Winona Ryder almost lost out on her breakout role in the 1988 teen comedy Heathers because film bosses feared she wasn’t “pretty enough.”

The actress underwent a dramatic makeover to convince the film’s producers that she was perfect to star as Veronica, a high school girl desperate to be accepted a beautiful group of baddies run by four girls named Heather.

“That was such as special movie for me, and still is,” Winona reveals in the new issue of Empire Magazine. “It was the first time I really went after a role. I’d really only done character roles up to that point, I’d never played a pretty girl. And they didn’t want me because they didn’t think I was pretty enough.

“So I went and had my hair and make-up done at some expensive salon because I was determined to show them. I told them in a meeting that they didn’t even have to pay me!”

Winona also revealed there will be a sequel to the popular movie, which also starred Christian Slater and Shannen Doherty.

“Whatever you hear, there is a sequel in the works. I swear to God. But for some reason the writer Dan Waters and director Michael Lehman don’t want to talk about it. I’ve been wanting to do a sequel forever. There is a story, and Christian has agreed to come back as a kind of Obi-Wan character.”

In March, it was revealed that Heathers: The Musical will open in L.A. in 2010.