Winona Ryder Would Only Star in Stranger Things on the Condition She Could Make Beetlejuice 2 if it Happened

Summary

• Winona Ryder’s return in
  Beetlejuice 2
  owes itself to an agreement with the Duffer Brothers to allow her to film the sequel if it ever happened.
• Ryder’s involvement in
  Beetlejuice 2
  marks her first time returning to play the same character again, providing a new challenge for the actress.
• The first trailer for
  Beetlejuice 2
  has already generated positive reactions, hinting at a potentially successful run at the box office.

Winona Ryder has revealed that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice could have prevented her from ever appearing in Stranger Things if the Duffer Brothers had not agreed to her one condition for playing Joyce Byers in the Netflix hit. As the most prolific star to appear in the first season of the fantasy horror series, Ryder became very much a part of the success of the show, but to get her on board, the Duffers had to accommodate one request.

As Ryder revealed in a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar, she only agreed to take on the role for Netflix on the understanding that if Tim Burton finally managed to get a Beetlejuice sequel off the ground, they would allow her the time to film it. It seems that it was something they were more than happy to do in order to get their big star name on board. She said:

“At the time, Tim and I were talking about the Beetlejuice sequel. There have been moments over the last 15 years that we thought it was gonna happen but, again, that’s a thing that it had to be perfect with everybody in order for it to happen. But I remember, in my first meeting with the Duffer brothers, I said, ‘As long as, if Beetlejuice 2 happens, you let me go do that,’ and they agreed. Luckily, it worked out. That was my one condition.”

Winona Ryder Returns As Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice 2

Although it seemed destined to be the one that got away for Tim Burton, somehow a Beetlejuice sequel has now manifested after more than 35 years, and thanks to the Duffers honoring their promise to Ryder some eight years after Stranger Things aired its first season, the actress is back in her old role of Lydia Deetz.

Along with fellow returnees Michael Keaton and Catherine O’Hara, Ryder’s presence in the movie’s trailer has already had many fans feeling a strong sense of nostalgia to return to the world of bio-exorcists and sandworms this September. However, there are several notable newcomers who will be joining them including the star of Burton’s Wednesday series, Jenna Ortega, Justin Theroux, Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, and a cameo appearance from Danny Devito.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice also marks something of a first for Ryder, as the first time she had returned to play the same character twice. In early press for the movie, she noted that she has “never revisited a character, ever!” In the decades that have passed since Lydia almost became the unwilling wife of Keaton’s “Ghost with the Most”, Ryder revealed that she had to really understand where here character was now to be able to get into the role again.

“I went through so many stages of, ‘Who is she now?’, but I always wanted to have it be Lydia. She can’t lose who she was. She can’t be the same person, she can’t be just completely deadpan, she has to have evolved, but she also has to have kept that thing she had when we first met her. So that was the big challenge for me.”

Initial reactions to the first trailer for the movie have been mostly positive, and when it arrives on September 6, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice could very well provide a financially lucrative coda to the summer box office.