Ryder: That is so sweet!
W: So why haven't we heard any Winona Ryder links to Adam Sandier yet?
Ryder: Oh, no! Adam has the greatest girlfriend. But I can totally see why he would be a heartthrob. He is so sweet and adorable—and so handsome. You just melt in his presence. The other thing about Adam is that he is completely the most noble person you would ever meet. I just really wanted to do this movie.
W: You once said you would never do a remake.
Ryder: I know. That's the other thing about doing press—if you change your mind, they say, "She lied!" I didn' t lie, I just changed my mind. But the original Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is a great movie. It is weird to talk about this, because of what has happened in the world since we made the movie—but the reason I wanted to do it was I felt the world needed a family-type movie.
W: It's really a sweet film.
Ryder: And a huge thing that happened in my life recently was the birth of my niece. Having this new baby in the family completely changed my life. I just wanted to make a movie that was about goodness and kindness.
W: Meanwhile, your character in Simone is this total monster diva actress.
Ryder: I freaked out over that script, and of course when I was first talking to Andrew Niccol, who's so great, I was like, "Can I be Simone?" I didn't realize she'd actually be computer-generated. Then they asked me to be the bitchy actress, and I thought, okay. I didn't know if it was going to be funny or not, because I actually know actors who behave like that. I have seen it. In fact, I've seen much worse.
W: And the irony of course is that you're a rather glamorous movie star yourself...
Ryder: It's funny to hear that. If I showed you scripts from my first few movies, the descriptions of the characters all said "the ugly girl." Starting with the character I played in Lucas; she was described as homely, unattractive. Beetlejuice was like, "Enter Lydia, a freak who looks like an Edward Gorey character.' I was going to public school when it came out, and you'd think that maybe the kids would be like, "Wow, you are in the number-one movie in America!" But they were like, "You witch, you're that freak!" They threw Cheetos and cafeteria food at me.
W: You're kidding.
Ryder: Seriously, that's what my life was like.
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