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While we don’t yet know the full plot of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, we are very familiar with several of its main players, thanks to the enduring popularity of the 1988 original. In the decades since its release, Winona Ryder had formulated an idea of where her character—teenage goth icon, ghost whisperer, and Harry Belafonte fan Lydia Deetz—ended up. But when Tim Burton approached her with the sequel, she was surprised to find their imaginations didn’t take the same path.
“I would hope there’s that thing of wanting to keep the essence of the first one, but then imagine this whole life that’s happened,” Ryder told Entertainment Weekly in a new interview. “I never thought about Lydia ever being a mom. I thought she would just be this spinster by choice in that attic, but I think that’s where the incredible Jenna Ortega comes in. She answered a ton of those questions, and it felt so right.”
Wednesday star Ortega plays Lydia’s daughter, Astrid; another new Beetlejuice Beetlejuice character, played by Justin Theroux, is Rory—Lydia’s boyfriend and a TV producer who’s presumably behind her hosting a paranormal-themed show called Ghost House. From the trailers and images we’ve seen of the sequel so far, it’s clear that while Lydia has found her way into certain aspects of adulthood (being a mom, having a career), she’s still holding onto her signature horror-core fashions, as well as those unmistakable spiky bangs.
Even beyond just Lydia, Ryder told the magazine that Burton has been continuously fascinated with the Beetlejuice characters, in a sort of “where are they now?” kind of way. “I just remember every year or two, we’d get together,” she said to EW. “And, you know, he’d pace around and be like, ‘This isn’t like a sequel. It’s just like things happen in life, and I really want to know what’s going on with them now.”
Catherine O’Hara, who returns as Lydia’s stepmother Delia Deetz, had a similar take: “A little girl like that in that first Beetlejuice movie, you wonder, where do they go in life? What mistakes do they make? What do they do? Where are the relationships? He was very fascinated by that and family and the connection of the three women.”
The rest of the cast includes, of course, Michael Keaton as the title bio-exorcist, as well as Willem Dafoe as a cop in the afterlife, and Monica Bellucci as Beetlejuice’s ex-wife, Delores.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice hits theaters September 6.
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