoplifting in 2001 by Saks Fifth Avenue where she was caught on camera stealing $5,500 worth of designer items. She was arrested and put on three years probation.

She, however, made acting appearances in some films in 2006 and even played Spok’s mother in Star Trek last year.

Next year, she has a major leading role in the Ron-Howard comedy “The Dilemma” with Vince Vaughn and Kevin James.

Source: The News Chronicle

The Lost Boy: This morning in the Hyatt Regency, I saw Winona Ryder in the flesh for the very first time. I wish I could say we met at some sort of party and hit it off and decided to blow off the party and drink wine at her hotel room while discussing love, life and the pursuit of happiness. But sadly, I had to settle for the “Black Swan” press conference, where I eagerly sat in the front row and just stared longingly at her nervous eyes.

She seemed really anxious being up there, and stuttered through the answers to some her questions. It made me just wanted to put up my hand and tell her that everything was going to be okay. And, well, that my childhood room was adorned with hundreds of her photographs. And that I could mouth the words to every line of dialogue she has in “Heathers,” “Reality Bites,” “Beetlejuice,” “Edward Scissorhands” and “Great Balls of Fire.” And that she’d been this strange presence in my life… like this imaginary beacon of boyish femininity that guided me through the first 14 years of my life. I’d even like to tell her I used to fantasize she was my older sister and demanded we named my actual sister after her when I was 8 years old (which thankfully didn’t happen).

But then I realized that would not only would that make her more anxious, I would probably also be kicked out of the conference for sounding so insane.

Anyway, here’s a video from when Ryder and co-star Natalie Portman had been asked about the pressures they felt by being in the public eye since they were children, a pressure that is eerily mirrored in “Swan.” Free Winona: