Does Michael Keaton Think Beetlejuice Is a Villain?

After 36 years of development and various false starts and stops – including the time spent on a version that took place in Hawaii (!) – Beetlejuice is finally back on the big screen in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, as director Tim Burton reunites with stars Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara. In the new film, an adult Lydia Deetz (Ryder) must travel back home after a death in the family, leading to an unwanted reunion with everyone’s favorite bio-exorcist. Yet even as he returns to theaters, Beetlejuice has never really been gone. In fact, he’s become a pop-culture mainstay through the years, complete with an animated series, a Broadway musical, Universal Studios theme park appearances and a ton of never-ending Hot Topic-ready merch.

He’s the Ghost With the Most and he’s usually up to no good, to say the least, but should we describe Beetlejuice as an outright villain? Whether in a collection of horror-themed jerseys or at a horror movie exhibit, you’ll sometimes see Beetlejuice grouped alongside onscreen mutilators like Freddy, Jason, Chucky and Michael. But does he truly fit in there? IGN asked the cast of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice if their title character was a villain or not, and we got some varied responses.

Beetlejuice: Selfish… and Sexy?

The man behind the makeup, Michael Keaton, pondered the question of whether Beetlejuice is a villain and replied, “He is kind of, I guess. Yeah, I guess he functions as a villain.” However, Keaton added, “But then he'll kind of come through for you, you know – if you pay him enough or something. He has no scruples!”

Justin Theroux, who plays Lydia’s love interest, Rory, observed, “Yes, I would describe him as a villain, but he's one of those villains that you love. I mean, he's certainly not the Joker or anything like that… I think he's just a narcissist, and he's sort of just the embodiment of ego, and he doesn't follow the normal course for a villain. You don't need him to be redeemed.”

Speaking to a group of press at the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice junket, Tim Burton was asked about the decision to not soften Beetlejuice as a character, despite his popularity, and the director replied, “Michael and I both love the fact that he was politically incorrect then, and he's politically incorrect now.” Burton recalled he and Keaton recently being asked how Beetlejuice has evolved, saying, “We just start laughing, because he doesn't!”

Keaton chuckled that when it came to getting back into the extremes of playing Beetlejuice after 36 years, “Tim said he kind of was freaked out that it just came back so easily. And I'm kind of freaked out that it came back so easily too!”

Lydia’s onscreen daughter, Jenna Ortega (Astrid Deetz) had more direct praise for Beetlejuice, remarking, “I actually think he's a really sweet guy” and adding “There’s something nice about a confident person like that who takes control of the room.”

Catherine O’Hara (Delia Deetz), also back from the first film, firmly declared Beetlejuice wasn’t a villain, while admitting, “He might be a little selfish, self-serving… But aren't we all? [He has] ridiculous self-confidence. Unearned, but somehow charming and sexy.”

Hearing Beetlejuice described as sexy might be surprising, but it seems that feeling is shared by others among the cast, with Winona Ryder not only firmly replying “No!” on the villain question, but adding that when it came to Beetlejuice and Lydia, “In fact, I always secretly wanted them to end up together. I actually love their relationship.”

In the sequel, Beetlejuice is clearly still very hung up on Lydia all these years later, but, let’s face it, there is a rather problematic aspect to this, given how young Lydia (and Ryder herself) was in the first film, even while Beetlejuice tried to marry her. Ryder acknowledged this, adding, “I mean, look, I get it… In the first one, I was 15.”

Keaton said that when it comes to their characters, he and Ryder share “a theory that deeply, inside, we're gonna get married someday.” But as to what makes Beetlejuice so fixated on Lydia, he said, “I don't want to think about it. You enter the world of creepy… I don't know, the story works, let's just keep moving along!”

A Gateway to Horror?

Beetlejuice may be a horror-comedy, but thanks to Tim Burton’s invitingly outlandish and cartoonish visual approach, there have always been many kids who’ve loved the character and its macabre world, despite characters pulling off their faces or their heads, or being split in two. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice does push things a bit more, getting slightly darker and more graphic with its imagery, while still maintaining the same overall vibe (and PG-13 rating). So do these films make for good gateway or entry-level horror for aspiring young horror fans?

Michael Keaton was a bit conflicted on the subject, replying, “I hope not. I mean, some of it, I think, Jesus, you know, it's too much for certain ages, I think. But don't go by me, because some little kids see it at five, six, and they love it, you know, just love it. They roll with it, no big deal. I'm always shocked at that!”

Monica Bellucci, who plays Beetlejuice’s one-time lover turned equally dead enemy, Delores, remarked, “A family, they can go together, because different generations are represented. And even this one, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, maybe it goes farther with visuals and maybe it's a bit more scary, but at the same time, the film is unpredictable. It's funny, it's full of emotion.”

Ortega, perhaps reflecting her own love for darker material, remarked, “Yeah, I think they could be the gateway. Especially this one, because it's definitely grosser.” When O’Hara joked that they didn’t want to scare parents from taking their kids, Ortega added, “Kids will love it, though! They'll feel mature.”

Regarding the appeal of Beetlejuice, O’Hara added, “Both movies have these dark moments, but then you're laughing right after – which happens in a lot of horror movies, but this is consistently like this throughout.” And as Ortega noted, “The whole concept is death. Like in the original one, the lead characters, they die within the first five minutes.”

Replied O’Hara, “And what's wrong with that? We are all going to, God bless us.”

IGN asked Burton if, when making a film like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, he tried to keep in mind how much younger audiences can handle. “Yes and no,” he replied. “My whole career, people said, ‘Oh, this is too scary’ – like Nightmare [Before Christmas]. ‘Kids can't handle it…’ I know how I always felt and I grew up myself watching monster movies. I always believe everybody, adults and kids, are different. Some kids can watch this stuff, some kids can't. You could, I could, others can't. My daughter can't. The point is, I never felt like I know exactly, but I just know myself, and I knew how I felt as a child and all that sort of thing. So I always feel parents get more worried about their kids and kids can handle more than the parents think they can handle. So that's always been my approach.”

It’s Showtime!

If you asked people to pick their favorite moment from the original Beetlejuice, many would name the iconic scene where a dinner party at the Deetzes takes a turn for the wild and hilarious when everyone is possessed and forced to lip-sync and dance to Harry Belafonte’s rendition of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song).” Beetlejuice Beetlejuice offers a big follow-up to this sequence, though with a decidedly different type of song. And there’s one other key difference this time, since Beetlejuice is actually involved in the musical sequence, given the beloved character actually wasn’t part of “Day-O” – something Keaton was excited to finally make up for.

Keaton recalled his amazement when he first watched the “Day-O” scene, remarking, “If somebody said pick a scene that kind of says everything about the whole world that Tim created, I would say that one. It just knocked everybody out. It knocked me totally out. I'm not in it, I didn't know they shot it, and when I saw it the first time, I thought, ‘This is just truly brilliant.’ So yeah, when I got to be able to participate [this time], I was real excited.”

We’ll avoid naming the 1968 song choice Burton made for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice for those who want to wait to discover it in the movie, but it was one that surprised the cast – and, in some cases, was a song that meant they had to overcome their own personal tastes.

Said Theroux, with a chuckle, “I don't know, me and Jenna were laughing about it, because we find it such a terrible song, like the lyrics are so over the top. But somehow, Tim makes these things work. It somehow works and it makes us laugh.”

Asked how he landed on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’s song, Burton replied, “I have my own bizarre playlist,” before revealing, “It wasn't in the script or anything. It's just something that I felt. I don't know, it just fit the spirit of it.”

Burton noted that, in general, he was excited by returning to the loose, improvised feel of a Beetlejuice movie for the sequel, explaining, “We didn't really worry about the script or the studio or anybody. We just went and did it, which was something [where] it kind of re-energized the fact of why you like making movies. It's the unknown. It's not something that is set in stone… We think about it, but then we just don't worry about it, we just do it. And it was quite liberating.”

Once more, as with “Day-O,” Delia Deetz is forced to dance to a song in this new sequence, this time alongside Astrid, and, matching the film’s improvisational approach, Catherine O’Hara and Jenna Ortega ended up hastily coming up with their own choreography – something Ortega said occurred during “just a huddle backstage when we had, like, 15 minutes.”

O’Hara laughed about their spontaneous decisions, saying, “Jenna and I worked out some beautiful moves together, I think,” while noting David Byrne’s memorable dances in old Talking Heads music videos were one inspiration. Ortega said she also loved a move that can be glimpsed in the trailer that she described as “the random lyrical hands – just mirroring each other.”

Home Sweet Home

When it came to finally making a Beetlejuice sequel after all this time, Burton said, “It's been asked from the very beginning, but nothing clicked. And truly, it couldn't happen until now.” Burton explained what the key was for him: “I just pulled the noise away, and I just go, ‘Okay, I love the Lydia character.’ That was a character that I connected with – the kind of teenager I remember feeling like. So you go, ‘Well, what happened to this person 35 years later?’ You know, it's a bit like [the documentary] 35 Up. The weird thing where you go from cool teenager to some kind of fucked-up adult. What relationships do you have when you have kids? What are they?”

Ryder agreed the long wait was not just worth it, but necessary, remarking, “Everything had to align perfectly. And I think, in a weird way, like we were waiting for Jenna to be born and grow up, because she’s such an essential, brilliant piece of this.”

Burton, reuniting with Ortega in the midst of their work on Netflix’s Wednesday, shared Ryder’s praise, saying Ortega was “Our entrance into this. She's kind of the anchor of the film. It's actually really a story about her, if you really want to boil it down, and her mother, and so she's a really beautiful addition.”

Burton noted that when it came to finding this correct version of a Beetlejuice sequel, “It’s not something I could have done back then. It's only something you could do once you experience those things yourself. And so for me, this became a very personal movie, like a kind of a weird family movie. That became the emotional hook, with three generations of mother, daughter, granddaughter – life, death, you know, just basic, normal things that we all experience. And then, especially if you're lucky enough to get older a little bit, you kind of feel those things. So that's where it really started. And it really could only have happened for me after all this time.”

Ryder has incredibly positive memories of making the original Beetlejuice at a young age, which helped make coming back for the sequel decades later something truly special.

“My love for Beetlejuice… I absolutely love Michael so much,” she said. “And he really spoiled me. I really had such an incredible experience working with him on the first one. And I was like, ‘Oh, wow, this is what actors are.’ Everyone was so inclusive, which is unusual for a 15-year-old. You usually sort of stand there [in the back]… And it was such a beautiful experience. And then to come back was, it was literally like what you daydream about, like, ‘What if I could have anything in the world?’ You know what I mean? And [then] it actually happens! I still kind of pinch myself. It was actually quite emotional.”