Winona Ryder is right at home playing a character from the 1980s in hit series Stranger Things – because she admits to being clueless about modern technology.

The Heathers star is back in the spotlight with a starring role in the Netflix sci-fi show, where she plays the mum of an abducted boy in a town that finds itself in the clutches of an other-worldly mystery.

In an interview alongside young co-star Millie Bobby Brown, who plays a girl called Eleven who is on the run from a top-secret scientific experiment prison, Winona revealed she was lagging behind when it came to anything tech-related.

Millie Bobby Brown plays Eleven in Stranger Things (Netflix)

She told Variety that the reaction to Stranger Things “has been overwhelming but in a really great way. I was actually sort of suspicious at first. I’d never experienced anything like it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in something that was getting so much attention. And back then it was a different kind of attention. We’d stay up all night and wait for the three papers, and have someone read them first, like, ‘Is it OK?’”

The actress, 44, added that she wasn’t on social media so had been relying on her cast mates to show her any reaction from fans.

Co-star Millie, 12, said: “She thought Snapchat was chips,” while Winona explained: “Because in Heathers we had the Snappy Snack Shack. It was the 7-Eleven place. I thought it had something to do with food.”

Millie went on: “IMDb is crazy. Winona’s number five.” The older star admitted: “I didn’t know about the numbers,” as Millie explained: “It’s basically like who’s most searched on IMDb.”

Winona Ryder in character for Stranger Things (Netflix)

However, the tables were turned when it came to using the dial telephone on set in Winona’s character’s house.

She said: “The dialling – they only used like three numbers because it takes forever with the rotary phone. I was like, ‘You guys, it’s long distance. It has to be 10 numbers.’ To me that was a big thing in that time. It was a character-builder. Now you can construct a perfect text. Back then you’d be like, ‘OK, what am I going to say?’ I remember the first time I called a boy, it was like, okay, you got that time it took to dial to figure out what to say.”

Millie said: “I had no idea what that phone was.”