Winona Ryder has shared many reasons for her desire to avoid marriage in the past. However, until recently, she never mentioned that she hasn’t tied the knot because she believes she is already married to Keanu Reeves.
Ryder’s relationship with Reeves came under scrutiny during 2018, when the two agreed to shoot another movie together, Destination Wedding. The pair have a longstanding, well-known friendship. However, Ryder revealed that in 1992, when she and Reeves starred in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the wedding ceremony that the two performed for the film was more than likely, legally binding.
“We actually got married in Dracula . No, I swear to God I think we’re married in real life,” Ryder said, according to Entertainment Weekly . “In that scene, Francis [Ford Coppola] used a real Romanian priest. We shot the master and he did the whole thing. So I think we’re married.”
Ryder’s comments about a legally binding wedding with Reeves took him by surprise at first. While Reeves admitted he does remember the scene they performed in 1992, he initially did not seem to think the pair officially wed at that time.
Since Reeves was first questioned about Ryder’s statements, Reeves said that the pair did often joke about their old wedding scene, and Ryder even calls him “husband” from time to time. However, after Ryder shared the story with the public, Francis Ford Coppola, who directed the 1992 movie, supported her statements. After Coppola spoke out, Reeves finally realized that the ceremony could have been legal.
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Coppola, at first, shot the wedding between the two for Bram Stoker’s Dracula fictitiously and despised the way the scene turned out. The director wanted the scene to appear as authentic as possible, so he planned an actual Greek Orthodox marriage ceremony. Coppola then had the cast redo the scene in a real Greek Orthodox church with an actual Romanian priest, and the director was much happier with the results.
“This is pretty authentic and I think very beautiful, because we actually did the ceremony and had the priest do the ceremony. So in a sense, when we were all done, we realized that Keanu and Winona really are married as a result of this scene and this ceremony,” Coppola stated, according to the Guardian .
While Coppola did achieve a look of legitimacy, neither Ryder nor Reeves realized just how valid the ceremony was until a short time ago. However, the pair, whether legally married or not, consider their relationship status to be a friendship. Any potential marriage exists only as a shared joke between Reeves and Ryder, and not a real commitment.