Winona Ryder’s parents vetoed steamy Keanu Reeves movie

Winona Ryder earned a reputation for turning movies down when she first started out.

The Hollywood actress is back in the limelight thanks to her performance in smash hit Netflix show Stranger Things. While she’s enjoyed a Hollywood hiatus in recent years, Winona’s been in the industry longer than most, having first found fame in the ‘80s with cult classics like Beetlejuice and Heathers.

However, because she started her career as a teenager, it was up to her parents to veto any projects they found inappropriate.

“I loved River’s Edge, and I had such a crush on Keanu Reeves, but it had like… a sex scene!” Winona giggled to Porter magazine. “And then it got around that I was turning stuff down, and people were like, who is this girl? Isn’t that funny?”

The rumours didn’t hurt her opportunities though, and Winona continued her cinema dominance in the ‘90s - even managing to bag two Oscar nominations, for The Age of Innocence and Little Women.

She never fitted in with the Hollywood norm though, which at that time was a penchant for blonde actresses. Subsequently the 44-year-old found she kept being offered the ‘ugly’ roles.

“I think the first four or five movies I did, my character was described as the unattractive one. And I was maybe told two or three times I wasn’t pretty enough,” she recalled.

“Maybe I’m blocking out how I felt, but my parents and the people I admired, like Allen (Ginsberg, poet), really put so much on being an individual, not on looks. It was so much more important to be a good person, an interesting and interested person, you know?”