EXCLUSIVE: On the heels of big box office success with Warner Bros’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, actress Winona Ryder has signed with with WME for representation in all areas.
In the long-awaited sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 cult classic, Ryder reprises her role as Lydia Deetz, who as an adult, is still haunted by experiences earlier in life with the mischievous ghost, Betelgeuse. With rebellious teenage daughter Astrid in tow, Lydia finds that a portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened once again.
Related Stories
A muse of Burton’s, who in addition to Beetlejuice, starred in his prior films Frankenweenie and Edward Scissorhands, Ryder’s co-stars in the sequel include Michael Keaton, Jenna Ortega, and Catherine O’Hara. Following the film’s launch on opening night of the Venice Film Festival, it went on to the second-best September opening in history at $110 million, also registering as Burton’s second highest-grossing film ever, on the domestic front. The film begins streaming exclusively on Max December 6, debuting on HBO linear on the 7th at 6:10 p.m. ET.
Currently, Ryder is in production on the fifth and final season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, which remains one of the streamer’s most popular TV titles of all time. For her role as Joyce Byers, a matriarch taking part in an epic fight against the supernatural, she’s so far earned a SAG Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series, as well as a Golden Globe nom for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama.
Watch on Deadline
On the film side, Ryder is also remembered for exec producing and starring opposite Angelina Jolie in James Mangold’s Girl, Interrupted, as well as for starring in Michael Lehman’s classic dark comedy Heathers. Award-winning roles for the actress include Jo in Gillian Armstrong’s Little Women, for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress; May Welland in Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, for which she received an Oscar nom, as well as a Golden Globe and National Board of Review Award; and Charlotte Flax in Richard Benjamin’s Mermaids, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination and another National Board of Review Award.
Additional film credits for Ryder include Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Ben Stiller’s Reality Bites, and Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly, to name just a few.
On television, Ryder appeared in PBS’s acclaimed film Turks and Caicos alongside Bill Nighy and Christopher Walken, and has lent her voice to both The Simpsons and Dr. Katz. The actress was nominated for a SAG Award as the lead actress of the TV movie When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story in 2011. Five years later, she earned a Critics Choice Award nomination for her television role in Show Me a Hero, and in 2021, she received another for her role in the HBO miniseries The Plot Against America.
Ryder continues to be represented by Anonymous Content, Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum, and ID PR.