Winona Finally Talks Shop(lifting)

Wed., Jul. 18, 2007 9:46 AM PDT by Gina Serpe

Winona Ryder could teach today's starlets a thing or two about waiting out a scandal.

After a nearly five-year self-imposed vow of silence, the actress has spoken out for the first time about her December 2001 arrest and subsequent conviction on grand theft charges from a sticky-fingered spree at Saks Fifth Avenue.

Ryder, last seen on the big-screen in animated form in 2006's A Scanner Darkly, and prior to that in 2002's Mr. Deeds, chalked up the shoplifting to drug use.

"Two months prior to that, I broke my arm in two places, and the doctor...was giving me a lot of stuff, and I was taking it at first just to get through the pain," she told Vogue's August issue of the run-up to her shoplifting, with the main "stuff" being the painkiller Oxycodone. "And there was this weird point when you don't know if you are in pain but you're taking it.

"It isn't a reckless [state], like you're out of your head. It's just confusion."

It was while she was in this state of confusion that she decided to embark on her ill-fated Beverly Hills shopping trip.

"The attention was what was embarrassing," she said of negative publicity over her arrest. "It was the December after Sept. 11...So much attention was being paid to me, when we had just been attacked, and there was all this really important news going on.

"I never said a word. I didn't release a statement. I didn't do anything. I just waited for it to be over."

While Ryder admits that what she did was wrong, she "didn't have this tremendous sense of guilt" about it, "because I hadn't hurt anyone."

"Had I physically harmed someone or caused harm to a human being, I think it would have been an entirely different experience."

The actress said she was supported by her family throughout the legal ordeal. Jurors, aided by security video, ultimately found Ryder guilty of making off with nearly $5,000 worth of merchandise.

Following the verdict and completion of her sentence, Ryder moved up to San Francisco in a home near her parents and made "a very conscious decision not to work."

"No one [in my family] ever got angry with me," she told the magazine. "Concerned, yes, but not concerned with a drug problem or anything. Because after that night I pretty much didn't ever...if you are ever arrested, you can't ever do that again."

Now, however, the cleaned-up, clearer-headed Ryder is plotting a full-scale return to Hollywood, with no fewer than three movies due out this year.

The first, The Ten, chronicles 10 different stories based on each of the commandments with an ensemble that includes Jessica Alba, Adam Brody, Paul Rudd and Liev Schreiber; it's due out in limited release next month. Ryder also recently wrapped production on the dark comedy Sex and Death 101, costarring Simon Baker and penned by Heathers writer Daniel Walters, and The Last Word, with Ray Romano, about a man who makes a living writing other people's suicide notes.

In the meantime, however, Ryder has another project she'd like to get started on: making a family.

"I think I assumed I would be married and have a kid by the age I am now," the actress, who's been linked with Matt Damon, Johnny Depp and Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner. "It kind of occurred to me for the first time last year: I actually want to go on and have kids."

Of course, first she needs to find Mr. Right.

"You know how people ask, 'Who is the love of your life?' God, I hope I haven't met that person yet, in a way, because I'm single. I hope I haven't had that, since that would be sad."