Winona Ryder grabs my forearm and presses two fingers into a point below my inner elbow. She pushes, hard, and fixes me with those huge brown eyes.
‘Can you feel that?’
Eventually she eases the pressure, then releases. A feeling of relaxation flows from my shoulders to my fingers. ‘People don’t realise how much tension they hold in their forearms,’ she says.
It’s not the introduction I expected from the iconic actress who changed the way women are portrayed on film and made an entire generation of shy, smart teenage girls feel better about themselves. Lydia in Beetlejuice, Veronica in Heathers, Kim in Edward Scissorhands, Charlotte in Mermaids… Ryder’s USP was dark, sensitive characters that couldn’t care less if they slept with the quarterback.
‘The 1980s was the era of the blonde cheerleader,’ nods the 42-year-old, sipping an Americano in a West Hollywood coffee house. With her long, dark hair tied back in a ponytail, she looks as fragile and as beautiful as she did 20 years ago. ‘The description of my character in the first few movies I did was always “nerdy”, but I liked that, it was way more interesting.’
Read the full interview with Winona Ryder, only in the April issue of Red magazine
