Actress Winona Ryder claims director threatened to 'destroy her life'

The Star

28-07-2025

, though both of her brothers have worked as production assistants on a select number of her movies. Photo: TNS
Winona Ryder has revealed a director she once worked with decades ago threatened to 'destroy [her] f—ing life' after she reported him for inappropriate behaviour.
The two-time Oscar nominee, 53, recalled to Elle UK that after she asked producers if they could handle the difficult director, he confronted her the following day when she had 'a big scene,' making one of his own.
Ryder claims the director approached her as if he was going to discuss the scene, then 'changed his tone to a whisper.'
'He came up to me, and he was like, 'OK, so um, if we just try it like – you f—ing c–, I'm gonna destroy your f—ing life,'' recalled the Beetlejuice star, saying she was then forced to jump into the scene acting as if everything was OK.
'What's so crazy is my brother was working as a PA on the movie, and I didn't even tell him, and I didn't complain,' she said.
The Stranger Things actress did not disclose the identity of the director nor the film, though both of her brothers have worked as production assistants on a select number of her movies.
IMDb shows that Uri Ryder, who goes by Uri Horowitz, was a production assistant on 1994's Reality Bites , directed by Ben Stiller. Her half-brother, Jubal Palmer was meanwhile a production assistant on Janusz Kaminski's Lost Souls and Steven Brill's Mr. Deeds remake, both of which starred Winona.
Palmer was also credited as his sister's own assistant on the set of Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly .
Nearly a decade after Reality Bites , Ryder made a cameo in 2001's Zoolander ,1 also helmed by and starring Stiller, but she never again worked on projects directed by Linklater or Kaminski. The latter is best known as the Academy Award-winning cinematographer behind Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan . – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service