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Winona Ryder talks in new Netflix featurette about playing the 'Stranger Things' mom

By Karen Butler
Cast member Winona Ryder attends the premiere of Netflix's supernatural mystery thriller "Stranger Things" at Mack Sennett Studios in Los Angeles on July 11, 2016. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI
Cast member Winona Ryder attends the premiere of Netflix's supernatural mystery thriller "Stranger Things" at Mack Sennett Studios in Los Angeles on July 11, 2016. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., July 31 (UPI) -- Winona Ryder, a former teen icon of the 1980s, discusses in a new Netflix featurette her role of playing distraught mom Joyce Byers in the supernatural mystery Stranger Things.

Now streaming online in its entirety, the show is about the disappearance of Joyce's young son in 1983 Hawkins, Ind. It co-stars Matthew Modine, David Harbour, Charlie Heaton, Natalia Dyer, Millie Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Mattarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin.

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"I was grateful that they trusted I could get to those places," Ryder said in the 3-minute featurette, describing Joyce as a "mom whose heart is shattered."

"It was a genre I haven't explored before," she added.

"Winona is the character whose stakes and circumstances are inherently heightened the entire season," producer Shawn Levy explained. "You need someone who can ratchet up the emotional urgency and yet find the layers and nuance and different sides to this character, so it was a real, short list and at the very top was Winona Ryder."

Ryder is best known for her work in the films Lucas, Beetlejuice, Heathers, Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Age of Innocence and Girl, Interrupted.

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