Jeff Bridges ‘Wouldn’t Kiss’ Winona Ryder in ‘Fearless’ Audition

Hollywood veteran Jeff Bridges “wouldn’t kiss” actor Winona Ryder during an audition for the 1993 film Fearless, Ryder said in a recent interview.

In the episode of Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast released on September 2, Ryder opened up about her prolific career and some of her missed acting opportunities, including the role opposite Bridges.

The Beetlejuice star said of the audition, “Jeff Bridges, who I love, wouldn’t kiss me because I was too young.”

Ryder, who would have been in her early 20s at the time, said that at the end of the scene, Bridges “was supposed to kiss” her, but he refused, saying she looked like his daughter’s age.

The Oscar-nominated movie featured Bridges as a plane crash survivor whose life is dramatically altered in the aftermath of the disaster. Directed by Peter Weir, the movie also stars Isabella Rossellini, Rosie Perez and John Turturro.

Ryder also told Horowitz about auditioning for Fearless at the same time as trying to land a role in the Joel and Ethan Coen movie The Hudsucker Proxy.

“I worshipped the Coen brothers obviously, as does everyone,” she said, adding, “I wanted that opportunity.”

While Ryder did not end up in the 1994 comedy, Bridges went on to work with the Coen brothers a couple of years after their Fearless audition, playing the Dude in The Big Lebowski, one of his most iconic characters.

Newsweek has contacted Bridges’ representatives by email for comment.

Ryder has done many interviews recently on the press tour for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a sequel to the 1988 movie of a similar name, and she told Horowitz elsewhere in their interview about advice she received on how to handle publicity by none other than Daniel Day-Lewis.

While working on the press junket for 1993’s Age of Innocence while they, Ryder said, “were both going through stuff at the time,” Day-Lewis told her: “Just keep talking so they can’t ask you. Just ramble.”

She said on the podcast that because of the advice, she has found a lot of people find her weird because she lets her guard down more.

“When I get comfortable I like to, you know, and I think it could be because I spent so much time not getting to do that, and I still do. I mean, nobody knows what the f*** I’m talking about,” Ryder said.

She added: “A lot of people are like, ‘She’s so weird, like she won’t stop doing—what the hell.'”