Playing Joyce Byers in the first season of Stranger Things required Winona Ryder to exist in a constant state of grief and panic. In a previously unpublished 2016 interview, the iconic actress revealed the challenges of portraying that raw emotion, her on-set secrets for crying, and her surprising connection to the supernatural.
😭 The Challenge of Constant Tears
For Ryder, one of the biggest challenges was the intense emotional demand of the role. “To have to play that level of emotion on a daily basis wasn’t easy,” she said. She revealed a secret trick for those tough scenes: she’s allergic to the substance blow in actors’ eyes to produce tears, so she has to genuinely cry. To get there, she would often hold the hands of the camera operators. “I always try to have a strong bond with them because I’m often holding their hands under the camera when I’m trying to cry,” she explained.
📜 Signing On Without an Ending
Another difficulty was the nature of television production. Unlike a film, not all the episodes were written when she signed on. “That was really weird,” she admitted. “To sign on to something without the ending – or without getting to read the whole thing – was a little bit scary”. However, the Duffer Brothers were able to tell her the general direction of the story, giving her enough confidence to commit to the role.
🛸 A Real-Life Supernatural Experience
When asked about her own relationship with the supernatural, Ryder shared two strange experiences. The first was seeing a potential UFO with her siblings as a child. The second was much more chilling. She had a picture of Samantha Smith, a young peace activist, on her wall. “The night before she died, I had a dream that I was on a plane sitting next to her – and something was wrong,” Ryder recalled. When she woke up and told her parents, the news had just broken that Smith had tragically died in a plane crash. “After that, I was convinced I was psychic… but it never happened again,” she said.
Bibliography:
Tanswell, Adam. “The SFX Archives: Stranger Things Season One.” SFX, issue 394, Future plc, August 2025, pp. 56-63.
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