Alien 4 Interview
by Toronto Sun
"I've got to start reading those scripts," Ryder was saying recently at the Intercontinental Hotel after the sci-fi movie's world premiere here.
Ryder's not complaining about her Alien Resurrection dialogue or her co-starring screen time in the picture, which opens tomorrow in Toronto.
It was the Alien Resurrection underwater sequences the 26-year-old actor didn't know about, and the mention of them definitely would've caught her attention.
"When I was 12," she says, "I technically drowned."
The incident took place on a beach in Northern California near Mendocino where she lived. "When they pulled me out of the water, I didn't have a pulse, but I coughed up water and came back to life."
No, she didn't tell her parents. "I was cutting school."
Last year, she did tell the studio executives hiring her for the part opposite Sigourney Weaver's Ripley that she had an underwater phobia because of the near death experience.
"They said, 'No problem, we'll get a stunt double'."
As it turned out, they didn't. So Ryder forced herself to take the plunge with the rest of the cast, and with terrifying results, although divers were always present and just inches out of camera range during the three days of shooting.
There were no incidents either. Lots of close calls though, "in the really scary, gross water."
On one occasion, Ryder and Weaver came up unexpectedly from the tank, and sat on what they assumed was a squat-like metal stool, which was really a cover for electrical cables.
When that was pointed out, Ryder says, "We had a choice. Do we want to drown or get electrocuted? We said to each other, 'Let's drown.' " So they jumped back in the tank.
Ryder grimaces at the recollection.
Other than that, Ryder "flipped out" doing her favorite sci-fi films. "I am an Alien fanatic," she confirms.
"I love Alien Resurrection too, but I'm not crazy about myself in this."
Ryder's young fans might disagree, since she has a loyal and devoted following, thanks to her modern mixed up teenager roles in Heathers, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Mermaids. Ironically, her two Oscar nominations arrived with period pieces -- Little Women and The Age Of Innocence.
Whatever, directors seem to have more confidence in her abilities.
Ryder just finished working with Woody Allen in Deconstructing Harry, and she bought the film rights to a book called Girl Interrupted, dealing with a teenager mistakenly admitted to an asylum in the '60s after experimenting with drugs.
"It's not like The Snake Pit or Cuckoo's Nest," Ryder assures. "It's more of a comedy."
She'll start that early next year, but don't expect big names and big budgets. She likes to keep it simple.
"I feel like I'm in a great position," says Ryder, who moved out of L.A. to San Francisco in 1994.
"I started young, and I was never in a big box office blockbuster that was a hit because I was in it. I was always that girl from Beetlejuice, the girl from Mermaids or Heathers. I was never a so-called overnight success."
She's just the survivor Winona Ryder -- Noni to her friends, and a buddy to her fans.
"When they approach me, It's always like, 'Hi.' It's never like, 'Oh my gawd'."
And how many actors can say that.
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Pictures
01 is from the Oscars 1995
02 is from Anthony Hopkins' ceremony at Mans Chiniese Theatre
03 is one of my fav Winona pics
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