Interview

MOOALLEM: That’s insane!

RYDER: I know! It was amazing. I mean, it’s possible that his publisher just typed it and had him sign it or something, but it was the greatest thing ever—especially since he’s someone whose work has been so important to me. There was also that woman, Joyce Maynard, who was selling those letters that he wrote to her. He had had some affair with her or something, and she sold the letters. It’s just like, ugh. You know? I mean, I still write letters, and not that anyone I know would do that or that anyone would care to read them, but it does make me pause. I don’t know how safe e-mail is either because things get leaked out on that, too. Having had a public relationship, I remember, back then, doing an interview where I was like, “I’m so in love.” And then, time goes by, and you just kind of don’t want that out there, you know? But, at the same time, I’m really lucky because my parents have this entire record of my life. They’ve got copies of every magazine I was ever in. They’ve got all of these Polaroids from wardrobe fittings, and all the stuff from Beetlejuice, everything. My parents have just collected it all. My dad even signed up so he could get Google alerts about me, but then he had to stop because he’d get these things where people would put my face on some Anna Nicole Smith–like body, and he got totally freaked out. [laughs]

MOOALLEM: It must be incredible to have all of that stuff, though.

RYDER: Yeah, it is. Although, if someone was there to see me going through all of my stuff . . . You know, you do things in the moment, and then you change, and then they’re just out there. I guess I just have a really big scrapbook. But I’m really kind of glad. I still actually have these notes that Marty Scorsese wrote me while we were making The Age of Innocence [1993]. If he couldn’t make it into the carriage where we were filming or whatever, he would send me little notes like, “Remember to kiss him at the end.” I save everything, so I definitely have that gene in me. Someone was telling me about this show called Hoarders. I was like, “Oh no! I save everything!” I’m scared I might be a hoarder.

Photo credit: Winona Ryder and her godfather Timothy Leary from Interview, November 1989. Photo: © Herb Ritts Foundation.