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Keanu Reeves Refused To Hurl Abuse At Winona Ryder When Making Dracula

Keanu Reeves Refused To Hurl Abuse At Winona Ryder When Making Dracula

Francis Ford Coppola tried to get the Matrix actor to make his co-star cry when they were filming Dracula

Mischa Pearlman

Mischa Pearlman

Francis Ford Coppola is one of the biggest names in Hollywood, having worked on classic films such as The Godfather (parts one and two), American Graffiti, Apocalypse Now, Rumble Fish and Bram Stoker's Dracula - but that doesn't mean he's easy to work with.

Just ask Winona Ryder, who has revealed in a new interview how the director tried to get Dracula co-star Keanu Reeves to make her cry by hurling abuse at her - which the actor refused to do.

The pair starred together in the 1992 adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic vampire novel, with Ryder playing Mina Harker, the vampire's main obsession, and Reeves playing her fiancé.

Columbia

Talking to The Sunday Times on the occasion of her 50th birthday, Ryder recalled a scene where Dracula - played by Gary Oldman - transformed into a pile of rats.

Meanwhile, behind the camera, director Coppola repeatedly shouted insults including "You whore!" at her - 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 explained to the newspaper.

Winona Ryder.
PA

"Literally, Richard R 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 - which came long before the Twilight series brought vampires back to the public imagination - was nominated for four Academy Awards, and won three of them, for Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing and Best Makeup.

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.

Keanu Reeves.
PA

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.

Ryder had a bit of a resurgence recently, thanks to her role in the popular Netflix show Stranger Things, while Reeves continues to forge an identity for himself as one of cinema's nice guys. He'll soon return to the screen when the long-awaited third movie in the Bill and Ted franchise is released - and you can watch the first trailer here.

Featured Image Credit: Columbia

Topics: TV and Film, Celebrity, keanu reeves