Winona Ryder, pictured with Jenna Ortega on the red carpet for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at this year's Venice International Film Festival, has revealed the actor who refused to kiss her during an audition. Photo / Getty Images
Winona Ryder, pictured with Jenna Ortega on the red carpet for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at this year's Venice International Film Festival, has revealed the actor who refused to kiss her during an audition. Photo / Getty Images
Winona Ryder has revealed the A-list actor who refused a scripted kiss at an audition more than 30 years ago.
The then-21-year-old had been auditioning for a role in the 1993 film Fearless when her scene partner, Jeff Bridges, said he felt uncomfortable kissing her due to their two-decade age difference. Bridges, now 74, was 43 when the two auditioned — more than twice Ryder’s age at the time.
“Jeff Bridges, who I love, wouldn’t kiss me because I was too young,” she said in the interview.
Ryder said she remembered closing her eyes and leaning in for the kiss as the scene had described, but Bridges hesitated — instead kissing her forehead and saying, “You’re like my daughter’s age, you know?”
Bridges shares daughters Isabelle, 43, Jessica, 41, and Haley, 38, with his wife of 47 years, Susan.
The actor notably had a significant age gap with on-screen love interest Maggie Gyllenhaal during the filming of the acclaimed 2009 drama, Crazy Heart. At the time of the film’s release, Bridges was 60 and Gyllenhaal was 32.
The Girl, Interrupted actress did not specify which part she was trying out for in Fearless, which ultimately starred Bridges, Isabella Rossellini, Rosie Perez and John Turturro. The award-winning film focuses on a man whose personality is dramatically changed after surviving a major airliner crash. It received positive reviews from critics, with Rosie Perez nominated for Best Supporting Actress at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes.
Winona Ryder and Michel Keaton in the 1988 film Beetlejuice. Photo / Supplied
That same year Ryder, then 21, starred in the popular film The Age of Innocence opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, who is 14 years her senior. The role earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and a Golden Globe win in the same category. The star-studded cast also included Michelle Pfeiffer, Miriam Margolyes and Richard E. Grant.
“I feel like that was sort of my graduation, too, because when you’re a teen actor and a kid, you’re always hearing about the transition into adult roles and how it’s impossible … I feel like Age of Innocence really was huge,” Ryder said during the interview.
She was later nominated for Best Actress at the 1995 Academy Awards for her role as Jo March in 1994′s Little Women. Gabriel Byrne, who played her love interest, was 44 when the film was released; Ryder had just turned 23.
The actress, who was only 14 when her film debut, Lucas, was released, went on to star in the likes of Looking for Richard, The Crucible, Alien Resurrection, Girl, Interrupted, and Being John Malkovich throughout the 1990s. In 2000, she starred opposite Richard Gere, then 50, in the romantic drama Autumn in New York; she was 28.
In 1988, a then-16-year-old Ryder starred as Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice. Her co-star Michael Keaton — 20 years her senior — played the main role of Betelgeuse (Beetlejuice), who wished to wed the teenage Deetz. Ryder, Keaton and Catherine O’Hara reprised their roles more than three decades later for the sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which arrived in New Zealand cinemas on September 5.
The Beetlejuice sequel has so far received positive feedback from critics, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes showing a 77% rating based on 162 reviews. In a mixed review for the Washington Post, the film was described as “sprightly enough”, but director Tim Burton — “one of the most distinct visionaries in American film history” — was criticised for becoming “a corporate repurposing machine”.
