Winona Ryder starred in a lead role with Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Winona Ryder proves Keanu Reeves is the ultimate gentleman in Hollywood in her latest interview.
Winona Ryder revealed that Keanu Reeves was asked to shout abuse on her Ryder during the filming of 1992 movie, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The Screen Actors Guild Award winning actress spoke with The Sunday Times in detail and disclosed that the director Francis Ford Coppola encouraged his male actors to insult Ryder with harsh words in order to make her cry for a particular scene. The director believed that this way, he could achieve her emotions look believable on camera.
The 48-year-old actress put everything in context and explained that she was supposed to cry in a scene and the Oscar-winning director who is responsible for The Godfather trilogy asked Anthony Hopkins, Richard E Grant, and Keanu Reeves to yell at her that would make her cry.
In 1992, Coppola made a film based on adaptation of the book named Stoker, in which Reeves portrayed Jonathan Harker's character who is Mina Murray played by Ryder, love interest. Abraham Van Helsing was played by Anthony Hopkins.
This particular scene had Ryder lying next to Gary Oldman's Dracula on a bed, who would become a pile of rats and the 81-year-old director wanted all the men to shout abuse at her but Reeves refused.
Reeves didn't do, not even Hopkins. However, Coppola took the matter into his hands and stood off-camera and called her "you whore!" repeatedly in an attempt to make her cry. Despite this treatment on the sets, Ryder clarified that she is friends with Coppola now.
Reportedly, Coppola instructed to speak seductively to Oldman with actress Sadie Frost to get from her a believable reaction in a scene. Frost's character named Lucy was supposed to writhe in the bed portraying pleasurable expressions.
Dracula was the film that sparked a friendship for life with Reeves which eventually led these two stars in three more movies, A Scanner Darkly released in 2006, Destination Wedding released in 2018, and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee in 2009.
Ryder confessed that the last movie she did with the 55-year-old actor made such a negative impact on box office collections that even the critics gave them to worst reviews. She admitted that for some reason, every reviewer called it the "worst movie in the world" and it was.