Winona Ryder on season 4 of Netflix’s Stranger Things, a Beetlejuice sequel and being a Gen X icon (no, she’s not a Boomer)

Winona Ryder grew up in the ’80s, so everything in Netflix’s Stranger Things has a personal nostalgia to it – from Walkmans to roller rinks to record players

She talks about how her character has changed on the show, the possibility of a Beetlejuice sequel and being super grateful she didn’t grow up with the internet

Reading Time:3 minutes

Winona Ryder in a still from season four of Stranger Things. Ryder says her character is “literally fighting for her survival” in the latest season. Photo: courtesy of Netflix

Published: 7:45pm, 2 Jun 2022

Generation X might feel this in their gut: someone once had the audacity to say, “OK, Boomer” to Winona Ryder.

The actress didn’t know what they were talking about. Ryder admits that her young Stranger Things co-stars usually are the ones making her hip to modern slang.

“The kids just explained who ‘stan’ is, by the way – like to stan something. Stan is a fan,” she says proudly. “Forever, I was like, ‘Who’s Stan?’ So I am in the know there, even though it makes no sense to me. In a way, I think I’m lucky that I don’t know what is an insult.”

On the horror-tinged Netflix show Ryder, 50, is Stranger Things’ main mum Joyce Byers; in season four (now streaming), she’s fresh off a move from Hawkins, in the US state of Indiana, to California when she embarks on a globe-trotting adventure.

Winona Ryder in a still from Beetlejuice.

But the actress – who had a breakout role as goth teen Lydia Deetz in 1988’s Beetlejuice and starred in seminal films such as Heathers and Reality Bites – is also the pop-culture matriarch for a series that wears its 1980s influences on its jean-jacket sleeve.