As a mid-week treat, there’s a TV series that Emily has fallen in love with and now we must recommend that you all watch it immediately.
And Winona Ryder has given a new interview about how fame affected her career and stopped her from getting movie roles. But the bigger story here, that led to her career stalling, is the infamous tale of how her famous friendship with Gwyneth Paltrow came to an abrupt end.
A tale of stolen movie scripts, famous boyfriends and a particularly telling (and very scathing) email sent out by Gwyneth and Goop.
THE END BITS
Find The Spill podcast on Instagram here.
Listen to more episodes of The Spill here.
Do you have feedback or a topic you want us to discuss on The Spill? Send us a voice message, and we'll come back to you ASAP!
Subscribe to Mamamia
Feedback? We’re listening. Email us at thespill@mamamia.com.au
WANT MORE?
If you’re looking for something else to listen to why not check out our award winning parenting podcast How To Build A Human.
Or click here to listen to the hosts of Mamamia Out Loud open up about creativity and how they stay inspired.
Read all the latest entertainment news on Mamamia... here.
Subscribe to The Spill Newsletter by clicking here.
CREDITS
Hosts: Laura Brodnik & Emily Vernem
Executive Producer: Talissa Bazaz
Audio Producer: Scott Stronach
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and borders that this podcast is recorded on from Mamma Mia. Welcome to The Spill, your daily pop culture fixed. I'm Laura Brodnick and I'm m Venam And on today's show, we have a juicy one for you today, guys, because Wenona, writer, very important actress, her has given what wasn't a tell all interview, but she has alluded to whice she left Hollywood for so long, which reminded me of some intense Hollywood law of her big falling out with a very very famous actress that I think led to all this.
Who we're getting it all? You'll have to wait, Okay the.
Audience a m because she doesn't know I don't know like this story. But first, I think you have a little mid week TV recommendation for us.
Yes, I am using our beginning of the showtime just for myself because I have proof that I've been doing my homework. So if you've been a long time listening to the Spill, you would know that Laura's watched everything under the sun, and then she always gets so shocked when there's something that I haven't watched.
No, I get shocked and excited for you, because then I get excited thinking, oh my god, now this is amazing show that you get to watch for the first time. That's fun.
That's literally how it goes. Yeah.
So I've ticked off one off that list that I can't remember. When we talked about it. It was after Logis, Yes, after Logis, where you said that Deadlock, a TV show set in Tasmania, had been nominated and I was like, oh, I need to watch that.
And you were like, you'd love it, You'd love Deadlock. I've watched Deadlock now, Oh and what did you think?
Did I lie to you?
I'm annoyed that I've only just watched it now because I missed out on all this conversation that was happening about it. Because what the hell this show was like one of the best shows I've ever watched.
I watched the whole thing in one day.
We talked about at the time. But it's Kate McCartney and Kate mcclennan. Who the Kates is? They know in Australia, this famous creative comedy duo. So they created the show which was coming off the back of them doing a lot of comedy, but they had beat at home, both on attorney leave or something like this. I know because I interviewed them beforehand, and that's why I have all this information. And they were watching all these crime dramas and they were like, what if we flipped the crime drama on its head and had two women investigating like the brutal death of a man, and we made it a bit of a drama but mostly a comedy. And so that's what they did and the result is just like one of the funniest shows in the world.
It is so good.
It started off like I wasn't too sure in the beginning because it was very comedy and I thought I was going in for.
Like a crime drama.
Oh yes, And then suddenly, like throughout the middle, I was like, oh wait, this is so juicy.
Yes, all these men just started dying and I was like, okay.
And it's also one of those crime things where I feel like a lot of women watch a lot of crime and listen to a lot of true crime because this is my complete theory, but it's always like women being killed in horrific ways, and it's a way of conforming that our fears are valid and our fears are real, and watching this where it like flips the script, like you said, and it's like all these men dying and these women investigating their debts. We can take it like a breather and we can take like a.
Seat, yeah, and be like so true.
It's just really enjoyable and not like super scary and doesn't make you feel really sick at the end.
Yeah, exactly. Every person in that show just turns it an a list performance. But it's so funny. Speaking of the dead bodies, as you say, when I was interming the Kates before the show came out, I was asking them about the filming experience, and they said, the weirdest thing that happened is that, you know, there's a dead body in the first scene on the beach. That's why I spoil it's like in the first second. So they had to have a mannequin, like a dummy maid of that dead body, and they drove it to set themselves. They had it in the boot of their car and they pulled into I think it was like a Woolworth or something to get.
Wait, so that was like a fake body.
Yeah, yeah, so real oh, I know. No, it did look real, and that's what a lot of people in the car park of the shopping center thought, because someone saw it and called the police, and the police came down. The cats had to open the boot and explain that it was, in fact a mannequin for the TV show they were making, not a dead body. They were hiding in the back of their car.
Oh my god, we have to get to set. Like, I'm so sorry.
Yeah, so they were like, this is legitimately for a TV show. You can poke this stummy. He is dead. But I think you know you've gotta be alert and alarmed in those situations.
In Scared af So if you haven't watched Dead Lack like me, I highly employ you do.
It is out on Prime Video.
When I started watching, the son was up and when I finished it was very much down. So Winona Ryder has done a cover interview with Esquire leading up to her new role in the upcoming movie Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, which we saw yesterday, but we're saving it for later in a week save review.
Okay.
So, in the interview, she talked a lot about her career, not only now with like Stranger things and beil juice.
Bettle juice. But I'm just gonna be saying that a lot.
But also in the past, where I want to say things were a bit more contentious, is.
That the right ones.
I'm gonna admit something I didn't know much about her previous Hollywood endeavors.
I only I mean, that's okay. You were very young for a voci. I mean, so was I, but we were I just cultured myself.
I guess, I'm sorry. I knew, Okay. The only things I knew about her was that she dated Johnny Depp.
Yeah, and she was Forever tattooed on him. Do you know that he had Winona Forever tattooed on him very prominently, and when they broke up, he had the tattoo change to Wino Forever.
Which also fits oh, Johnny Depp. And I also knew she was kind of like the mannic Pixie.
Dream girl, the big girl of the nineties, the big girl.
What I found interesting about this interview was actually kind of dove in pretty deep into her past, because it did seem like something that she was hesitant to talk about. But I think with these big cover stories, you kind of have to yeah, of course, like if to talk about the big moments of your life. What I focused on mainly in the interview was that she admitted that the intense level of media attention and paparazzi hounding her in the nineties kind of snowballed and she believed that she wasn't getting leading roles because of it. So she said, trying to convince someone to ignore the noise around me was tough. I saw it in their eyes. I lost a lot of parts because of that. She also spoke about how she lost a role in a movie called You're gonna be annoyed that I haven't seen this. She lost a role in a movie called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
I'm not annoyed at you, but that is a truly terrific movie. It's Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Yeah, so she was going for Kate Winslet. Yes, And that was like a huge critical acclaim movie oscar nominated. Is still to this day like people reference that movies. I can see why she'd be really upset about missing out on such an iconic role because Kate Winslet to this day says that's the role that people quote to her the most out of all her movie roles. Definitely watch it. Oh my God, you will die. You will actually love it thinking about the things I know about you.
God, I have to go through this list.
So she also said it was such a brilliant script and director Michael Condrey and I were at this little restaurant and people kept coming up to me, and there was a random paparazi guy outside, which is kind of unusual for me. But I just remember Condrie's face and trying to give in to him that this is a normal and I know it's not normal. That kind of breaks my heart a little bit.
She'd had so many iconic roles, but I guess there's like different things happened to her, and the like infamy of her fame and things and who she dated and her arrests and all that sort of stuff I think really started to overshadow who she was as an actress for a long time.
Yeah, So she also talked about the arrest which happened after she shoplifted.
Yes, And what I found.
So fascinating was that the journalist was absolutely brilliant with these comparisons. But it was around the time of ninety eleven and they had just found Osama bin Laden and even though like they found like the number one man of interest in the entire world, Winona Ryder was still the one making headlines.
One hundred percent. That is exactly what we were saying, yes, saying Lake Lively story is like whether the material is interesting or not, whether it's true or not, a golden girl of Hollywood having some sort of a downfall will trump any other news story. Like that's unfortunate, but it's just very telling of our world. And win On a Writer was the like sweetheart darling of Hollywood. Everyone loved her. And so when she was convicted of going into Sacks Fifth Avenue and stealing five thousand dollars worth of stuff, and there was security camera footage that was leaked and police reports were leaked, that was a huge, huge story to the fact that Sax Fifth Avenue in the days that followed put all the things that she had stolen in the window and people came in and they all sold out.
Oh my god, because people.
Wanted to buy the bag that On a writer tried to steal.
And the way she explained it in this interview, obviously it's a written interview, but for me, I just felt so so sad for her. She was talking about how she was just like really confused, she was going through some mental health problem. She just walked out forgetting to pay, and when she came back, she didn't think it was a big deal. And then something she's getting arrested, and like that would have been so traumatic.
I mean, that's the thing people have been saying for you, is there was some sort of a mental health situation or something that happened, because it did feel like I mean, obviously we don't know for sure, but it's kind of thought that because she was an extremely wealthy woman then and with a huge career, it would be very strange if she would just shoplift unless she was doing it for the thrill. But she's always said it was she had some sort of like a mental health break in the store and just didn't realize what she was doing.
She's also quite funny.
Humor didn't come out that much in this interview, but I'm like, I feel like you're a really funny person. There's this part that I want to read that has no context what we're talking about, but I just want to read it that so the editor in chief of Exquire. Alex actually did the interview with her, and there's his part that's so funny. She said, I loved the TV show Normal People so much, and then I saw these paparazzi pictures of the actor going to the store in his shorts, and I really felt like, this poor guy, this actor, who did this amazing thing, and now he's getting followed by photographers. I don't subscribe to the theory that acting means signing up to be this public person. I don't think they're the same thing. It doesn't feel right to me. And then Alex says, it's like background. He's like, while I pondered that she's moved on somehow, from Paul Mescal short to the martyrdom of Join the r.
It's just Paul and don't out there.
It's fighting the good fight, and it's getting late. I tell her I must go. I need to collect my daughter from a party. We say good night.
Oh that's I love that.
That's everything I want from a not a writer interview. And it's the fact that she's like this poor normal People guy. It's it's like Paul Mescal living in the best life, like he's actually quite famous now, but don't worry, would just referred him as that guy in the shorts. Okay, Well, speaking of Wenona writer, I feel bad saying kind of like leaving Hollywood. It's hard to phrase it any other way because she was this like superstar in pretty much every movie for you know, close to a decade, and then she did disappear for like another decade, and when she came back for Stranger Things, and she was doing a lot of press. She did a cameo in Black Swan before that, but Stranger Things was really her big coming back into the mainstream. And she said at the time, she's like, I don't understand why people keep saying to me, it's so nice for you to be back. And she's like, I didn't choose to leave. I just wasn't getting work for a while.
You know why I knew she left?
Yeah, because when I started watching Stranger Things, I'd tell my parents, Hey, I'm watching this new show Stranger Things. She's really good, and they're like, oh, okay, it sounds a bit weird. And I was like, Wanera Ryder's in it, not knowing who she was, and they.
Were like, what her name? I cannot stress enough, what a big deal it is. So there's a few things that have been linked to her stepping away from Hollywood, and some of it is a bit of after the shoplifting happened and kind of leading into that time. Actually a bit of a bad run she had with some movies that was supposed to win her her big oscar. And there's a big story that has become Hollywood law over the years that one of her closest friends, another superstar Hollywood, stole her oscar from her oscar from her, stole the part in the movie that was supposed to win her oscar. I thought you meant she had the oscar, and she was like no, no, as in like, she stole this part from her. And the part was the one that's supposed to win her inn oscar. And the woman in question is Gwyneth Paltrow. Gwyneth, Yes, So I'll take you back to the nineties again. I was a child friend I had.
They were seen like paparachi photos of them.
They were really bad to get best friends. So going back to the nineties, Gwyneth Paltrow win on a rider, the two golden girls of Hollywood, but very separate because Gwyneth Paltrow is, you know, the blonde California leading lady.
To be honest, yeah, I forgot she acted.
Well, I mean did she win it them for Sliding Doors? No? No, no, we're getting there, We're geting. So Gwyneth Paltrow was known for a bunch of movies, but Sliding Doors seven Emma Wenona of course, no one for Beetle, Juice Edwards's a Hans all the cult classics Little Women, which she was phenomenal in Bram's Stroke, because Dracula she was Joe much. Please do not ask me that question, right.
So I haven't watched that, Yes, I watched the other one.
So they are best friends. There's all these photos of them going around to Hollywood after parties, arm and arm hugging. And they also, at pretty much the same time dated another set of very famous Hollywood best friends, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, because Gwyneth Paltrow was dating Ben Affleck and Winona write Out very infamously had a torrid love affair with Matt Damon. What so they were like a Hollywood force theme, Like that's how intense scrutiny around them on.
Matt Damon, Yes, very in a long time.
Well, you gotta think there were the two big stars in Hollywood and they were dating. So this is all happening. And then the story goes, so Winona had been nominated for some Oscars, she'd had a lot of big movies that she hadn't won an Oscar, and that was, allegedly her, as it is for any actress, her really big dream, especially back then with the way the movie studios and everything worked. It's not like you go and do a streamer and get accolades from that. It's like you're opening your movie, your movie is doing well, or you're done in that town. So Winona Writer desperately wanted to win an Oscar, and so her plan for that was Shakespeare in Love. And the story goes that Gwyneth Paltrow was visiting her very good friend Wenona Writer in San Francisco when she saw the script for Shakespeare in Love. She's sitting out on a table and apparently she took the script and read it and absolutely fell in love with a story. Contacted her agent and said, you need to get me an audition for this movie.
Which you stole the script.
That is the story and she auditioned for it, and she ended up getting the leading role of Viola in Shakespeare in Love, and then the movie became this big like success, and then.
She fear in Love is what she's the man is based off?
Right kind of yes, so I kind of have the same Shakespeare tale got it. And then Gwyneth Paltroy ended up winning an Oscar and she and Winona Writer never spoke or were never seen in public together.
Again, well, obviously Winona Writer didn't even have a script to audition with.
Ha ha had it. She came out, I was like, where's my script? And then Gwenna's car tires like screeching, look for the script. She had a bit of a bad run because in this same kind of block of like ten year time on a writer also got the rights to the book Girl Interrupted, and she was like, I'm going to make this into an Oscar in a movie, and I'm going to know.
Sorry, I'm stressed. I'm stressed for Winona Writer.
So Winona Rider got the rights to the Girl Interrupted a book. It took her five years to get this movie made, to get to the script to where it needed to be to win an Oscar. She played the lead role. Everyone was like, this is Winona's time, she is gonna win an oscar for Girl Interrupted, and she produced the movie and she found it. This is going to like cement her in Hollywood. She's good in the movie. But of course Angelina Jolly was also cast in Girl Interrupted, and she just absolutely steals the show in that movie.
Angelina Jolie wasn't the lead and girl and so.
She's the supporting actress, but she won the oscar and Winona didn't. And you would think that Angelina Jolly is the lead in that movie, but she's absolutely not. But she's just so compelling and interesting in it. It became her movie essentially. So then Winona Writer's two big chances of winning an oscar are gone, one through Angelina Jolly, Like that's not her fault. She timed to work and just gave a really good performance. And then the other one allegedly is at her Hollywood best friend Gwyneth pal t stole her movie role and they're not friends.
They are not friends, very different esthetics.
Well, Gwyneth Paltrow has been asked a few times about when I'm a writer, and she has always said we haven't spoken for years. I haven't seen her in years. And then I think it was twenty fifteen on Howard Stern, she got asked about stealing. He just asked her a point blank to her face, did you steal that script? And Gwyneth Paltrow, who's obviously just stick of this live being out there, she said, absolutely not. I swear to God I did not. I'm raising my right hand the Bible. I swear to God. That is just an urban myth. But then it gets worse. What So then a few years later in two thousand wrap up to show in two thousand and nine, Gwyneth Paltrow sends out a Goop newsletter. Not it's always a freaking news it's always a news this particular jalo, this particular Goop newsletter didn't have anything about crystals or anything to push up your vagina or candles that smell like different things. This particular newsletter was called Evil Time and Living in Negativity and in this head. Yeah. In this newsletter, Gwyneth Paltrow talks about a frenemie that she has. So she says, back in the day, I had a frenemie who, as it turned out, was pretty hell bent on taking me down. This person did what they could to hurt me. I was deeply upset, I was angry. I was all of those things you feel when you find out that someone you thought you liked was venomous and dangerous. I restrained myself from fighting back. I tried to take the high road. But one day I heard that something unfortunate and humiliating had happened to this person. Is her getting arrested? It? And my reaction was deep relief and happiness. There went the high road. So why does it feel so good to hear something bad about someone you don't like, or someone you do like, or someone you don't know. I once asked the editor of a tabloid newspaper why all the stories about famous British couples had a negative bent, and he said, when the headline was positive, the paper didn't sell. This is what we always say. Why is that what's wrong with us? I asked him to shed a little light, and it kind of goes on. But she didn't say win Ona's name, but everyone's like she's talking about a write out, someone who was like her very close friend, someone she said, has spread lies about her, So she's obviously saying that when on a writer spread the lies about her stealing the script and then a very public humiliation. That's her getting arrested and losing her career over shoplifting, and she's happy about it, and she was happy about it.
Oh my god, what a great piece of chance. She's coming for our jobs, gwynep Palchow is coming for our job.
That's insane that she did that.
Yeah, right, so I don't know.
I guess we'll It's so telling as well, Like there's no way she would have done that with people thinking that, like it wouldn't be.
On a writer exactly when that story had been around for a good ten years and everyone waiting for her to comment, and the only way she would do it was allude to it in a goop lut newsletter.
I know she got so many emails off the back of that.
I would die to know what really happens. Like, if there's a few things in this world I really want to know, and that's one of them. If she stole that script. And I guess we'll really never know the truth. But that is a whole law. Ever since just before Shakespeare in Love came out, those two women who were inseparable have not been pictured together in all of that time. And after that, Winona Writer did go on to make many more movies, but her career slowly started to stall, and that's what led to her being out of the spotlight for over a decade.
If you want to.
Read the entire Esquire cover story, it's so good, we will put a link in our show notes. Thank you so much for listening to the Spill today. If you want more content from us, Canceled that's hosted by Claire and Jesse. Stevens also did an episode on the cancelation of Guinnipetro. It is so funny. We will put a link to that in our show notes. Otherwise, we will see you back here in your podcast feed at three pm tomorrow.
Bye bye,