Winona Ryder said Keanu Reeves refused to make her cry for a scene in 'Dracula' after the director told him to

• In an interview with The Sunday Times, Winona Ryder said that while shooting "Bram Stoker's Dracula," Keanu Reeves refused director Francis Ford Coppola's request to shout abuse at her in order to make her cry.
• Ryder said: "Literally, Richard E Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu … Francis was trying to get all of them to yell things that would make me cry."
• Coppola himself stood off-camera and repeatedly shouted "you whore" in his own attempt to make her cry so that her emotion would seem believable.
• Ryder said: "The more it happened, I was like [she crosses her arms like a sulky teenager and frowns]… It just didn't work. I was, like, really? It kind of did the opposite."

Winona Ryder said that Keanu Reeves refused director Francis Ford Coppola's request to shout abuse at her on the set of "Bram Stoker's Dracula" in order to make her cry for a scene.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Ryder said that Coppola, the Oscar-winning director behind "The Godfather" trilogy, told his male cast members to insult Ryder to make her emotions seem believable.

"To put it in context I'm supposed to be crying," Ryder said. "Literally, Richard E Grant, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu … Francis was trying to get all of them to yell things that would make me cry."

In Coppola's 1992 adaptation of Stoker's book, Reeves played Jonathan Harker, the love interest to Ryder's Mina Murray, while Anthony Hopkins played Abraham Van Helsing.

The scene they were shooting featured Ryder lying on a bed next to Gary Oldman's Dracula, who was about to turn into a pile of rats — and Coppola wanted the cast to shout abuse in order to make her believably cry. But Reeves refused.

"But Keanu wouldn't, Anthony wouldn't … the more it happened, I was like [she crosses her arms like a sulky teenager and frowns]… It just didn't work. I was, like, really? It kind of did the opposite."

Meanwhile, Coppola himself stood off-camera and repeatedly shouted "you whore!" in his own attempt to make her cry.

Despite this, Ryder told The Times that she and Coppola are now friends: "Me and Francis are good now."

However, Coppola also reportedly instructed Oldman to speak seductively to Sadie Frost in order to get her to achieve a believable reaction in a scene where Frost's character, Lucy, writhes around in bed in pleasure.

Ryder also said that "Dracula" sparked a lifelong friendship with Reeves, with the two of them going on to star in three other movies together: 2006's "A Scanner Darkly" (2006), "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" (2009), and "Destination Wedding" (2018).

Ryder said that her friendship with Reeves made the negative reviews for the latter film tough to bare.

"It got the worst reviews. That movie, for some reason, every reviewer was like, 'This is the worst movie in the world,' and it was really rough."

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