Watch Winona Ryder Reminisce About Babysitting Tom Waits’ Kids

Stranger Things star Winona Ryder visited Jimmy Kimmel Live Thursday to discuss the just-renewed Netflix hit series as well as some of her pre-acting jobs. Considering Ryder’s film debut came when she was 15, the actress never really had a 9-to-5, she said. She dabbled in “professional bystander,” but she did have one interesting tale about unknowingly babysitting Tom Waits’ kids.

“When I was about 14, I went with my friend to babysit these kids and I didn’t know whose kids they were. And they were wonderful, they were little. And in walks Tom Waits, who is like my hero. They were Tom Waits’ kids,” Ryder said. “I remember he was doing a play at the time and he didn’t have the 20 bucks and so he gave me a T-shirt from Franks Wild Years … and I was thrilled, and literally I couldn’t speak.”

Waits’ Franks Wild Years was released in 1987, the year before Ryder’s acting career took off thanks to her role in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. Four years later, the Swordfishtrombones singer and his one-time babysitter reunited on set after both appearing in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 horror film Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Also on Kimmel, Ryder talked about the instant cult classic Stranger Things: