Mary Elizabeth Winstead began acting at just 12, and her star has been on the
rise ever since. Starring in horror movies, independent films, and more, Winstead has
obvious on-screen talent. But what's not obvious are the details of her life.
When Winstead was growing up, she was passionate about dance — especially ballet. While promoting
her 2016 film 10 Cloverfield Lane, Winstead talked about attending dance conservatories
with her sister and detailed her interest in becoming a ballerina to Interview magazine.
The actress attended ballet school in New York when she was 12, with the intention of becoming
a professional dancer, but she discovered that her body wasn't exactly the right fit.
"I was being groomed to be professional, and a lot of the professors and teachers
there were drawn to me and thought that I could become a professional ballerina. Then,
literally the next year, I went and auditioned for them again
and they were so disappointed with how my body had changed and grown."
Winstead didn't enjoy the experience of having her body sized up and measured and decided to
stop pursuing dance, eventually turning to acting, which became her career.
One of Winstead's earliest acting roles was on the NBC soap Passions. The actress
was only 14 years old at the time, and landing a regular part on TV was a huge
deal for her. Sadly, she learned that being a part of the show wasn't
exactly what she had imagined for herself and her career, and she eventually quit.
She discussed the experience in an interview with Glamour in April 2017, saying,
"It was after a year, and I thought, This isn't really what I thought acting was about.
I wanted the opportunity to try and explore something else."
The actress went on to say that the soap was a strange environment and not really great for her age at the time.
Hollywood can be a dangerous place for child actors, so it's no surprise that Mary Elizabeth's mother kept a close eye on
her throughout the beginning of her career — up until the actress was 24 years old.
When discussing the #MeToo movement in Hollywood with Vulture in October 2018, Winstead explained
that she didn't experience it much in her career because she was very sheltered, saying,
"I was very lucky when I was younger and starting out -– I was incredibly
sheltered, and my mom went with me everywhere until I was like, 24."
While Winstead was embarrassed at the time of her mother's presence, she went on to say,
"I'm also thankful because I really didn't experience those things — I just
was never in a situation to be exposed to that particularly, or people were afraid of my mom."
In 2004, Mean Girls hit theaters like a speeding bus,
earning a whopping $24.4 million in its opening weekend. Over the years,
the film has grown a cult fan following and has even spawned a Broadway musical.
While the film's cast is one of the reasons behind its success, audiences could have seen
Mary Elizabeth Winstead playing Gretchen Wieners, a role that ultimately went to Lacey Chabert.
Winstead had an opportunity to audition for the part — and she turned it down.
During an interview with Collider Ladies Night in October 2019,
Winstead confessed that she passed on the hit teen comedy, saying -
"I remember it was partially because my mom, when I was younger, was really involved in my
career and so we'd both read scripts [...] and so she hated that script and was like,
'You're not auditioning for that.' And I just was sort of like, 'Oh, okay. Whatever.'"
When Mary Elizabeth Winstead was starting out as an actress,
it didn't take her very long before she began landing roles in films.
The actress never had any time to rethink her career or question attending college because,
when she was 19, she got a role in Disney's Sky High, a film about a school for superheroes
starring Kurt Russell. In the movie, Winstead plays Gwen, a popular student at Sky High.
Winstead talked about how that part helped launch her career
in an October 2019 interview with Collider Ladies Night, saying -
"And that was like, 'Okay, you did it.'
And then after that I never really went very long without working, so I got very lucky."
The Disney movie marked the first major movie role for the actress,
who has gone on to have a prosperous film career.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead has turned down acting roles throughout her career,
and, when she was 18, she turned down a role in A Cinderella Story to go on a cruise with her
friend. The role came at a time when Winstead's career was just starting to rise,
so turning down the part wasn't an easy decision for the actress.
She told Glamour in April 2017,
"It was a big stressful thing at the time because I was still just starting my career,
so to get offered a part in a movie was a big deal. I was hemming and hawing about
it and just decided, 'No, I'm going to go on this cruise.'"
Although she did experience an acting dry spell after turning down the part,
as she told Frank in February 2016, it thankfully didn't last long.
It's also easy to say it was worth it as the cruise helped change the trajectory of her life.
Winstead married writer-director Riley Stearns in 2010. The couple
began dating when Winstead was just 18, after they met on a cruise ship.
The actress talked about meeting her husband while tagging along with a friend
on a Carnival Cruise to the Caribbean in an April 2017 interview with Glamour, saying,
"My friend and I were trolling for boys, as you do when you're 18,
and one of the first days on the cruise, I saw him and thought, 'That's my person!'"
Winstead eventually went up to Stearns on the trip, and they became inseparable from that
point on. They married, and Winstead later starred in Stearns' thriller Faults in 2014.
Sadly, the couple split in May 2017.
In the early stages of her career, Winstead starred in several horror films, including Final
Destination 3, Black Christmas, and The Thing. Although she never intended to seek out horror
films, her acting choices earned her the title of "Scream Queen" within the horror community.
Winstead felt unfairly pigeonholed by the title, telling The Guardian in November 2012,
"I don't feel I ever really played that part."
Despite this, Winstead never spoke negatively about the genre. In fact,
she looks at horror films in a positive way, telling Metro in March 2016,
"I would get the question a lot: 'Why do you do horror films?' It's like,
'Where else do you see kickass female heroines other than in genre films?'"
Mary Elizabeth Winstead has come a long way since she began acting on Touched by an Angel
at age 12. Over the course of her career, she has taken on more complex characters
that have challenged and helped her grow as an actress, and the one role she credits as
helping to shape her career is the 2012 drama Smashed, which co-stars Aaron Paul. In the film,
Winstead plays a woman struggling to keep her alcoholism under control.
"I'm not actually pregnant."
"What?"
"Just I'm - really hungover and the kids started asking me questions."
Winstead talked about the film and its influence
on her life in an interview with Glamour in April 2017, saying,
"That totally changed the way I saw myself as an actor and types of roles that I wanted to play.
It really just set me in a clear direction in terms of what I wanted to do."
From playing the part of a struggling alcoholic, Winstead discovered she had
the acting capabilities to play the kinds of roles she wanted to play.
Smashed changed her outlook on substance abuse in Hollywood and the issues enablers pose for
individuals suffering from addiction. The actress admittedly has stayed away from alcohol and drugs,
and she credits her strict upbringing for keeping her on a straight-and-narrow path.
She told The Guardian in November 2012,
"I wasn't allowed out anywhere. I had two friends. That was it. But
I was also terrified of hanging out with other teenagers and going to parties. I didn't fit."
While her peers were having fun, the actress feared she wouldn't be seen as cool enough
in their eyes for not partaking in drinking and doing drugs. Rather than focus her energy
on making friends, Winstead focused all of her energy on the arts — and it paid off.
In Season 3 of Fargo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Nikki Swango, a bridge-playing ex-con
with a dark agenda. To get into character and to play bridge like a true competitor,
Winstead prepped by taking bridge lessons.
When talking about the part on Late Night With Seth Meyers in June 2017,
Winstead explained how difficult the game was to learn, saying,
"I took some lessons -"
"Because of this."
"Because of this -"
"Gotcha" "And I was determined in the beginning to like,
really become an expert and be like super method, but I'm not smart enough."
The actress discovered learning bridge wasn't going to be easy early on
because the information went over her head. She added,
"It's so complicated and strategic and mathy. [...] There's so many numbers."
While Winstead thought her character would be playing a lot of bridge,
she didn't anticipate the path Nikki would take over the course of the series.
"I didn't know what the character was and I didn't - I said yes without knowing I didn't
ask any questions I just said I'm-I'm-I'm in. You don't have to tell me anything I'm in."
She told Variety in June 2017,
"Where she ends up at the end of the season versus where she starts out — when we started,
I was taking bridge lessons. I thought I would be playing bridge all season long."
When Mary Elizabeth Winstead landed the role of Nikki Swango,
she thought she would be playing a sweet, law-abiding character like cop Gloria. Instead,
Winstead was pleasantly surprised to be given the layered role of Nikki.
The actress normally strayed away from "sexier" roles in the past -
"I changed my mind."
"Changed it to what? From what?"
"I don't wanna have sex with you Pilgrim. Not right now."
As she told Glamour in April 2017.
"I didn't want to play these kinds of roles because I was like, 'I don't want to be seen
that way. I don't want to be seen as sexy because that's not interesting or substantive.' [...] But
then you get a role like this, where she's sexy but she's also a billion other things,
and then you can really embrace that side of her and yourself and feel good about it."
She also noted,
"It's taken me a lot of time to get to that place."
Winstead and Ewan McGregor played a couple on Season 3 of FX's Fargo,
and soon the pair became a couple in real life. But their relationship was shrouded
with controversy because both actors were married when their relationship went public.
In October 2017, after photos of him kissing Winstead were published by The Sun, McGregor
announced he had split from his wife of 22 years. Winstead previously announced she'd split with
her husband via a now-deleted Instagram post in May 2017. Coincidentally, McGregor and his wife
separated in May 2017, according to People, who received info from an anonymous source.
As of the making of this video, they're still going strong. The real-life couple worked together
again in Birds of Prey, which is not surprising, as the actress told WWD in September 2018 -
"I want to work with people that I enjoy, that I want to be around, and that I want
to learn something from and be inspired by."
Winstead became an indie darling and developed a fan following with her work in cult-hit films
like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and horror films like Final Destination 3. However, the actress
has still maintained a relatively low profile in Hollywood that has helped her stay out of the
spotlight when it comes to her personal life. The actress enjoys her low-key celebrity
status and likes not being recognized out in public a lot. She told Vulture in October 2018,
"I definitely prefer to fly under the radar. I feel like I'm at the point
now where I'm old enough and secure enough that if fame were to come,
I'd be able to handle it and not get swept up in it."
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