The star of Heathers, Girl Interrupted and Black Swan – an actress who has been reductively if accurately described as “the poster girl for the 1990s” – has been telling me about “this weird thing I do if I have to get emotional in a film. It always works.” She doesn’t just want me to take her word for it; she wants me to try it. Which I do because this is Los Angeles and nobody would bat an eyelid if you were to assume the lotus pose in the middle of a bar and start chanting, “Om shanti, shanti.” But also, simply, because Ryder wants me do it.