Top 232 Quotes & Sayings by Winona Ryder - Page 4

I try to just pay attention to what I'm feeling. If something is scary to me, then that's sometimes a good sign - although, sometimes it's not.

It's interesting because First Wives Club was the first movie that made a shitload of money that starred all women over a certain age. That was a milestone that made you think, "Oh, things are going to change."

I've read the Bible. I think the Bible's a great book, but it's a novel. It's beautifully written and la-di-da, but people really took it the wrong way.

I remember being 18, and my first boyfriend said to me, "Unless you're in the room, you don't know if it's true." We were talking about gossip.

I grew up in San Francisco. My parents were not hippies; they were writers. They were very active politically, but on the intellectual side, not on the "taking drugs in a field and listening to the Grateful Dead" side.

In the '80s, I loved the movies of the '70s. Also I remember loving Klute [1971]. I loved Jane Fonda. Actually, I auditioned for the last movie she made before she retired for a while, Stanley and Iris [1990], which Martha Plimpton got.

I'm not a drug user myself. I'm too little to take drugs - my body can't take it.

As a character, it's very interesting to play someone who wants to change their life and have him change it.

I approached work very seriously. I never went out. I couldn't fathom people who could go out to clubs... But I definitely went through a time where I was just terrified and exhausted and I didn't really understand. Hollywood... It just got to be too much for me.

One of my friends committed suicide when I was in high school, and it's the most tragic thing anybody can go through.

I will say, though, that San Francisco is a very friendly city. It's the kind of place where people smile at you and you can strike up conversations on the street, so there's always an adjustment when I come back to New York. If I smile at someone on the street in New York, then they think there's something up - like, "Why is she smiling?"

I binge-watched this show Damages. Glenn Close and Rose Byrne are so good. Lily Tomlin is in it. You see all these great actors and the writing is terrific. There are a lot of shows like that. And there are all these conversations right now about roles for women and being paid equally and all of that, but I think what it really is, is opportunity.

I don't have anything left to offer in the teen-angst area. I've done it every way I know how.

I definitely believe in legalizing drugs. It does take the mystery away. It takes the money away, so suddenly there are no drug wars. If you're a junkie, you can get help easier.

I had this big complex because I didn't go to college. There was a whole era where I got linked to everybody. People that I had never met. I was like, "How? I'm home alone reading chapter 12 of a book."

I watched this documentary on Madonna. I remember I grew up hearing she wanted to rule the world. Actually, she worked really hard - really, really hard.

In retrospect, I think maybe Audrey Hepburn was going to talk to me about doing something for UNICEF. I was so overwhelmed to just even be in her presence and I was very young, but it was really special and unforgettable.

The fact that I got into acting at all was kind of fluke-ish. I loved movies, but I can't remember ever really wanting to be an actress, and I certainly didn't imagine ever being in a movie. I think I wanted to be a writer.

It would be great if teenagers could make movies. It's sad how some writers think they can write about stuff they don't understand.

It’s equally as important to me to be a good friend, and a good sister, and a good daughter. I’m very close with my family and friends.

A lot of filmmakers and actors say, "It's so important to bring an authenticity to the role," blah, blah, blah. But then it's interesting because you're also trying to be somebody else, and viewers are going to associate you with that, so I don't think it really has an answer.

If you're a musician, you can practice your guitar every day and write songs, but when you're an actor, you can't just like burst into a monologue. Your only exercise is when you're in prep or you're working.

It's weird because I think of movies like Reality Bites or something, where, even though my life was nothing like that, I hadn't done something contemporary for a while, and it's easier. You do try to make something your own.

Certainly with The Crucible, what I love is that every role in that is so crucial.But there's something almost comic. I remember there's that line where she says, "I am 18 and a woman, however single," which killed me every time!

I was always like, "I'm going to be the drunk judge who's like, 'Objection!' 'In chambers!'?"

When I was young, I was really, really obsessed with Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes. Because my mom was a projectionist in college, she was somehow able to get a real projector. And she had some connections, so she would get real prints, and we'd put up a sheet. The first movies I saw were To Kill a Mockingbird [1962], Gigi [1958], A Woman Under the Influence [1974]. Then when I was old enough to be able to rent movies, I went through a very big Cassavetes phase.

Most actors don't know what they're going to do next, so you get into this thing where you have to force yourself to have another life outside of acting. And then, as soon as you start something in this sort of normal life that you're trying to live, you get a job. So you have this constant struggle because you want to be able to commit to things and to finish things in your life, but then you also want to be able to act.

I've recommended girls for jobs that I had a different part in, and agents have been like, "No, don't ..."It's so surprising to me.

What's great is my parents aren't stuck in the '60s. My dad is so into the culture of today.

There's like this great thing that Bette Davis said when someone asked her, "How do you get into Hollywood?" "Take Fountain!"

I was never strategic really, but back when I was starting out no one cared. In the acting community, box office didn't matter. I really think it was a mistake when they started paying people like $20 million to do a movie because now it's all people think about. Is she worth it? Is he worth it?

My problems seemed so glamorous to other people, and everyone just thought I was so lucky. But then, I was lucky because my family was really there for me. I think I just felt like I really wanted to hold on to who I was as a person, and try to have as much of a normal life as I could.

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.

Reverend Hale is so interesting because at first he's like, "Oh, she's got the mark." Then by the end he's like, "You're all crazy."

I remember when I did Little Women, I didn't watch the Katharine Hepburn one over and over, which I thought I would do. Heathers, I was completely obsessed with.

That first movie I did, Lucas [1986], was probably the closest to me. And Beetlejuice a little bit, in the sense that I did look like that. All they did was like put a little white powder here.

I think that as actresses - and I've definitely gone through this in a really bizarre way, because I worked so much and was really lucky with the roles that I got when I was younger - I remember hearing the older actors saying, "It gets tough," and thinking, "Really? I can't imagine."

You look at people like Gena Rowlands, but she had [John] Cassavetes to write these amazing roles for her.

I was so lucky that I got to meet certain people. It came through Roddy McDowall, who had become a photographer and would do these portraits of celebrities. Then he would get another well-known person to write a thing. He photographed me when I was 15 or 16, and he got Jason Robards to write the thing because he was sort of my mentor. And Roddy would invite me to these dinner parties that were insane. Like, Elizabeth Taylor and Maureen O'Hara and people that were just crazy. I still can't really believe that I met them.

My parents were great in the sense that they treated me like a human being when I was growing up. They showed me how beautiful things can be and how ugly they can be.

I was very obsessed with Ruth Gordon. I really didn't foresee me having any type of career as a leading lady at all because it was just blonds. I just wasn't the type - I was told that by casting directors. I auditioned for Running on Empty [1988] and The Mosquito Coast [1986], and Martha Plimpton was just killing me.

I was so spoiled in a way. I worked very hard, but there was just a wealth of great roles.

I'm not a big one on - I don't know what to call it - getting all glamorous. I don't really worry about my looks, and I don't worry about getting old. Exterior beauty doesn't mean a lot to me.

I got to work with Gena Rowlands when I did Night on Earth, and the movie was just you and someone else in a car, you're just hanging out. There's nobody else, just a walkie-talkie. It was a night shoot, and it was only a week or ten days. But it was incredible just being in her presence.

In retrospect, I went to Jane Fonda for literally everything. During Mermaids, we were staying in the same building, so she was right upstairs from me. I was in my first relationship, so I got all sorts of advice. She became famous in her late teens.

Focus should be on the art of film, not on the business of film.

Bette Davis in All About Eve was huge for me. Her acting was staggering.

Bette Davis, she was so brilliant and one of my heroes, but she worked a ton, and then she didn't get All About Eve [1950] until the last minute. Claudette Colbert was supposed to be Margo Channing, but then she broke her back and couldn't do it. That allowed Davis to play her age.

I really lucked out in terms of how my parents encouraged me to develop my own personality so I didn't just feel incredibly insecure and like I didn't fit in.

If a film is well made, then great, whatever it's about.

In America, I don't know how much longer the environment is going to exist. I sort of strongly believe that we're in danger.

There are actors I know personally, or I've heard them say, "The less known about me, the better, because I just want people to think of me as the character." I think Matt Damon said that recently. He has a point and I think I get that.