Why Winona Ryder Was Fired From Marlon Brando's The Freshman

A month prior to the release of "Heathers," the American moviegoing public was warned that a couple of upstart film brats had concocted an unspeakably cruel dark comedy about the epidemic of teen suicide. The critics were generally impressed, but some worried that communities that had been traumatized by this tragedy in real life would picket theaters playing the movie (or worse). "Heathers" was toying with raw emotions, we were told. A storm was coming, one that could end the careers of director Michael Lehmann, screenwriter Daniel Waters, and the rising star duo of Winona Ryder and Christian Slater.

New World Pictures obviously wanted "Heathers" to be a sleeper hit, but the combination of the film's subject matter and the company's limited resources placed it at an immediate disadvantage. So, it toe-dipped with a 35-screen opening on March 31, 1989. The movie's per-screen average was encouraging for an indie, but not the stuff of an ambitious expansion. But this was 1989. No internet or social media meant word of mouth could take a couple of weeks to build. Had New World let its marketing department go wild, it would've greenlit a campaign that touted "Heathers" as the anti-John Hughes film that would light a fire under the ass of an aimless generation. Indeed, two weeks later, it could've been dominating every magazine's and newspaper's culture section. But the studio was afraid of the movie it'd made, and, after the film topped out at 54 screens during its third weekend, threw in the towel and declared "Heathers" a box office bust.

So, there was no blowback from "Heathers." Almost. One person lost a gig, and, of course, it was the movie's female lead.

When I saw David Seltzer's coming-of-age drama "Lucas" in 1986, I was both charmed and confused. It's a lovely little movie about a high school romance that cannot be, but while I ached for Corey Haim's unrequited affection for Kerri Green, I couldn't figure out how this misfit kid couldn't realize that the cute, nerdy brunette played by Winona Ryder (in her first movie) was way into him. The film does its best to make Ryder movie-unattractive, and I guess I'll give it credit for not going the "glasses = ugly" route, but there's no hiding a crush-machine like Winona.

After "Beetlejuice," Ryder was primed for stardom. She was one role away from the A-list, and, in a weird way, "Heathers," despite its limp box office performance, was that movie. But prior to taking the role of Veronica, and in the months leading up to the film's release, she was repeatedly told she'd damaged her career.

In a 2025 interview with Elle, Ryder revealed, "I was told I was never gonna work again if I did 'Heathers.'" This actually came to pass when she lost the role of Marlon Brando's daughter in Andrew Bergman's very funny mob comedy "The Freshman." Though it was a much smaller part than she'd played in "Beetlejuice" and "Heathers", the opportunity to star opposite Brando and Matthew Broderick was a big deal. Then the powers that be on "The Freshman" saw "Heathers." According to Ryder, "They thought it was making fun of teen suicide. They were deeply offended and, yeah, they revoked the offer." According to the article's writer, Jeff Giles, Ryder then mock-cried, "'I can't work with Marlon Brando?' But I had to stand my ground. I wasn't gonna apologize."

Ryder didn't just survive, she thrived. She was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1993 for her work on Martin Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence" (only to be robbed by Anna Paquin giving a precocious kid performance in Jane Campion's "The Piano"), then earned a Best Actress nomination in 1994 for her turn in Gillian Armstrong's adaptation of "Little Women." 30 years later, she is more than a legend. She is Winona Ryder.