Winona Ryder Just Revealed Her Gift For Spotting Acting Talent And Said She Predicted Timothée Chalamet And Sadie Sink’s Glittering Careers
Winona Ryder has revealed that she has a bit of a gift when it comes to spotting emerging talent, and that she had made a note of both Sadie Sink and Timothée Chalamet’s names years before she worked with them.
If you need reminding, Winona teamed up with Timmy for an iconic Super Bowl commercial back in 2021, where he played Edgar Scissorhands — the son of her character in the 1990 movie Edward Scissorhands.
Winona, of course, played Kim in the film, who falls in love with the titular character, played by Johnny Depp.
The commercial was for the Cadillac LYRIQ, and in an interview with Variety at the time, Winona was full of praise for her young costar.
She said: “It was pretty surreal to have Timothée play my son, Edgar. Timothée is an incredible guy — so talented and sweet. I felt a pretty instant bond with him.”
Meanwhile, Winona stars alongside Sadie in the Netflix series Stranger Things, which Sadie joined in the second season.
During a recent interview with Esquire, Winona said of her young castmates on the show: “I love the boys and I love Sadie and Maya [Hawke]. It’s been really wonderful.”
And in a new appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Winona revealed that she had both Timothée and Sadie’s names marked before they became the breakout stars that they are today.
Speaking about her commercial with Timothée, she said: “He was really something special, and guess what? I remembered him from Homeland Season 2. He’s, like, the vice president’s son, who I think dies in the explosion. And I wrote his name down.”
Timothée was just 17 years old when he appeared in Homeland back in 2012, which was five years before he broke into the mainstream after starring in the 2017 movie Call Me by Your Name.
Since then, Timothée has enjoyed a glittering career, starring in Dune: Part Two, Wonka, Don’t Look Up, and Little Women, among many other big-name titles.
And Winona’s eye for talent doesn't stop there. She added: “I am telling you, I know. I wrote Sadie Sink’s name down when I saw her on The Americans in, like, one scene. I was like: ‘This girl… There’s something about this girl.’”
Sadie appeared in one episode of The Americans in 2013, when she was just 11 years old. Landing the role of Max in Stranger Things four years later was arguably her big break, and she has also enjoyed roaring success in the industry since.
She featured in the Oscar-winning movie The Whale in 2022, and she gained even more prominence after starring in the iconic Taylor Swift short, All Too Well.
Winona has been incredibly vocal about her relationship with her young costars on her recent press tour for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, recently telling the Los Angeles Times that she is dismayed by the younger generation of actors’ apparent lack of respect for movie history.
“I don’t mean to sound so hopeless,” she said of her castmates last month. “There are a few that are just not interested in movies. Like, the first thing they say is, ‘How long is it?'”
Which is one of the reasons why she bonded so much with 21-year-old Jenna Ortega, who plays her daughter in the upcoming Beetlejuice sequel.
Speaking on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, she said that Jenna is like the younger version of her, explaining: “Only because she has the same reverence for film, we share that religiously.”
“Oftentimes, I will be on a set and something will remind me of a movie, but I don't even bother saying it anymore because no one will know what it is,” Winona shared. “And I remember, we were doing the train thing, and I was like thinking of Brief Encounter, and I was like: ‘I’m not gonna even say it.’"
“Then I look at Jenna, and she’s like: ‘Brief Encounter!’” she joyfully added. “I mean, our first night filming, she's talking about I Am Cuba and how they did the crane shot, and I'm like: ‘I love you, you’re speaking my language!’ That bond means so much to me, so there's a tremendous love there.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice premiered at the Venice Film Festival last week and will be released in theaters across the US and UK on Friday, Sept. 6.
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