Jenna Ortega Thought She Was ‘Disassociating’ Seeing Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice: ‘I Had to Stare at My Hands’

Harrison Richlin
·3 min read
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Jenna Ortega has some experience with the surreality that comes from being a part of a Tim Burton project. Leading the Netflix series “Wednesday,” Ortega got a crash course in Burton’s one-of-a-kind approach to storytelling and the unreal worlds he drops his players into, but she was truly put to the test on the set of his latest feature, the upcoming legacy sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Speaking with Fandango for a recent interview, Ortega explained how a Burton set, in particular this one, which had so much history on it, often breeds a sense of community, and how her first experience seeing Michael Keaton in hair and makeup as Beetlejuice set the tone for the rest of the shoot.

“It was actually quite intimidating, because I’ve been saying that it was the first time that I felt like I really didn’t recognize somebody,” Ortega said, “and I think also it was strange because [his] hair and makeup, everything, [he] looked the exact same, so it was really confusing mentally to be in that place. I felt like I was dissociating and I had to stare at my hands to make sure I was like an actual person.”

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Though Keaton may have thrown her off her feet, Ortega said, in general, working with everyone was a delight. Referencing the stop-motion sandworms from the original film who return for this one, Ortega jokingly said, “That was a dream, to work with the sandworms, I mean they’re such sweet guys and I love them all to bits.”

They’re not the only ones apparently as Ortega was quick to gush over her co-star Winona Ryder, who played Lydia in the original and plays mother to Ortega’s character Astrid in the sequel. She told Fandango that it was really Ryder who made her feel like part of this family that had been formed during the original 1988 production.

“Obviously joining a sequel to something and it being so long since the original, I think I just wanted to put my head down and do the work and show up and be respectful and read my little book book off to the side,” said Ortega, “but I think Winona was so warm and so welcoming, as was Catherine [O’Hara], as was everybody else, that you almost didn’t have a choice but to become a part of the family, which I’m so grateful for because I think that in shooting and working together and Tim’s playful spirit, I felt like everything that we were doing felt like we were all in on the same joke or on the same page or had the same ideas. It just felt like a free and collaborative space, but Winona and I — I swear we just started talking one day on set and then never stopped. You could find us in the same position four hours later never having moved. She’s the best.”

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” premieres at the Venice Film Festival at the end of this month and will be in theaters on Friday, September 6.

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