How much is Winona Ryder worth?
| Net Worth: | $25 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Actress |
| Date of Birth: | October 29, 1971 (age 51) |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 5 ft 3 in (1.61 m) |
About Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and is more commonly known as Winona Ryder. She was named after a nearby town, Winona, Minnesota. She is the daughter of author and video producer, Cynthia Palmer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller. She is Russian Jewish on her father’s side and Romanian Jewish on her mother’s side.
She grew up on a ranch commune in Northern California. Her family had joined the commune when she was seven, and while it had no electricity it rather focused on the self through academic betterment and forbade outer influences like television. The story goes that Winona’s mother still let her watch classic movies, which planted the acting seed in her at an early age. However, the commune was more than just a communal place for families to raise children—Winona recalls that the commune members were often in the nude.
Winona is the goddaughter of American psychologist, Timothy Leary. Leary is known for his work on consciousness and psychedelics. Her parents were friends of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and together edited the book Shaman Woman Mainline Lady. It is an anthology of writings on the drug experience in literature, which included one piece by Louisa May Alcott. After three years, the family had earned enough money to relocate to a suburb of San Francisco. Winona would attend a regular high school for the first time. Times were rough for her however, as Winona was beat up by a group of classmates because they thought she was “a feminine boy”.
Winona kept to herself mostly but continued to be thrilled and excited about expressing herself in different roles as an actress. She enrolled in acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater, and then, when she was thirteen, she began to audition for roles, including for the 1986 film, Desert Bloom. While she did not get cast, she was spotted by director David Seltzer who cast her in the film Lucas, that same year. Upon the completion of the film, Seltzer telephone called Winona asking her how she would like her name to appear in the credits. Winona’s father’s Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels album was playing the background, and she spontaneously said “Winona Ryder”.
Things picked up from there when young Winona won a lead role in the 1990 cult hit Beetlejuice before going on to star in Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). She had been cast in the role of Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III (1990), a role that would later go to Coppola’s daughter, Sofia Coppola, after Winona had to drop out. Winona has said that she had the flu from the stress and pressure of doing back-to-back filming for Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, and Mermaids. While many expected her to continue in the role, Winona said that she did not want to damage the franchise by giving a substandard performance. She was soon after cast as May Welland in Martin Scorsese‘s The Age of Innocence and later said that Scorsese is “the best director in the world”.
Winona was slowly becoming a household name and was known for her darkly tinged roles. The actress shook things up when she was cast in the classic Little Women (1994), in which she played Jo. Ryder and was nominated for an Oscar for “Best Actress in a Leading Role”. A year prior, Winona had been nominated for “Best Actress in a Support Role” for The Age of Innocence and at the time was considered one of the very best actresses in the world.
Winona went on to land a slew of heavy acting roles in films like The Crucible (1996) opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, Woody Allen’s Celebrity (1998) and Girl, Interrupted (2000) opposite Angelina Jolie. Not only was Winona’s career as an actress being highlighted, but also her love life too. When she was 17 years old she met Johnny Depp at a movie premiere and the two immediately hit it off. The couple went on to co-star in the wildly successful Edward Scissorhands before getting engaged in 1990. The two sustained a three-year engagement before they called it quits.
She made her comeback appearance in the 2002 Adam Sandler comedy Mr. Deeds (for which she was nominated for a worst actress Razzie Award) before appearing in A Scanner Darkly (2006), The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009) and Black Swan (2010). After appearing in the Black Swan, Winona’s career began to slow down. That all changed of course when she was cast as a supporting character, Joyce Byers, in Stranger Things.
Ryder’s Total Net Worth
Winona Ryder’s career took off in the ’90s, and by the 2000s, she was already a well established household name. Cameos in hit TV series, such as Friends, helped widen her audience and she was estimated earning highs of $3-5 million per leading role around 2000-4.
She had been paid a reported $2.8 million for her role as Call in Alien Resurrection, and while her career seemed like it was petering in the mid-2010s, she was soon cast in the role of Joyce Byers in Stranger Things, and earning $100,000 per episode.
Her income from the TV series have since increased, earning $350,000 per episode for the third and fourth season. By these figures, she will have earned $800,000 for season one, $900,000 for season two, $2.8 million for season three and $3.15 million for season four. Therefore, Winona Ryder is estimated to have earned $7.65 million for her role as Joyce Byers in Stranger Things.
In total, Winona Ryder has earned estimated total career income of $45 million dollars. That includes earnings from her endorsements with Cafe Latte and others, including Marc Jacobs.
Of that amount, $3-4 million is expected to have been paid in business related costs. The remainder, $41.5 million, will have been taxed at a rate of around 48% as Winona Ryder has been residing between the states of California and New York, but mostly California, and earned some of her income when tax rates have been lower than they are today. After tax, it is estimated that her career earnings are at around $21.58 million dollars, having paid $19.92 million dollars in taxes.
Winona Ryder has never married and does not have any children. In her personal life, it is estimated that she has spent $6-8 million dollars of her career earnings but also probably possesses assets valued at around $1 million, not including investment assets. Some of her career income will have been converted into investment assets, her returns from which are being estimated at $7-10 million dollars. Therefore, it is estimated that Winona Ryder has a net worth of around $25 million.
It has been estimated far lower.
Summing-Up
Ryder is an incredibly talented American actress and the recipient of several awards, including a Golden Globe Award, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards. She was known for taking on quirky roles in her earlier films, then went on to play more prominent roles in the 1990s. Most recently she has become known for her role as Joyce Byers, on Stranger Things.
