Winona Ryder's deep-rooted fear surfaced after childhood near-death experience

Publish date: 2024-06-06

Winona Ryder once opened up about her anxiety and her deep-rooted fear that started after a near-death experience.

While Winona Ryder has given viewers an array of diverse performances in various genres of movies over the years, many are not aware of the actress’ personal struggle to cope with edgy roles that demanded a lot from her ‘mentally.’ For example, an on-screen anxiety attack portrayal terrified the celebrity having gone through anxiety herself but that did not stop her from pouring it all into her acting and the art.

Winona Ryder’s anxiety surfaced after her childhood near-death experience

Winona once talked about her anxiety and how the Celebrity actress had to navigate through her mental struggles to portray the role of Susanna Kaysen in Girl, Interrupted. Looking back at her performance, Winono admitted: ”I was terrified to play a character who was full of fear and anxiety knowing that I have been full of fear and anxiety, and it’s not something that’s just past tense for me. It’s something you battle with your whole life.”

Winona also talked about how the role made her go to a really dark place as she portrayed on-screen anxiety attacks. ”To play an anxiety attack, you have to get an anxiety attack. And I didn’t know how to put a lid on that when they said ‘cut,”’ Winona adds sharing, ”my heart would still be going a million miles an hour, and I would be sweating and I would feel like I felt when I was 19 and felt totally alone and couldn’t describe to anyone in the world how I was feeling.”

Winona’s near-death experience

Winona faced a near-death experience when she was only 12 where she almost drowned. The traumatic experience with water caused the Little Women actress to be fearful of water and later, her underwater scenes in Alien: Resurrection (1997) required multiple re-takes. More concerningly, the technical difficulties in the scenes also made the filming more of a struggle for her.

Speaking of her trauma, Winona shared: “When I was 12 years old, I technically died drowning,” adding, “When they pulled me out of the water, I didn’t have a pulse.

“So the underwater stuff was especially bad for me. It was really terrifying,” Winona confessed also revealing: “I’m not cured. I still don’t think I’ll ever go in the ocean again.”

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Winona Ryder's deep-rooted fear surfaced after childhood near-death experience

Winona Ryder’s anxiety surfaced after her childhood near-death experience

Winona’s near-death experience