Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: New Look at Willem Dafoe’s Character Debuts

Willem Dafoe is going from Green Goblin to ghost copper.

The Spider-Man star plays undead detective Wolf Jackson in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel to the 1988 original. In life, Jackson was a B-movie action star best known for playing a movie cop character named Frank Hardballer; in death, Dafoe’s character takes method acting to the next level — and the Neitherworld — as the head of the Afterlife Crimes Unit. When so-called bio-exorcist Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) is once again unleashed in the realm of the living by Lydia’s (Winona Ryder) daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), Jackson’s next role is to track down the trickster demon.

“It’s not anormal role,” Dafoe told Empire Magazine, which revealed a new look at the character, below, exposed brains and all. “The most important thing for me was to findthe tone. It had to be rooted but it also had to be free enough thatyou could play with it.” In playing off Keaton’s Betelgeuse, also pictured in Jackson’s office, Dafoe said, “I takemy cue off of him. You take your cue off of the world.”

Dafoe first revealed details about the ACU cop last November, telling Variety that his role as an ill-fated action star was “fun to do.”

“I play a policeofficer in the afterlife, so I’m a dead person. And in life I was aB-movie action star, but I had an accident and that’s what sent me tothe other side,” Dafoe explained. “But because of my skills, I became a detective characterin the afterlife. So that’s my job. But it’s colored by the fact of whoI was [when I was alive]: a B-movie action star.”

Alongside Keaton and Dafoe, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sees the return of Ryder as Lydia and Catherine O’Hara as her mother, the newly-widowed Delia Deetz. Justin Theroux is new to the cast as Rory, Lydia’s manager and fiancé, with Monica Bellucci entering the afterlife as Betelgeuse’s patched-together wife (whose severed finger made a “cameo” in the original Beetlejuice). Danny DeVito, who appeared in Burton’s Batman Returns and Dumbo, will also appear (in zombiefied form) as an as-yet-unnamed new character. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens only in theaters September 6 from Warner Bros. Pictures.