Winona Ryder Reveals She Lost Out On ‘Eternal Sunshine’ Role Due To Excessive Media Attention

deadline.com:

At the height of her fame in the nineties and noughties, veteran actress Winona Ryder said she missed out on “a lot of parts,” including a starring role in the Charlie Kaufman cerebral romantic drama Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which went to Kate Winslet), due to excessive tabloid and paparazzi attention. “It was such a brilliant script and [director Michel Gondry and I] were at this little restaurant and people kept coming up to me and there was a random paparazzi guy outside, which was kind of unusual for me, but I just remember [Gondry’s] face, and trying to convince him that this isn’t normal, and I know it’s not normal,” she said in a recent cover story with Esquire.

The casting meeting was just one of many opportunities the two-time Oscar nominee said she lost out on because of a media circus surrounding her personal life, including her romantic relationships, mental health and shoplifting incident. “There was baggage,” Ryder explained. “Trying to convince someone to ignore the noise around me was tough.

I saw it in their eyes. I lost a lot of parts because of that.” Not only did the Stranger Things star receive feedback that her overwhelming fame would detract from her performance in a film, but also that there were increasingly narrowing options for what movies were available to her, due to Hollywood ageism and increasing studio power. “I’m not in any way complaining,” she said. “But there was this whole time when I felt like I would be a distraction, as well.

I got it. Certainly, in the 1990s, I became aware of that. And there was a switching-of-the-guard feeling, too. As you get older there are these new, younger actresses.