Winona Ryder Reveals Bizarre Obsession With Christopher Walken

In her nearly 40-year-long career, Winona Ryder, 53, has made a name for herself not just as a daring actress willing to tackle unusual material, but also as one of Hollywood’s quirkier individuals. The Golden Globe-winner doubled down on that image in a new interview in Elle, in which Ryder reflects at length on her life and career — and one very unusual incident involving former costar Christopher Walken and a roasted chicken.

In the interview, Ryder delved into a number of never-before-known stories about her career — including how she lost a role in Marlon Brando‘s 1990 film The Freshman, because producers were offended by her role in the 1989 dark comedy Heathers. Ryder also revealed “that she was once so besotted with Christopher Walken that when he gave her a rotisserie chicken – from a supermarket – she kept the carcass a weirdly long time because it came from him. Later, I will text Ryder to make sure that I understand this saga correctly. She writes back: ‘I still have the wishbone and am trying to make it into a necklace.'”

Walken and Ryder worked together on the 2014 BBC film Turks & Caicos, which also starred Bill Nighy and Helena Bonham Carter. Her most recent film, 2024’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, saw her reunite with early-career collaborator Tim Burton; she will next be seen in the fifth and final season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, where she plays complex suburban mom Joyce Byers.