Cinemarque-New World/Kobal/Shutterstock Winona Ryder's career would have looked different if she hadn't doneHeathers. Ryder, 53, opened up about her career in an interview withElle UK, published July 23. The actress starred in the dark comedyHeathersin 1989, playing Veronica Sawyer. Veronica teams up with Christian Slater's J.D. to get revenge on Kim Walker's Heather Chandler, and J.D. ends up killing her. After they stage it as a suicide, J.D.'s quest for revenge ramps up, with more deadly consequences. The movie's plot involves gun violence, eating disorders, sexuality and murder — while still being full of jokes. "I was told I was never gonna work again if I didHeathers," Ryder, who had found success as achild star, told the outlet of the film, which is now widely considered a high school classic. Then she admitted, "I did lose a job." Tri-Star/Kobal/Shutterstock Ryder didn't want to say, but since it was 35 years ago, she eventually gave in. It turned out the movie was the 1990 movieThe Freshman, which starred Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick. She was offered a role, but then the people behind the movie sawHeathers. "They thought it was making fun of teen suicide. They were deeply offended and, yeah, they revoked the offer," she remembered. "I'm like, 'I can't work with Marlon Brando?' " she said, using a weepy voice. But she stood firm in her choices. "But I had to stand my ground. I wasn't gonna apologize," she said. TheStranger Thingsstar admittedHeathersis one of her favorite projects, and she said if she seesHeatherson TV, she never turns it off. "I know it basically by heart." Heathersdirector, Michael Lehmann, defendedHeathers' mix of dark crimes and comedy in a 2016 interview withThe Denver Post. "The more horrifying or disturbing human behavior is, the more opportunity there is to mine it for certain types of comedy," he said. "You click it a few notches in one direction or another to make it absurd, and it allows to you to understand human behavior better, because people do horrible things with the best intentions." "When it came out a lot of people were very upset and there was a big politically correct backlash saying, 'How dare you make fun of teenage suicide!' " Lehmann said. "But Columbine hadn't happened yet. And anyway, we weren't making fun of teenage suicide, we were making a comedy about the way teenagers are perceived by adults and how they behave to each other." Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Heathersfound even more fans when it was adapted into a musical in the 2010s. The musicalreturned to New York this summer. https://people-app.onelink.me/HNIa/kz7l4cuf Despite getting cut fromThe Freshman, Ryder's career kept chugging along after Heathers, with 1990'sEdward ScissorhandsandMermaids. She received back-to-back Emmy nominations for her role in two novel adaptations: 1993'sThe Age of Innocenceand1994'sLittle Women. Read the original article onPeople