In 1990, other teens had posters of Kim Basinger, Beatrice Dalle, or the tennis player sans underwear on their walls.

I had a giant one-sheet of Winona Ryder in pastel pink and combat boots in a film hardly anyone saw.



So even the prospect of an early Saturday morning start wasn't going to deter me from an opportunity of 15 minutes with the star of Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael and some other, bigger motion-pictures.

Now 44, Ryder laughs at their mere mention of that low-budget dramedy about a teen who believes her mother is a famous actress, claiming that "no one" has every asked her a question about "that film".

Supplied Winona Ryder plays Joyce Byers in the new Netflix series Stranger Things.

READ MORE:

* Winona Ryder talks sequels and Once Were Warriors

* Marc Jacobs recruits Winona Ryder for latest beauty campaign

It's one of many girlish giggles and winsome observations the surprisingly open, vulnerable, playful and sweet actress offers up during our short time together.

We're here, ostensibly, to talk about her latest role – Joyce Byers, the mother of a young boy who disappears in mysterious circumstances, in the 1980s-set sci-fi series Stranger Things. It's her first major TV role, after a glittering film career that included Oscar nominations for Little Women and The Age of Innocence in the mid-1990s.

Supplied Winona Ryder says she's glad she grew up in a simpler time to today.

"I did think it was nice to do something that I hadn't done before, in terms of genre and role. That kind of becomes more important as an actress as you get older – you don't just want to do the same thing. And actually getting to play my age is such a relief."

A homage to the films of the early 1980s like E.T., The Goonies and Starman, Stranger Things also brought back memories for Ryder of her own childhood during that period.

"What I remember is being on anti-apartheid marches [she became a member of Amnesty International at age 12], our country arming the contras and me sitting on railroad tracks. But I also remember that the Reagan era was a very innocent time for kids, compared to now, because the way to communicate was to speak with people to their face, or on the phone. I do appreciate and am very grateful that I got to live during that time, because I can't imagine what it must be like to be a kid now.

Supplied Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael - a poster not seen in many bedrooms in the 1990s.

"I know there's a lot of good that's coming out of this new age we're living in and a lot of corruption is being exposed, but there's also a lot of terrifying things that are happening."

Her knowledge of being a teen at the time Stranger Things is set made Ryder something of a guru, for both the younger cast members and series creators Mike and Ross Duffer.

"I felt a bit like a vaudeville act. It was interesting kind of reminding the kids, not that they really needed it, that certain expressions didn't exist back then. That you had to dial seven numbers on a phone to call someone and that you had to have a little piece of paper to look at, because phones didn't have a digital display. All these little things that are almost incomprehensible to the younger generation now because they are time consuming, in my eyes were kind of character-building, because it made you think about what you were doing."

Supplied Winona Ryder admits she thought being in the movies would make her popular in high school, but she was wrong.

Ryder says she particularly bonded on set with actress Millie Bobby Brown who plays Eleven, because "she was exactly the same age I was when I started acting".

"She reminded me of myself, in that she was very into being an actress. I remember being very serious about it when I was quite young."

When asked if she had a similar experience with an older actor taking her under their wing, Ryder cites working with Jason Robards and Jane Alexander on 1987's Square Dance.

Supplied Winona Ryder was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Little Women.

"I remember the first time that I first really discovered what acting was, was on that set. We had completed shooting for the day and were rehearsing for the next day and I started crying, as I was supposed to in that scene. I didn't understand yet that you save it for the take and I remember Jason saying, 'you don't have to cry, we're just walking through it'. I was lucky to have them both stay in my life as mentors.

"And then Tim Burton [who directed Ryder in the likes of Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands] became a mentor, even though he was someone who was quite young. When I met him, I didn't think he was a director, I thought he was like from the props department or something, but we just kind of bonded."

But even as her star was rising professionally, thanks to additional roles in Heathers, Lucas and Great Balls of Fire, her high school years were not a happy time, she admits.

"I thought making movies would make me popular, but instead I got called a witch and a freak. I guess nothing can really make you popular, unless you are cut out for it."

With our time running out, it's a last chance to ask that all important, burning question – which of her iconic teen characters did she most identify with growing up? Heathers' Veronica? Lucas's Rina? Bettlejuice's Lydia Deetz? Or Roxy Carmichael's Dinky Bosetti?

"I haven't watched Lucas in a long time. I think I was that kid though. Heathers, I felt quite close to, even though I was never in a clique or popular. But, I feel like, with Lydia, even though it's such a kind of wild movie and it was very unlike my own life and family, I actually did look like that. They barely put any make up on me – just put some powder on. I just was kind of like that weird-looking kid."

Stranger Things debuts on Netflix on July 15.