Everyone’s favorite sullen minx from “Beetlejuice” has returned to the spotlight! Closing in on 40, the formerly sticky-fingered Winona Ryder has descended from her pedestal for an interview with BlackBook. Why? She’s got a movie to promote (“The Private Lives of Pippa Lee”), dammit! After the jump, the best of what wacky Winona spewed.

Before passing away in 2008, Heath Ledger had started a career as a music video director. One of his videos premiered in August. And a second one, a rap video for Australian N’Fa’s “Cause An Effect,” debuted today on YouTube.  The video was shot on one camera in Heath’s Sydney garage shortly before his death, and it’s believed this was the last project over which he exercised complete creative control. He was childhood friends with N’Fa, aka No Fixed Abode, previously known as NFamas from the Australian hip-hop band 1200 Techniques. “The idea was to keep it very artistic so that is what we did,” N’fa said in an accompanying video. “Heath directed it really well and I was really happy with the outcome ... I know Heath was happy with the work,” he added. [Reuters]

Heath Ledger was still filming “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” when he died in January 2008, so director Terry Gilliam had to get creative when it came to finishing his film, while still honoring Heath’s work. He had three other actors—Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law—step in for the remainder of Heath’s scenes, believing the wackiness of the story itself supported the character having an evolving physical appearance. The trailer for the film has been released and it looks amazing. Check it out above.

“I was holding it together by a string and a paper clip in the fall and winter. I didn’t know if I could keep it all together… You console yourself by saying it’s all a deepening process. But it’s wired. After the first year, the pain is less intense; it’s less immediate. But the magical thinking goes away too. And that’s a whole new reckoning. But every time I really miss him and wonder where he’s gone, I just look at [Mathilda.] ...

‘Brokeback Mountain’ was an unrepeatable moment in time, a very charmed time in my life. I was in love; I was in a movie I was proud to be a part of, and with a beautiful brand-new baby. Everything was good in that moment ....

I feel hopeful and grateful. For a while I thought we had lost everything. It makes you want to love better and live better.”

Before his untimely death, Heath Ledger had started a side career directing music videos. The one he began directing for the Modest Mouse song “King Rat” debuted today, and according to The Masses, a film and music company Heath was a partner in, the video shows Heath’s “impassioned stance against the illegal commercial whale hunts taking place off the coast of Australia each year.” Proceeds from iTunes downloads in the next month will go to Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. This wasn’t the first music video Heath had directed. He also oversaw the one for Ben Harper’s “Morning Yearning,” and two for N’fa. Click here to watch Heath’s video for “King Rat.” 

The August 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, which will hit newsstands tomorrow, went to print before Michael Jackson died. Coincidentally, another star who passed too soon, Heath Ledger, is on the cover. The cover story, “The Last of Heath,” details Ledger’s exhaustion, insomnia, custody battle, final movie role, and untimely death. Contributing editor Peter Biskind interviewed Hollywood figures close to the actor about his final few days. After the jump, several gloomy quotes depicting what life was like for Heath.

“Twilight” director Catherine Hardwick has a new angst-ridden project in the works: a remake of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Emile Hirsch is the tasty choice picked to play the passionate Prince. We can’t wait to see him strut and fret in ye old tight pants. While we’d happily watch the grass grow if irresistible Emile were lying in it, it’s a total bonus that this just happens to be one of our favorite sub genres—a twisted teen take on a Shakesperean classic. Since there’s nothing like a hunk who wants to school us in the ways of love, here are other modern blockbusters that have helped us avoid actually reading Shakespeare.

When an actress wants to be taken seriously (and seriously considered for an Oscar) she’ll often play ugly, i.e., Charlize Theron in “Monster.”  For men, the equivalent is playing gay. When a pretty boy wants to be known as an actor, rather than eye candy, he takes on such a role to show that he can do more than look good and that he’ll go the distance for his “craft.” Robert Pattinson does this in his upcoming movie, “Little Ashes.” In the film, Pattinson plays Salvador Dali in the story of the friendships between him and filmmaker Luis Bunuel and writer Federico Garcia Lorca (with whom he has a relationship). I went to a screening a couple weeks ago, and while there is a lot of sexual tension, there wasn’t as much sex as Pattinson has been making it sound like. In an interview with GQ, he said:

“Here I am, with Javier [Beltran], who plays [Federico García] Lorca, doing an extremely hard-core sex scene, where I have a nervous breakdown afterward. And because we’re both straight, what we were doing seemed kind of ridiculous. ... And it wasn’t even a closed set. There were all these Spanish electricians giggling to themselves.”

Either Pattinson is trying to make more of the gay sex than there is for publicity’s sake, or I fell asleep during this part (I don’t recommend this movie, even to the Pattinson-obsessed). Click through to see other hot actors who have played gay early in their careers and gone on to, um, bigger things.

The guys at AskMen.com unveiled their list of the “49 Most Influential Men of 2008” and the results, voted on by their readers, may surprise you. Check out the full list and then, over the next two weeks, check out our picks for the “10 Most Influential Women of 2008”—The Frisky picked a female counterpart for each of the men in AskMen’s Top Ten. We hope you agree with our choices!

Something tells us her mom, Michelle Williams, would let her wear the dress everyday if she asked. [Brooklyn, NY, 10/16/08]

By now you’ve probably heard that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have asked Bono to be godfather to their twins Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline. And that Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Pete Wentz are considering John Mayer for godfather of their unborn child. I’ve never really thought about famous godparents probably because I’ve never really had a great relationship with my own godparents, except for my late Uncle Eddie. However, when this news broke, we at The Frisky decided to research other famous godparents and realized some of these relationships are really surprising.