Movies

Winona Ryder’s ‘Beetlejuice’ role reminds her of past ‘disastrous relationships’: ‘What the f–k?’

Blast from the past.

Winona Ryder told Harper’s Bazaar that reprising her “Beetlejuice” character, Lydia Deetz, for the upcoming sequel brought up memories of her younger self and the lows in her love life.

“In my 30s, I had two disastrous relationships that were — they weren’t wrong, but this was before you would ever think to Google someone,” Ryder said in the interview published Thursday.

Winona Ryder for Harper’s Bazaar Liv Liberg
Ryder for Harper’s Bazaar Liv Liberg

“When I look back, I’m like, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ ” she added. “I was dating the type of person who only lets you know a few weeks in that they’re in a relationship with someone else. And you’re just like, ‘What the f–k?’ ”

Ryder, who did not disclose which exes she was referring to, has been in the public eye since her acting career began in the 1980s.

Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Youtube/Warner Bros. Pictures
Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder in “Beetlejuice.” ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

In her late teens and 20s, Ryder dated Rob Lowe, Johnny Depp, Dave Pirner, David Duchovny and Matt Damon. She was engaged to Depp for a few years before they called it off in 1993, when she was 22 and he was 30.

During her 30s, she was romantically linked to musicians Pete Yorn, Page Hamilton, Conor Oberst and Blake Sennett, filmmaker Henry-Alex Rubin and actor and comedian Tom Green.

Ryder dated Dave Pirner from 1994 to 1996. Getty Images
Ryder dated Matt Damon from 1998 to 2000. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

In 2001, the year she started her 30s, Ryder was arrested for shoplifting from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills.

She was sentenced to three years’ supervised probation, ordered to do 480 hours of community service and pay over $3,000 in fines. She also had to pay Saks over $6,355 in restitution.

The “Stranger Things” star told Harper’s Bazaar that she recently read her diaries from that period of her life.

“You clearly write when you’re depressed or upset. I tend to not write when I’m really happy,” she shared. “I was going through them and just asking myself, ‘How?’ I was clearly trying to deal with …,” she trailed off.

Ryder continued: “It was very sad. I was clearly trying to believe the best and to give grace to myself. But I was taking care of everything but myself.”

Ryder in 1986 Getty Images

Since 2011, Ryder has been in a relationship with fashion designer and entrepreneur Scott Mackinlay Hahn, whom she met at the premiere of her movie “Black Swan.”

“He’s so great. He really is. I’m really lucky,” Ryder said about her beau.

Ryder and Hahn waited five years until they made their red carpet debut as a couple, at the “Stranger Things” Season 1 premiere in 2016.

Ryder and her longtime boyfriend, Scott Mackinlay Hahn, at the 2022 “Stranger Things” season premiere Getty Images

In 2022, she told Harper’s Bazaar that she was endeared to Hahn because he isn’t in the entertainment industry.

“We have so much in common,” Ryder said of her partner. “We connected on so many levels. But it was amazing that he’s not in this business … I really did try to keep it quiet.”

Ryder AFP via Getty Images

Ryder is returning to her “Beetlejuice” role for Tim Burton’s sequel, to be released, 36 years after the original film came out, in September.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” will follow a now-adult Lydia whose life is turned upside down when her daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife, releasing Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton).

“I felt bad for her,” Ryder told Harper’s Bazaar of her movie character.

Speaking to Empire in May, Ryder opened up about playing Lydia again for the sequel.

Ryder in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Youtube/Warner Bros. Pictures

“I struggle to find the words,” she said. “It’s just one of the most special experiences that I’ve ever had. The fact that we’re coming back to it, it’s … it’s beyond. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way. This is a first for me. I’ve never revisited a character, ever.”

Ryder, Catherine O’Hara and Jeffrey Jones in 1988’s “Beetlejuice” ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

“I went through so many stages of, ‘Who is she now?,’ but I always wanted to have it be Lydia. She can’t lose who she was. She can’t be the same person, she can’t be just completely deadpan, she has to have evolved, but she also has to have kept that thing she had when we first met her,” the actress went on. “So that was the big challenge for me.”

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” comes out in theaters on Sept. 6.