Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, & Justin Theroux Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Interview Compilation

Radio Times Monica your entrance in this film is one of the best definitely one of the most distinctive entrances I can think of in a film certainly recently how did you react when Tim first told you this was going to be your opening scene and what was that like too well he showed me some drawings and situations so I said oh my God this is going to be crazy but actually I said yes without reading the script because I was so confident and uh and I'm so so happy that I had the chance to be part of this amazing project and to play this character because for me she's dead but she's so alive she's mean but she's so comic and she's scary and mean but so emotional at the same time so there are so many facet about this character yeah and and that's I support in many ways the same for for your character for Wolf Jackson as well um what I mean obviously he's an actor or was an actor in his past life did you kind of draw on any always an actor um did you draw on any of your own experiences or perhaps any of your friends and co-stars for sure sure I mean for me it's uh you know it's an opportunity to kind of uh make fun of myself make fun of actors you know um there's lots of jokes there uh who he is and his lack of self-awareness and his uh sense of self-importance is all there in the context of knowing he was an actor and in some way he's still an actor and in terms of you know obviously the the set of a Tim Burton movie I imagine is a very magical place to be with a lot of imagination and collaboration and practical effects as well what's it like to kind of set foot on the set for the F for the first time for this film it's like being at an amusement park because there's so many little jokes and different pleasures and you go through like if talk about uh uh the the the office I don't participate in this this has been created for me and I go and there's so much information there there's so much interplay there's so much good um it tells you what to do that that really strikes that strikes me that it's a complete world and then you fold into it and that's always a pleasure as an actor yeah for me too I mean it was so helpful to be in this beautiful sets to wear those amazing costumes and also my makeup I had 3 hours of makeup every day and uh and also I mean this is the Practical part but then you know you have to get into the emotion of in the feelings of this character so I thought she's like all of us you know she has emotional scars we all have emotional scars it's just the difference is that she she has real scars and I played with all those little things and uh she came out as uh Evil Soul evil and you know I had so much fun yeah and obviously the first Beetle Juice film is got such a massive following still you know people love love it and it was obviously a landmark film in Tim's own career as well so with that in mind was there a kind of certain pressure or did you sense a pressure on Tim's part to really get this right and to really kind of feed into that Phantom that still exists for the first film I don't feel the pressure but I'm I'm positioned in a different way I'm an actor coming in to uh flesh out uh you know an ensemble and F flesh out the story once I arrive it's really already moving but Tim I mean monin can probably answer this better than I can but Tim was in good shape he was happy he was laughing uh it was a very energetic and very efficient Set uh I thought wow this this guy's in is a Groove he he loves doing this uh you know we we didn't we didn't talk a lot uh but and we invented a lot of things on the spur of the moment it was very Lively and I think you feel that you know and and it's not it's not precious it's kind of um has a good sense of humor and a good uh you know kind of plays even with itself we that similar to and also we are we are part of a new yeah but you know there it's beautiful to see all these actors they you know they still have the pleasure to play their own roles and they have grown with their characters and even for me to see uh the Synergy the creative Synergy between Tim and Michael and all the actors Through The Years so and we came together in this beautiful family and we were accepted and we became part of this beautiful group and the chemistry between everybody is so amazing and I think this is also very helpful to create the atmosphere of the movie also he's working with a lot of people that he's worked with before I mean it's his world so I don't I don't know whether he was nervous it just felt like he was having when there's a such a Beloved Moviefone movie and then you're hearing that there's a beloved sequel hopefully being made and I had some conversations with Tim he sent me the script and I read it and I was like oh this is perfect he came to me and he said I have a key role in this film for which I thought about you so I was very happy to accept it and to play it and Tim is so precise he knows what he wants and his Creative Energy is really inspiring for everybody you doing this Beetle Juice Beetle Juice Beetle Juice I'm needed upstairs Bob P down the fort when you have someone that's as creative as him and when you watch the way in which he like a good conductor just orchestrates all the sort of instruments that are going into making a scene and then obviously the film r large it's just so impressive because it's sort of the shortest distance between the artist and the result it's whatever is on film is the shortest distance between his brain and the film The Juice is loose I'm going to make you so happy I think Michael was the one that I was most intimidated to work with because a he has some of the heaviest lifting to do just as far as energy and speed it's a fine line between playing in a scene with him and also just wanting to get out of the way do that thing for my dream really more nightmare material confronting the unknown conquering your fears there's nothing harder when I saw the movie I was so shocked because the impact was so incredible where is B juice where's Bel juice the film is really unpredictable and and so shocking and funny and full of emotion as well you're Picturehouse no stranger to working with aurs of the strange and unusual but you've never worked with Tim Bon before this film which I know to be a fact but find kind of hard to believe me too I mean I tease him I always say Tim what took you so long yeah it's about I don't want to embarrass him too much or embarrass me too much I don't know who's more embarrassed hey well we're here now yeah I'd love to know a little bit about your relationship to be juice before you came to the project and what was it about this film that brought you on board kind of came out of nowhere um you know got a call uh Tim Burton wants to talk to you which gets my attention because I've followed his stuff for years and I really admire him um then he says uh it's a return to Beetlejuice and my heart sinks for a second like really and then he tells me what it is and what he wants me to do and then I get excited and then when I get there I realize it's really a good um continuation he's in the groove he's it's a world he loves it's a world he owns he's bringing back the people it's in it's in uh good the spirit of it is good yeah and you know I have a supporting role um so I I don't have the heavy lift uh but there's a lot of Pleasures in this movie and to work on it it's fun because he's very energetic he's very um playful uh and and we shot quite quick there was something not very precious and kind of fun about the um you know the the handmade uh you know effects and things like that that engages you in a different way it didn't feel um you know everything was in the room that we dealing with it's not like okay we'll approximate something and then someone will patch it together later it was it was had a different kind of presence than you have if you're working a in a a Effects movie that's a lot of CGI or or stuff after the fact yeah and that's kind of why a lot of people have so much love for the original and I think it's I get the trepidation with sequels but I think it's clear that everyone just has so much love for the world that you're creating here and he's stuck to his guns because he really wasn't seduced to find easy solutions in post he really dealt with kind of practical solutions for a lot of Fantastical things and sometimes they they're almost cheesy and almost goofy but they work very well because they have a you know humanness to them that they have grit kind of yeah they have a grit yeah for sure well your character wolf Jackson is kind of like a Tom Cruzes career actor turned afterlife cop which is a great career trajectory in my eyes yeah yeah and it's all about keeping it real obviously as an actor obviously yourself and somebody who is very reflective on your body of work from your Beginnings in theater to the huge filmography that you have to look back on how much of that did you kind of pull from when becoming wolf you know I think more you know I think more of uh like TV series Cops you know these guys that um you know kind of rock solid and uh with big hair and uh I don't know they they they're a special breed because they Pride themselves on doing the action and Mato meets kind of celebrity makes acting it's it's a mix of uh that's easy to make fun of and uh I don't identify as that necessarily but I share some of that so it's a good exercise and kind of poking fun at yourself and poking fun at acting and and um celebrity and uh cops you know it's it's all in the mix it's like I didn't have to do big re research for this it was all kind of in my head yeah yeah and I think it felt like it was obviously was making fun at but it was also very sincere and how it kind of looked at you know a guy just looking back on his life of high jinkx you know yeah um which is really really nice and the whole the whole gag about you know keep it real we found that phras cuz needed something to keep him together you know and of course he's a guy that doesn't know how to keep it real so that in itself is a good joke yeah for sure but I do think it was grounded in like a like the whole of be just like you were saying before a real heart and care all these all these fools you know yep um I would love to know which of your characters you think wolf Jackson would have most liked to play I have a hot take and think that he would make a really good Bobby Peru or do a really good take on Vance from the lovess I think he could make it really Punchy you know very good those are two good ones but I think it's hard for me to imagine because they're both very specific I'm sure uh there's something else in there somewhere that uh maybe there's a movie called off limits that maybe that would be more correct I don't expect you to know that one but that might be more a wolf Jackson role yeah I don't know though I think he could he could he could hear some depth down there somewhere he could get to the heart of it um obviously we talked a little bit about the Nostalgia of a kind of world like Beetle Juice and the world that Tim Burton has created here obviously it's a very beloved franchise and I guess even to call it a franchise feels kind of you know it's it's two film two very distinct films how does it feel to kind of step into this world that is so beloved was there a trepidation there uh no as I said when he first said we're doing a sequel I thought really you know I'd prefer to do something original with you but it was original I mean and what he needed me to do was original cuz I'm a new character and I don't have the heavy lifting I mean I'm part of the Ensemble um and and what really drives the film are a lot of the elements from the original film so that's that's a comfort and I trusted Tim just by how he talked about it that he was excited about it he had a new take on it and he talks actually quite beautifully about how you know he felt very connected making this movie not as an exercise of nostalgia but uh that Beetle the original Beetle Juice was very important part of his filmography and a part of his development and now he's returning to it after making many films and living lives and all that sort of thing so he felt rooted but at the same time had a different take on it so I he felt very alive when he was making the uh movie he was a play F was energetic we shot it in a kind of very unpretentious way very quick um he's working with his collaborators that a lot of people that he's worked with before so everybody's um you know working at a pretty high uh level yeah you kind of don't have time to sit around and dwell on the past when you're doing all that I guess or or you know think you know do it do it out of a sense of uh pleasure and wonder rather than you know just trying to calculate what people want yeah for sure when did you when did Beetle Juice kind of first come into your life when do you remember when you first watched it I do remember I do remember I I can't you know they say 36 years but you know I was never uh 36 years as a little abstract for me um but I think I was you know I was a theater actor in New York then I maybe I was making movies but just at the very beginning um and I liked it a lot and one little detail that I really remember because I I it really impressed me was I was working on an original theater piece at the time and we were using uh Harry bellante music great so when I saw an to with kind of unusual dancing uh in the theater piece with Harry Bellon music and then when I saw the movie I thought wow you know we have some sort of connection here there a commonality and it's Harry yeah great that kind of stayed with me I don't know exactly what that say in a funny way that music can I guess brings you back to places that other things can't um I said before that we're a cinema company yes um and I have a few questions for you relating to cinema and the theatrical experience because it's something that's so important to us and I believe also very important to you it is it is um I would love to know what your dream day out at the cinema would consist of the film you'd like to most see on the big screen the company the seat placement in the in the theater room you know my favorite Cinema experience is usually to be walking on the street know that I have enough time to drop into a cinema the Size Doesn't Matter yeah even the technical stuff doesn't matter so much more endearing when it's if it's better great but you know I think of um I think of for example the first time I saw uh The Witch of Robert Edgars which was very important to me because he's become a very important filmmaker to me um I was literally walking down the street and I had some time which you know isn't always usual and I thought I can see this movie really going just because of the poster or something and I dropped in and I had a great experience without expectation there were a few people there uh I didn't know about the movie I been away working and I came and I was unaware of it and I really plugged into the movie in a very direct way and I can close my eyes right now and be back in that theater so um that's a beautiful experience that could never happen I don't think by you know it's not about the size it you know about being at home and having the ability to turn off the TV or uh pause it or go do the toilet or you know have a drink or you know all these distractions um you know being present and being a you know gives you a much better chance to take on the challenges of a really good movie and to watch things in a very distracted way or with an intention just to kind of Lose Yourself and and kind of forget about your life is not my thing so the best experience is going into this thing and kind of being surprised you know really plugging into oh I never thought of that you know plugging into kind of curiosity and wonder that you can only plug into sort of by offering yourself up to an experience where you don't know where it's going to go where you're more controlling when you're watching stuff at home totally completely and that's kind of what we're all about finally I'd love to know why you think people should come and see Beetle Juice Beetle Juice specifically in a theatrical environment uh because it's probably fun to see with an audience like a lot of comedies and a lot of things that have some outrageous sequences in them um yeah it's it's fun to see with a group of people it's fun to laugh with people hey thank you thank you so much for your time will thank you for all of your movies they mean a lot to me great great thank you Monica is this the most CBR powerful character you've ever played I mean she's out there literally sucking the souls out of people Dolores is real body and um and more than monster I I think about her as a creature and what I lacked about her is this Duality because she's dangerous but also funny at the same time and Tim came to me and he told me uh there is a key role in this film for which I thought about you and I was very happy to accept it and to play it because to me Dolores is a metaphor of life because we all have emotional scars and she's full of scars but she's strong she's coming back and there is this moment in the film where she has this horror dancing scene and it took two three days to film it and um was really about body language I felt a bit like a MIM like a broken doll but it was so much fun yeah and of course you get to go toe-to-toe with Michael Keaton is he is he Beetle Juice all the time or is he in between takes is it like talking to Michael Keaton just dressed up like Beetlejuice no uh is an actor but he's also a human being so of course but was I was shocked how he was it could go back to this character is incredible because when we all saw be Jews we we all have seen p and I mean when I saw him on set I was amazed and because it was absolutely the same so and it was so interesting to see the creative Synergy between Tim and him and also it's so beautiful to see these actors they have grown with their characters and they still love to play them what do you enjoy about playing I think we can call her the antagonist uh what do you enjoy about about playing the antagonist versus the hero but just I didn't have um many I didn't play many characters like that in my career so for me it was a completely a new character and and I have to say that I was so uh I loved her I really love her and I was so helped because I had three hours of makeup every day and uh to go on in these amazing sets and to wear those beautiful costumes of colen Atwood and I think that she has a big impact MH and uh she's Survivor even though she's always in the Nether world MH MH I think that even though she's dead she's so Fred Film Radio alive radio this is K from the 81 Venice International Film Festival I'm glad to welcome Monica beluchi William de and among the actors of ble juice be juice opening film of the festival by Tim Barton welcome thank you nice to be here what is this rocking chair it makes me that's something to me I don't know yeah so you can relax while we're talking uh Monica I was uh reading that um P Maron wrote that thanks to your character to you you could feel you could step into sort of a Mario Baba Italian horror film did he tell you about that and how did you work together on this particular atmosphere but when we see the movie of course we can feel that he loves Italy you know there are moments where B ju speaks in Italian so there are references to Mario Bava as you said and also sometimes we can feel the we can hear the ARA of kalas even though she was a Greek and but at the same time she became a huge star in Italy so she was so famous in Italy so we can feel that it really is attached to our culture and I love that of course and then when he told told me about this project of course it told me about this role I was very happy to be part of this incredible family and to have the chance to work with William of course I love his work and it's just amazing so and and to be part of this amazing cast and to enter into Tim's fantastic poetic magical world William I've read that Tim BTO was a fan of yours so he always wanted to work with you and then what took him so long and I have to say that when I when I I saw your your your role your character I felt like he he's always getting you know the best and funny characters but I I was wondering how you work how did you work together on this uh on this film on this role because he said at least he wrote that you tried a lot of different things it's it's a a smaller role uh I don't drive a movie but it's a really fun role in the respect the kind of character he is uh we sort of he had a rough idea about it and then we sort of fleshed it out he really invites an actor invent to invent things and uh as he said in the press conference uh it's a very playful atmosphere and because a lot of the effects are handmade and what you're dealing with is in the room you're not anticipating some sort of treatment later you're you're you have a flexibility to invent things and he's very open to that and he's very energetic and he really has a deep sense since he owns the world he can take these leaps sometimes so if you throw something out there that he responds to you really run with it so that's that's a great pleasure and uh he's he's very energetic he's on top of everything he's got his fingerprints on everything thing and he's like a giddy child happy uh in the play of it all when he first came out Bill juice became fastly like the voice for a lot of and I quote the film a lot of strange and unusual people that felt seen and the feeling this morning was the same that I think that uh the audience the baronian community fell seen again so I was for you to to be part of that to to now be part of this Legacy of this community if you feel your you're you fall in right away because it's so strong and it's led by him in such a a a fun way I mean you can only feel a member of that community in retrospect but as you're doing it it it it feels very comfortable and the world is so complete that there's a kind of logic and a sense of play that you really appreciate I mean one of the things I got to say that I love about the character is part of the humor comes from the fact that this guy even after he dead he's dead maintains a certain kind of identity in ego you know and that's true of so many characters death does not stop them from being egotistical narcissist and uh it's there's a lot of jokes the the movie I think has a good sense of playing uh with itself and uh also just generally uh uh kind of of um playful uh playful attitude towards death and towards uh you got all things right all things dark but when so the first bill Jews of course I mean it was so creative and so crazy and fun and even today when I'm thinking about the dinner scene with Deo is still a masterpiece is still a moment of Grace and uh and so of course to get into this project uh was so incredible for all of us and uh and actually I feel that Tim uh give the possibility to All actors to make a a strong impact because you can feel they respects all of us they love actors and you feel protected uh as an actor to be in in these sets it's really true he's a very kind person and uh you just can tell the sequence with uh when Monica puts herself together I mean that's an art an important part of uh uh Monica's filmographies according to me yeah it was so much fun the best the best opening scene for a character ever and it was also so for me and how much to you know some of his uh women characters you know drawings because if we see uh his books Dolores is all over the place already know so is one of his drawings becoming alive to me thank you so much and good luck for B juice ble juice Monica beluchi William the at the 81st V International F Festival I'm kti for fr the fail inside