Keanu Reeves refused to hurl abuse at Winona Ryder when making Dracula
Winona Ryder has revealed that Keanu Reeves refused to hurl abuse at her when making Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The 1992 film, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is based on the classic novel by Bram Stoker - and reportedly saw Reeves and Ryder accidentally marry each other.
The story follows young barrister Jonathan Harker (Reeves) who is assigned to work in a village in eastern Europe.
However, he is soon captured and imprisoned by Dracula (Gary Oldman) who travels to London in search of Harker's fiancée Mina Murray (Ryder).
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Dracula then attempts to seduce and terrorise Mina's closest friend, Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost), as their group gets together to try to drive Dracula away.
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In an interview with The Sunday Times on her 50th birthday, Ryder - who is set to reprise her role of Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice 2 this year - recalled a scene where Dracula transformed into a pile of rats.
Meanwhile, behind the camera, director Coppola allegedly shouted insults at her, including "You w***e!" - and attempted to get the film's male cast to follow suit - so that her crying would be believable.
"To put it in context, I'm supposed to be crying," Ryder said in the 2020 interview.
"Literally, Richard E Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu... Francis was trying to get all of them to yell things that would make me cry.
"But Keanu wouldn't, Anthony wouldn't ... It just didn't work. I was, like, really? It kind of did the opposite."
Based on the classic 1897 novel by Stoker, Coppola's adaptation was nominated for four Academy Awards, and won three of them, for Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing and Best Makeup.
Viewers largely rated the film, which has received a solid 77 percent Tomatometer score and a 79 percent Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes.
"Here is a great filmmaker working at the height of his powers, blending a specific auteur vision with the needs of a massive blockbuster (the film grossed over $300 million worldwide), to develop a unique and hypnotizing experience," one critic wrote.
"An unparalleled and unforgettable telling of the Dracula drama in operatic terms," another added.
"In keeping with the operatic and overly histrionic approach to the material, the film’s performances are almost uniformly dialed up to 11," wrote a third.
Ryder said in the interview that, despite the incident, she and Coppola are 'good now', adding that the incident really solidified her friendship with Reeves.
The actors have since worked together three more times, most recently on 2018's Destination Wedding, but also on Richard Linklater's 2006 feature A Scanner Darkly and 2009's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.
LADbible has contacted a representative of Francis Ford Coppola for comment.
Topics: Keanu Reeves, Celebrity, Film
Anish Vij