Winona Ryder sat down recently for an interview with V Magazine and talked a bit about her upcoming role in “Homefront”, which she stars in with James Franco. The film is a pretty big departure for her, but she embraced it after, as she says, following her heart.

“It used to be that you commit to something and then basically you spend your year doing that. Now there’s a constant conversation of how you have to keep working in order to remind people that you’re around. You have to work to be relevant. If you don’t then people will forget and the studios won’t want you because they won’t remember the last thing you did that made money,” she said. “It’s all about knowing when to listen to that conversation and—without sounding really hokey—when to tune it out and follow your heart. I was fired from a movie because I did Heathers! I was cast in a movie and the director saw an advance screening and was offended by it and fired me. It wasn’t until years later that it became more appreciated.”

Ryder–whose career has been somewhat low-key in recent years–has had an eclectic resume since she started acting. She can do everything from a romantic comedy (“Reality Bites”, a very loose interpretation of that genre) to a gothic horror “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” and we believe whatever she says, because she’s just that good. Her role in “Homefront” is going to push the way viewers see her.

“She’s this woman who had been in a biker gang, and that is a hard-core scene,” Ryder said of her character. “What’s creepy is that she’s sober and she’s running this drug operation with James Franco’s character, and to me it’s the epitome of evil, in a weird way. If it’s possible to be a victim and be diabolical at the same time, I had never explored that. There was also a slightly campy, arm-candy element to her that appealed to me. She’s such a complete CHICK. She’s what you think of when you hear the words ‘biker chick.'”

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