As the final season of Stranger Things captivates audiences, Winona Ryder once again shines in her role as the devoted mother, Joyce Byers. Recently, she shared a deeply personal influence that shaped her portrayal.
During an Interview magazine discussion promoting the new season, Ryder, 54, was asked about her approach to playing a parent searching for a missing child in a supernatural setting.
“I had this experience when I was in my early twenties: there was a girl from the town that I grew up in. Her name was Polly Klaas and she was kidnapped. I knew her family,” Ryder recalled.
“She was missing for two months, and very tragically, she had been killed. I was doing whatever I could to help this family, to keep it in the news. When you’re around that kind of tangible grief, it’s otherworldly,” she explained.
“She wanted to be an actress and her favorite book was Little Women, so that was a big reason I did that movie and dedicated it to her.”
Ryder famously took on a role in the 1994 adaptation of the classic novel just a year following Klaas’ disappearance.
Sharing a hometown with the young girl, Ryder was actively involved in efforts to find her, even offering a $200,000 reward for any helpful information.
The impact of this event made Ryder initially hesitant about accepting the role of Joyce, whose son Will vanishes in the first season.
“I was actually really freaked out with Stranger Things, because I wanted them to know how f—ing serious that is, and that you can’t use disappearances as a tool to advance—it feels very personal,” she stated.
“I also talked to Polly’s dad, and a lot of my performance in that first season was connected to him. I worked really, really hard that first season, and then the show took off in a way that I have certainly never been a part of. I remember having a moment that was really liberating and relieving, when I realized the show was no longer about me.”
Filming the series was particularly taxing for Ryder, especially in its early seasons. She shared: “When you’re trying to keep that perspective and maintain that level of intense anxiety and anger, it’s so hard to do on something that shoots like that. In the first season I had to be so emotional that I was just a wreck that whole time.”
She also became increasingly protective of her younger co-stars, like Noah Schnapp and Millie Bobby Brown, who were newcomers to the entertainment world.
“I was watching these kids at this tender age getting enormous attention that would be overwhelming for anybody, and feeling really protective and concerned, because I went through it. But it wasn’t similar at all, because technology and social media have completely changed everything.”