Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: Catherine O’Hara Reveals How Re-Watching the Original Movie Informed the Sequel

It still pays to have cable TV, especially if you’re reprising a beloved role in the highly anticipated and you haven’t watched the original in ages. Okay, that’s a very specific example, but it’s exactly what happened to Catherine O’Hara before she began filming Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. 

While talking to ComicBook about the release of Tim Burton’s new sequel, O’Hara revealed that she hadn’t gotten around to revisiting the original, where she first played the character of Delia Deetz. As fate would have it, Beetlejuice came on TV one day and O’Hara just ended up watching the whole thing, and it informed her performance in the sequel in a big way.

“It happened to be on TV, like four or five days before I went to London to shoot. And I hadn’t watched it. I’ve been thinking about watching it, but I just hadn’t gotten it together and it came on TV, and I just stood there and watched it and I was reminded how quickly I spoke, which helped me because for several years I have been playing a very slow speaking, methodical speaker. It really helped me make a shift and not sound like any other character. So that really helped. And just watching it, you know, being reminded of what a great experience it was.”

O’Hara is one of three Beetlejuice stars making a return for the new sequel. Michael Keaton will once again be playing the titular evil spirit, while Winona Ryder is coming back to reprise the role of Lydia Deetz. The sequel also stars Wednesday‘s Jenna Ortega as Astrid Deetz, the daughter of Lydia and granddaughter of Delia. Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, and Danny DeVito round out the cast.

“Every moment of being there I was like very present. I made sure because I was, it’s like an absolute dream come true and you just want to really be present for every single, literally every single moment.” Ryder said of returning to . “And I mean, of all of the things that I’ve done, it’s really one of the most like special things to just be back with these people that meant the world to me. It kind of spoiled me as an actress and you know, were so inclusive when I was a kid.”

She continued, “Tim was, you know, we had such a great bond and that he was able to recreate that for even with all of the buzz or anticipation and you know, that it still felt like we were somehow like under, we were, again just like no studio presence like and that might be a testament to the great producers, but we just felt this like liberating, like inspiring in the moment like, oh let’s try this, just this freedom because I trust him so much. I know he’s not going to use anything that doesn’t work.”

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice hits theaters everywhere on September 6th.