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    • New Cast of ‘Beetlejuice’ Loved Rewatching Tim Burton’s Original
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    New Cast of ‘Beetlejuice’ Loved Rewatching Tim Burton’s Original

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    NEW YORK – Michael Keaton doesn’t like to think too much. But he does have a theory to share about his new “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” costar Jenna Ortega.

    For decades, he and director Tim Burton have been hatching a sequel to their beloved 1980s horror comedy “Beetlejuice.” Nothing felt right until Burton teamed up with Ortega for the 2022 Netflix series “Wednesday.”

    “She literally didn’t exist” in 1988, Keaton Burton recalled during a group meeting at the posh Essex House. “She’s born, you do something with her. Then you think, wait a minute. Her? It? If she’s not there, we might never make this.”

    “We had to wait until you were alive,” Catherine O’Hara says, causing Ortega, 21, to smile. “The powers have shifted in the room,” she jokes.

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    When the “Beetlejuice” think tank gathers to discuss the long-awaited sequel (in theaters Friday), it’s both a fun hangout and a therapy session. For example, Keaton reveals that he went to Burton’s show at the Museum of Modern Art incognito and nearly fell into a few precious pieces: “I was so afraid I was going to break something.” And Burton digs into his connection to Winona Ryder’s character Lydia Deetz and her journey “from cool teen to troubled adult. It made the whole movie very personal and very important and emotional,” the director says.

    The secret sauce in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” isn’t the return of Keaton’s villainous eponymous imposter, but instead three generations of Deetz women. A death in the family reunites Lydia with her estranged daughter Astrid (Ortega) and eccentric stepmother Delia (O’Hara). Sure, she’s got a return date with Beetlejuice while the Afterlife shenanigans ensue, but Lydia must also rediscover the confident goth girl she once was to best connect with Astrid.

    “I couldn’t have made this film in 1989,” says Burton, 66. “You don’t know that real life experience until after the twists and turns you take and the emotional baggage we all collect.”

    Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega Form Bond as ‘Beetlejuice’ Mother and Daughter

    Ryder, 52, was struck by her fond memories of the attic set from the first film that returns in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” “I just love it there. I always imagined Lydia living in the attic and being a happy old maid,” the actress says. Lydia is a fairly new concept to motherhood: In a 2022 interview with USA TODAY promoting “Stranger Things,” Ryder reflected that children “would be the last thing she would want.”

    That’s true for Ortega even now. “The whole thing with Lydia and Astrid is that they don’t really click,” she says. And when Ryder thought about what happened to Lydia, “I didn’t imagine her being pregnant or even in love. But it was just magic when I met Jenna.”

    Ryder recalls a “sweet” moment between Lydia and Astrid in the attic, which then changes to the mother yelling at her daughter: “I don’t have kids, so I thought, ‘That feels like too much,’ and (Burton) said, ‘Trust me.'”

    “You were light on her,” says Burton. Ryder admits, “I never thought you’d have kids,” and the father of two sober kids: “No, I didn’t either. In fact, the tests haven’t been done yet.”

    Michael Keaton is the ‘original Ken’ and forever Beetlejuice

    All this talk of emotional growth leads Keaton, 73, to talk about his character. “I think Beetlejuice has matured a lot of“, he jokes.

    He hasn’t really evolved, he’s still dropping his guts — intestines on the floor and all — for cheap scares and relying on chicanery to get back at Lydia. When we were making the first film, “we were always reluctant to show too much,” says Burton. “He’s an eccentric character who has to stay that way. You don’t want to know him.”

    O’Hara sees “a vulnerability that wasn’t there before,” thanks to Beetlejuice’s resurrected, vengeful wife Delores (Monica Bellucci), who wants to make him even deadlier than he already is. The idea that Beetlejuice has an ex-wife “makes me laugh,” he says, in the same way that “the phone dropped out of my hand” when Pixar called him to voice Ken in “Toy Story 3.” (Because of the “Barbie” movie, Keaton now wants to have a T-shirt made that says “The Original Ken.”)

    As a newcomer starring alongside Keaton in full ‘Juice mode and other colorful Afterlife denizens, “my job was made very easy,” Ortega says. “It’s hard not to step out into the world when you’ve got people with mold on their teeth and a guy who’s stuck in a box full of water trying to give you a key the entire shot.” She also got a sense of the undying love for “Beetlejuice” while filming in the same Vermont town where Burton shot the first film: “I had people coming up to me and showing me photo albums with Tim’s autograph in them.”

    Tim Burton’s ‘Beetlejuice’ sequel stokes nostalgia

    “Beetlejuice” never really left the public consciousness — a popular cartoon series and a Tony-nominated Broadway show helped, of course — but O’Hara, 70, sees a strong nostalgia factor. Fans whose parents introduced them to the film as children are now at the age “where you look back on those moments in your life and think back fondly,” she says.

    Keaton believes the original film’s strange nature is a major part of its endearing charm.

    “When you think about what it is, it’s so (expletive) crazy, but beautiful and crazy (with) the sensibilities and the things you’re talking about, like death and darkness and sandworms,” ​​Keaton says. “That average guy from Minnesota or Kansas goes, ‘Oh yeah, I love Beetlejuice.’ You get certain movies — of course people are going to respond to that movie. This movie, people love it so much — what are we really tapping into?

    “Besides, I don’t really analyze this stuff,” Keaton adds with a laugh. “There’s just nothing you can compare it to. Ever.”

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