Winona Ryder Had A Beetlejuice-Related Condition When Signing On For Stranger Things Ten Years Ago
If you can believe it, the hauntingly nostalgic theme of Stranger Things has been humming through our TV sets for almost a decade! Ahead of Stranger Things Season 5 concluding the long-running Netflix phenomenon, Winona Ryder has shared a wild Beetlejuice condition she gave the Duffer Brothers when she signed on way back when.
Winona Ryder recently reflected to Harper’s Bazaar on how her role in Stranger Things began. In her words:
Joyce Byers. She is a character that I'm literally on my 10th year playing her. [It's] an absolute first for me to play a character for that long. It was huge to say yes to like one episode. They only gave me the pilot episode. I didn't, at the time, know what streaming was. It was terrifying in that regard.
Stranger Things would go on to premiere for those with a Netflix subscription on July 15, 2016 with Ryder playing the mother to Will Byers, who gets stuck in the Upside Down. For nearly a decade the actress has been a key character in the science fiction series.
Prior to Ryder reuniting with the Stranger Things cast for Season 5, she had the chance to have a highly-anticipated reunion by shooting Beetlejuice Beetlejuice with Tim Burton alongside some of her castmates like Michael Keaton and Catherine O’Hara. As Ryder continued:
At the time, Tim [Burton] and I were talking about the Beetlejuice sequel. And there have been moments over the last like 15 years that we thought it was going to happen but, again that's a thing like it had to be perfect with everybody in order for it to happen. But I remember at my first meeting with the Duffer Brothers, I said, 'As long as, if Beetlejuice 2 happens, you'll let me go do that.' And they agreed. Luckily it worked out that was my one condition.
That’s right! Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has been on the brain of Tim Burton and the cast for a very long time. In fact, scripts for a sequel were first commissioned back in the nineties. However, Keaton and Burton soon became consumed by making Batman movies instead and those ideas fell to the wayside. For years and years to come, the Beetlejuice sequel was placed in and out of development until it finally was made and wrapped production back in November.
Michael Keaton and Tim Burton recently spoke to the three decade process of bringing back Beetlejuice. Keaton shared that over the years the pair would “kind of kick the notion around” but the timing wasn’t really right until it was… 35 years later! It certainly sounds like Keaton is happy with the final product, saying that “it’s really fucking good” a few months back to CinemaCon. Check out the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice trailer below:
Lydia Deetz is back, and she even introduces the trailer. In the upcoming movie, Lydia now has a teen daughter named Astrid (played by Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega) along with a husband named Rory (played by The Leftovers’ Justin Theroux). In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the Deetz family returns to the location of the first movie after a family death. However, when Astrid repeats history to some extent by opening a portal to the Afterlife, Keaton’s Betelgeuse gets to say hello to his former bride.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set to hit theaters on September 6.
