Pretty Woman uncomfortable playing a sex worker. Winona Ryder auditioned, but was turned down because Marshall felt she was "too young". Jennifer Connelly was also dismissed for the same reason. Emily Lloyd turned it down as it conflicted with her shooting for the film "Mermaids". Meg Ryan, who was a top choice of Marshall's, turned it down as well. According to a note written by Marshall, Mary Steenburgen was also among the first choices. Diane Lane came very close to being cast (the script was much darker at the time); they had gone as far as costume fittings, but due to scheduling
Winona Ryder in "Beetlejuice". Ryder commented that "I remember thinking, 'Ooh, it's [Beetlejuice], like, the number-one movie. This is going to make things great at school, but it made things worse. They called me a witch." In 1983, when Ryder was 12, she enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater in nearby San Francisco, where she took her first acting lessons. In 1989, Ryder graduated from Petaluma High School with a 4.0 GPA. She suffers from aquaphobia because of a traumatic near-drowning at age 12. This caused problems with the underwater scenes in "Alien Resurrection" (1997), some of which had to be reshot