- 6 months ago
The star-studded cast of ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’—Jenna Ortega, Michael Keaton, Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, and Justin Theroux—delves into the magic of bringing this cult classic back to life. Michael Keaton reflects on stepping back into his iconic role after 36 years, while the cast shares their first memories of the original ‘Beetlejuice’ film. They also discuss collaborating with top costume designers to capture the film's unique style and the thrill of filming in some of the original, hauntingly familiar locations. Don't miss this behind-the-scenes look at the highly anticipated return of the ghost with the most.
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00:00Are we really sitting around talking about worms?
00:03What a strange job. It's probably my favorite part.
00:06Because if you talk about any day that we had on the set, none of it is normal.
00:12Hey everyone, welcome to EW's Around the Table with Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.
00:22Does anyone remember, maybe Monica, what you felt or what you remember the most from the original movie?
00:29I was a big fan already. I really loved it because it was scary, shocking and funny and emotional at the same time.
00:39I mean, there are deep meanings in the film because it's about death, love.
00:45I was really touched by the movie. For me, it's a dream to be here with all of you.
00:50It actually is emotional, this movie. I wasn't ready for that. Truly.
00:55I thought, oh boy, this is really very sweet. More than I thought.
01:02I think it's also pretty special how, because Tim is naturally such a funny, humorous guy,
01:07I think he uses often times, he turns to these jokes while talking about these deeper meanings.
01:13But then that means they kind of hit you when you're not expecting them.
01:16It's just kind of been this underlying, growing, emotional story.
01:20And then he hits you with a really emotional beat between, you know, family members or, you know, parents or, you know, like a lot with the Maitlands in the original and things like that.
01:28And then you don't even have much time to dwell on that before you're on to the next.
01:32That was also the unique thing about the first one, which is I know in my brain it was like a big smash hit and it was a big movie,
01:40but it still felt, even when I saw it when I was young, that it was like sort of like something I found.
01:46You know, it was the first time I had seen sort of like the Winona character, you know, as this sort of emo teenager, which I guess I was, you know, feeling like slightly represented on screen.
01:56I was like, well, this is and I could relate to what she was going through and it still felt like a, you know, great old record that I found at a record shop as opposed to some sort of Hollywood movie that had been sort of, you know, concocted, forced on me.
02:09That's pretty cool.
02:10Yeah.
02:11I think everyone has that experience with it in a way.
02:13Yeah.
02:14Because on paper, the script is insane and none of it should have worked.
02:17But I think the team and story and the passion behind it, it turned into this kind of otherworldly sensation.
02:24But I mean, the plot doesn't make sense, nothing.
02:27But yet you still are able to resonate with it, which I think is really powerful.
02:30And I can't really compare it to any other film currently.
02:35Shake, shake, shake, Sonora, shake your body line.
02:39Shake, shake, shake, Sonora, shake it all the time.
02:44One thing I remember about seeing it is I really loved the jump in the line sequence.
02:50Yeah.
02:51You know, the Calypso, the Harry Belafonte stuff.
02:54Yeah.
02:55And that was close to my heart because, I mean, this is maybe a spin-off, but it is a real personal thing.
03:02And I had a theater company and we used those two songs in one of our theater pieces.
03:09Oh, wow.
03:10So I felt very close.
03:11I felt already close to Tim's aesthetic, having seen his other movies.
03:17But that always stayed with me, that there was some sort of connection there.
03:21Because that was not floating around because that music was popular, a good…
03:2650s.
03:27Yeah.
03:2860s.
03:29Early 60s.
03:3060s probably, huh?
03:31Yeah.
03:32He used to wear a shirt that came down.
03:34You know, there are times where he took nice stylistic leaps that people weren't taking
03:39in the movies.
03:40I mean, he really…
03:42It boggles my mind when you think about Tim's filmography.
03:45I mean, he's had such a profound effect on cinema because of his personal vision.
03:52And Beetlejuice was the beginning of it.
03:55And now we see, you know, son of Beetlejuice, daughter of Beetlejuice happening now.
04:01And you see how it's grown and yet it's stayed intact.
04:06Beetlejuice.
04:08Feel free to express yourselves.
04:11Don't be afraid.
04:12You're a figment of my imagination.
04:14Really?
04:15Is this a figment of your imagination?
04:17Tim and I had a deal where, you know, first of all, how do you do this again?
04:24It's not like we sat down on the first one and thought, okay, remember now, in the first
04:29act, this happens and then here's your character's arc and all that.
04:35You just kind of go, oh, this is going to be fun.
04:37This is going to be cool.
04:38And then it just kind of got created.
04:43I mean, up here he had a good bit of it created, I know, but then it took a life of its own.
04:49So those things don't come around often, like in anything really.
04:55But especially, you know, that's what makes, and I don't throw this word around loosely,
04:59that's what makes art really in a lot of cases, right?
05:02So I always think people didn't realize what was underneath them wanting to look at this
05:12stuff and hear this stuff and kind of live in this world that was so unlike anything that
05:19you could compare it to.
05:21And that's because you're watching this thing that's, I keep saying it was handmade.
05:26It was literally handmade.
05:28People misuse the word literally all the time.
05:30It was literally, many things were handmade, done by craftsmen and art departments, and as
05:36opposed to a lot of CGI.
05:38So I think that stuck with people.
05:42The best things that you often, that you love, you don't know why you love them.
05:47You just love them.
05:48And so there was this connection to it that people didn't even consciously think about.
05:53And so that was part of our deal that we try to do that again.
05:56In fact, not even try to do it again.
05:58It was an agreement.
05:59We have to do that again.
06:01Now, of course, even in the first one, there were a little CGI here and there.
06:04That's the only way that's going to make it work.
06:06So we made that agreement and we stuck to it.
06:09And I think you feel it more.
06:11The thing I'll say about this one, though, in a lot of ways, it's better.
06:15And at the end of the day, if somebody said, you have to pick one thing you've done,
06:21how I make my living, I probably would pick Beetlejuice for its all-encompassing thing,
06:27for just its art.
06:28You know what I mean?
06:29I've been in some pretty good movies, but this is something different.
06:34And so this one may be better because it's got a really actually stronger story.
06:39It's kind of just emotional.
06:41It's very sweet.
06:42The cast is stupid good.
06:44And the cast in the first one was great.
06:47But to remake something that you didn't even know might work the first time is really hard.
06:55The only thing I worried about was, should we have left it alone?
06:59You know?
07:00Should we have just said that?
07:01Don't touch it.
07:02Just walk away.
07:03Go make your other movies.
07:04You know?
07:05Which we did.
07:06And then I thought, okay.
07:07So for me, it was a big roll of the dice.
07:09I would say, you know, the movie itself looms so large just in sort of pop culture in your mind.
07:16And I think everyone has an emotional, it was, you know, the first reaction I had was sort of just gratitude.
07:23That it's like someone handing you a key to a door that you just get to walk in to this world that you never in a million years thought you were ever going to get to visit.
07:33And then just sort of play with these guys and do scenes with them.
07:37And the script was so good.
07:39And then, of course, it just gets amplified, you know, by 10, just by the talent that Tim assembled.
07:46And also just to sort of your point, that handmade quality, you know, there's really something thrilling when you get to see.
07:54I imagine when you made the first one, you know, it was probably a lot of string and bubble gum and, you know, and Tim is probably trying to impress on the people with the money that this is what I want it to look like.
08:04And one, there's no template for it. But this many years later, when clearly Tim has sort of a coterie of artisans and people that like that he's worked with and knows what that was really special to witness,
08:19because he's now sort of got this army of puppeteers and people that do claymation and makeup artists and costume designers.
08:27And to watch that, it's like watching someone sort of conduct a symphony with the best players in the business.
08:33And that's what I think makes this movie different, but also special to the first, which is it's almost like sort of a peak of his powers moment, you know, and it's the same tone and it's made with the same heart.
08:46But it's sort of aged in this wonderful way where everyone's kind of and I would say even as actors, you know, evolved to, you know, there's just something there's an undertone or a thread to it that just feels like it was made with such love and an appreciation.
09:01And it wasn't it didn't feel like it felt like it.
09:06And yes, big sets. Yes, crazy detail. Yes, crazy. But it was it felt very independent, you know, just because the spirit with which the actors came together was really in sync, which is not often the case.
09:20And then the person shepherding it felt really just sort of in command. And that's a great feeling. And then when you just have fun, you know, it just it's such a privilege to be able to work with puppets and not a tennis ball.
09:32And I feel like so much of this film because it's it's so spontaneous and so erratic.
09:38I think that it's very easy to, you know, do a film that's maybe heavily CGI and be a little bit confused about where you stand and where you but I think part of the reason why we were on the same page is because we were dealing with things that were real.
09:48And I think another reason why this movie works so well is because it's a magic trick.
09:52It's like when someone makes cards disappear in front of your hands.
09:55I think that's why it feels indie, because you're not watching somebody who spent hours at a computer working on something.
10:01You're what you just witnessed something unbelievable that shouldn't work. And it's just a trick on the eye.
10:05You know, I think that that's why, like, that's what audiences need and want and what we're not really getting from movies nowadays.
10:11So I think that that's part of the reason why this is so interesting.
10:14Also to that point of the, you know, the uber technology next to the handmade stuff, I think there's a level of imperfection and personality when stuff is handmade.
10:25Just like, you know, the thing that I always think about is how hard it is to write a love letter on a computer rather than longhand.
10:34Now, when you write longhand, and if you write it with a fountain pen, you may have some blotches of ink or whatever.
10:42Some of your handwriting may not be good, but it lives in a different way. It breathes in a different way.
10:47So when you're working with that kind of approach, it's just a little more joyous and a little less canned.
10:57You know, it lives in a different way.
10:59And freeing, really. It's actually freeing.
11:01Well, it is what it is, you know, and you can slipstream it. You can ride, you know, everything that's there.
11:10It doesn't feel like it happened before without you, and it's not going to happen after without you.
11:16You're there with it. And what happens, what happens. It has a kind of truth to it.
11:22Which is funny to talk about with a highly stylized kind of fantasy, you know, some elements of horror and all that.
11:31But it's really true. That kind of rootedness is sometimes hard to achieve when you're tempted by using technology that we have available.
11:41It's still tangible.
11:42See, when you have a green screen in front of you, you have just your fantasy to work with.
11:48But when you have a real object, a real monster, for example, of course, you can go farther with your creativity.
11:55Yeah.
11:56Yeah, for sure.
11:57And it's easier for us.
12:00I remember Winona and I were shooting with sandworms.
12:03It was really wonderful and Tim's really great because he always shows references and images or drawings or things that he has in mind.
12:08So he showed me some of his sketches of the sandworms and we also saw images of what they wanted for the worms.
12:14And then we shot, you know, with a huge wind fans blowing each way to let us know when the worm was coming and when it was going or little pockets of sand popping up out of the ground as we were running.
12:26So we knew that they were.
12:27And that is something that it was weird.
12:29It definitely made it feel more real, which is strange talking about clay worms.
12:34But it really did feel like they were after you with the way that everything was the ground was shaking and things were moving.
12:40I remember one time we were rehearsing outside of Winter River, which the way that we built it on the same hill, same town, same house, same measurements, everything.
12:48They had all the old notes from the original.
12:51And it was strange because we would be shooting and people who lived in that town in Vermont were coming over with books signed by Tim 30 years ago or photos of the original Beetlejuice.
13:01Like, oh, we were here when they first came back and they had a little cinema and they were screening it all week.
13:06And it was so funny to, you know, be back in that world and see everything again.
13:10It felt like you were in the model shooting, which again, it's if I I would call my mom and my mom would try to talk to me about the day or talk to me and I would describe something to her and she would just be so excited.
13:21I try not to give anything away to her because I want to make sure.
13:24If I told her, yeah, we all were with Catherine Winona shooting at the original house, walking into the attic for the first time, it almost there's like an emotion that overcomes you.
13:36That was actually what happened when I first met Michael.
13:38We hadn't met in life, you know, as you do.
13:42And I was on set and I was like, oh, when's he coming?
13:46Because I'd really like to meet him just to say hello.
13:48And you had just gone through the works and gotten the full thing for like, I think the second time or something.
13:53When I knocked on your trailer and opened, you know, yeah.
13:56And you threw the door open and you were standing there in full and it was just Beetlejuice.
14:00It wasn't Michael. You know, I was just you were Beetlejuice.
14:02And I was like, this is a perfect way to sort of meet you and sort of, you know.
14:06But it was just fabulous because immediately snapped into the world.
14:10I don't think I even saw it.
14:11It's so interesting listening to everybody, what the experience is because you step into a thing that I'm thinking, yeah.
14:19I hate to sound like, oh, yeah, I know what this world is because it's so different from everything else.
14:26It's never like another movie.
14:27But it's fun to listen to all these guys kind of go, yeah, you know, and then this happened.
14:33And then, you know, or their take on how it felt to be in the thing.
14:37You know, I mean, it still felt like that to me because how many years ago was it?
14:41But I love hearing this because I know exactly what they're talking about.
14:45But you have to understand there was no, it didn't exist.
14:49So we were rolling big dice, you know, going, going, we were out there.
14:54And then you go, okay, now it's, you've seen it.
14:58It's a thing.
14:59Now these guys have to step into it.
15:03We'll see you next time.
15:04Bye.
15:05Bye.
15:06Bye.
15:07Bye.
15:08Bye.
15:09Bye.
15:10Bye.
15:11Bye.
15:12Bye.
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