Winona Ryder has built up a reputation for being the actress to call on for difficult roles. Her ability to see beyond the surface and to create characters that others couldn't was built through a life spent outside of the mainstream. Winona Laura Horowitz was born on October 29th, 1971 in Winona, Minnesota. She was named after the town she was born in by her hippy parents Cindy and Michael.  article continued below...

 Her parents were more involved with political activism at the height of the hippy movement than they were with drugs. This is not to say that they were completely divorced from the hallucinogenic side of the life. Her godfather was Dr. Timothy Leary, the L.S.D. guru who was influential in the drug counter-culture. Her father worked intimately with Leary, and for a time he ran a bookstore called "Flashback Books". They were more interested in protesting Agent Orange than in preaching the benefits of mind alteration, however. Winona grew up in this atmosphere, sometimes living on electricity-free compounds. When she was eight, her parents moved back to the city. During her first week at the new school, the tom-boyish waif was jumped by a group of boys who mistook her for a gay boy rather than a girl. This pummeling resulted in something good. After some time spent learning at home, she was enrolled in the prestigious American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. It was while performing onstage at the Conservatory that she was discovered. Winona auditioned for the role of John Voight's daughter in Desert Bloom. She didn't get the part, but she got representation in the form of Triad Artists after they saw her tape. 

Triad soon lined her up for her first role in Lucas. Lucas wasn't great but Winona's solid performance provided her a springboard into further films. It was also at this point that Winona Horowitz became Winona Ryder for the first time. When asked how she would like her name to appear in the credits, she chose the name Ryder from Mitch Ryder, who was one of her father's favorite musicians. 

She followed Lucas with a string of decent but unmemorable movies. Then came her big break. She appeared in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. Her role as the black-clothed, angst-ridden teenager captured the attention of late-eighties audiences. A year later, she played a similar character in the dark high school comedy, Heathers. In Heathers, Winona and costar Christian Slater start killing off the high school "in" crowd while making it seem like suicide. It was dark and witty in a way that John Hughes could never have dreamed of. 

The fact that she could bring these darkly witty characters to life so beautifully guaranteed that when Burton was casting for Edward Scissorhands, she would be the first considered. While her role was less angst-filled than previous outings, she did an admirable role in this one as well. Wearing a blond wig, she played the beauty opposite then-fiance Johnny Depp's beast. This marked her last outing in the role of a teenager. 

After a small role in the indy film Night of Earth, her next role would have been her biggest to date, as Michael Corleone's daughter in Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather Part III. Unfortunately, she had to pull out at the last minute due to a respiratory infection brought on by exhaustion. Instead, the role was played by the totally-inadequate-for-the-task, Sophia Coppola. 

 However, Winona Ryder and Francis Ford Coppola would work together yet. When Ryder found the screenplay for an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, she approached Coppola and he signed on. The sexually and sensually charged adaptation provided Ryder with her first truly grown-up role. She followed Dracula with Age of Innocence, which garnered her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Having made two costume dramas, she signed on for a third. Little Women had been one of Ryder's favorite novels and her performance as Jo March resulted in another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress.

• Her real hair color is blonde but when she made her first major film Lucas (1986) her hair color was dyed black and she was told to keep it that color and it has stayed that color since.
• (2000) Was engaged to Matt Damon.
• Her December 22, 1999 guest spot on "The Tonight Show" was her first ever appearance on a talk show. She did it to promote "Girl Interrupted" (the first film she has executive produced). She clearly had first-timer's jitters, but settled in comfortably.
• The name Horowitz is not her actual surname; it comes from her grandmother Ethel Horowitz (a Russian immigrant), she revealed in an interview with US Vogue magazine.
• (22 March 1999) Injured knee while filming Girl, Interrupted (1999).
• (October 1997) Ranked #42 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
• (1997) Chosen by "People" magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World.
• (1996) Dated David Duchovny.
• Born at 11:00am-CDT
• She briefly checked herself into a hospital when she was 20, because she was suffering from depression, anxiety attacks, and exhaustion, resulting from constantly working on films.
• Dad is Michael Horowitz, Mom is Cindy Horowitz. Has one sister, Sunyata.
• Brothers: Jubal and Uri
• Is actually a natural blonde, but has been dyeing her hair since 11.
• Graduated from Petaluma High School with a 4.0 GPA.
• Received a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood in October 2000, and, for the event, was voted Best Dressed Celebrity of the Week by Entertainment Weekly.
• (1996) Helped Italian designer Giorgio Armani promote his Manhattan chain of stores.
• (1997) Had to turn down the role of Nina in Object of My Affection, The (1998) due to scheduling conflicts.
• (1996) Chosen as one of the "Top Players Under 35" list by People magazine.
• (1996) Began work on Girl, Interrupted (1999), which took four more years to make it to the screen.
• (1997) The role of Nola in Celebrity (1998) was actually written for Drew Barrymore.
• When she was seven, though there was no electricity on the commune where they lived, Winona's mother began to run a old movie theater in a nearby barn, and would screen movies all day. She would allow Winona to miss school to watch movies with her.
• Independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch wrote a part specifically for her in Night on Earth (1991), as a tattooed, chain-smoking cabbie who dreams of becoming a mechanic.
• She dedicated the film Little Women (1994) to Polly Klass, a young girl from her hometown who was kidnapped and brutally murdered. She offered a $200,000 reward for anyone with information on the subject, and remains a strong supporter in the Polly Klass Foundation.
• Auditioned for the Marla Singer role in Fight Club (1999), which eventually went to Helena Bonham Carter.
• Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was a close friend of her parents.
• (2000) Upset with MGM for refusing to pre-screen "Autumn in New York", saying she was very proud of the film and that the studio was giving it a bad name before it was even released.
• (2000) Refused to do promotion for "Lost Souls".
• (1995) Signed on to "The Girl You Want". After a few weeks of preproduction, she received a new version of the script, which she hated, and tried to get out of her contract. Touchstone Pictures threatened to sue her if she did, and so she completed the film. The film's title was changed to Boys (1996), and sat on the shelf for more than a year. After it finally got its release, it was released it less than 100 theaters in North America, and grossed less than five hundred thousand dollars.
• Her favorite book is "Catcher in the Rye". She says she owns every paperback edition and translations.
• In late 1999, she started her own music company, "Roustabout Studios".
• (March 2000) Presented Best Picture contender Cider House Rules, The (1999) at the 72nd Academy Awards.
• (19 May 2001) Appeared on the season finale of "Saturday Night Live", as herself.
• Presented singer Bjork at the 2001 Academy Awards in the category Best Original Song.
• Had to turn down the role of Alice Sutton in Conspiracy Theory (1997), which went to Julia Roberts, because of scheduling conflicts.
• The film Lost Souls (2000), though it was released in late 2000, was actually shot in 1998, and New Line Cinema kept in on the shelf for two years.
• (1996) Received a Grammy nomination for her reading of the 1995 novel "Anne Frank: The Diary Of A Young Girl".
• Had one date with Old 97's frontman Rhett Miller, who wrote the song "Rollerskate Skinny" about her.
• (1994) Turned down the lead role in Sabrina (1995) because she felt she could not fill Audrey Hepburn's shoes, and that the role was marked by sexism.
• Her agent begged her not to do Heathers (1989), saying her career would be over.
• Enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco at the age of 12.
• The first house she bought was in the Hollywood Hills. She soon moved, saying she never fit in.
• Says Sarah Miles (I)'s performance in Ryan's Daughter (1970) inspired her to become a professional actress.
• First auditioned for the role of Blanca in House of the Spirits, The (1993) when she was sixteen, but the part went to Pernilla August. The film took years to get made, and when it finally did, August had to drop out at the last minute due to pregnancy, and Winona replaced her.
• When she dropped out of "The Godfather Part III", rumors began to circulate that she was pregnant, that she had been discouraged by then-boyfriend Johnny Depp, had a drug problem, etc... She said in an interview later that year that she arrived in Rome to film and simply could not get out of bed. A doctor was called and ordered her to return home and sleep.