Director Francis Ford Coppola has confirmed that Jewish actress Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves may be officially recognised as married, by the Greek Orthodox Church.

In the 1992 fil Bram Stoker’s Dracula, starring Ryder and Reeves, Coppola endorsed the notion that the wedding scene could be legally binding.   

After the film had ended, Coppola claimed he was unhappy with the stylised version of the wedding scene and instead realised that a “real wedding ceremony as it might be in that religion would be beautiful”.

He thus filmed a ceremony in a Greek Orthodox church in Los Angeles with a real priest.

“This is pretty authentic and I think very beautiful, because we actually did the ceremony and had the priest do the ceremony.,” Coppola said. “So in a sense, when we were all done, we realised that Keanu and Winona really are married as a result of this scene and this ceremony.”

Ryder, who was born Winona Laura Horowitz and identifies as Jewish, told Entertainment Weekly:

“We actually got married in Dracula. No, I swear to God, I think we’re married in real life. In that scene, Francis [Ford Coppola] used a real Romanian priest. We shot the master and he did the whole thing. So I think we’re married.”

Ryder’s latest film with Reeves is a rom-com called Destination Wedding. It is their fourth film together. Their other films include Dracula, A Scanner Darkly and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.