How Beetlejuice 2’s Makeup Artist Avoided Getting ‘Blasted’ by OG Fans

When it got here to preserving OG Beetlejuice followers proud of the sequel, lead hair and make-up artist Christine Blundell knew the important thing began with Winona Ryder’s Lydia.

“My job actually was to prep all the pieces so I had each model of what we may do with Lydia’s character additional down the road,” Blundell solely instructed Us Weekly about prepping for the movie. “And as soon as Winona began, we performed about just a few totally different seems and type of labored out that we needed to give a nod to that fringe. I feel I’d have been actually blasted by the followers if she didn’t nonetheless have an essence of grown-up goth about her. So we positively determined to form of keep in that space.”

When it got here to Lydia’s make-up, Blundell mentioned she and the workforce aimed to make it look as if it had at all times been utilized a “few hours earlier than” to offer a extra genuine really feel to the character. “Her life is simply too mad to maintain getting into and making her look exact, and he or she didn’t need to look pristine,” she added.

For Blundell, it was vital for her division to be “respectful” to the unique 1988 cult basic whereas additionally discovering their “personal” model greater than 30 years later. Every choice, she mentioned, was a “collaboration” between herself, the actors and director Tim Burton, who was “very particular” about what he envisioned for the characters.

That included Michael Keaton’s titular character, a ghost who needed to look ageless, regardless of the a long time between films. And though Beetlejuice’s general look stayed pretty much like the unique, Blundell and her workforce nonetheless went by “weeks” of making an attempt “totally different samples of how [his look] needs to be.”

“I acquired all of [Michael’s] stuff prepped and earlier than he got here in, we’d had a physique double,” Blundell shared. “We had been simply actually figuring out how we deliver again his character with our personal model. But it surely seemed as shut as what it did initially. Then he arrived and type of fine-tuned the final little bits. “

Whereas Keaton doesn’t sport too many prosthetics as Beetlejuice — only a “faux nostril” and “enamel,” Blundell mentioned — there was a really particular preparation course of to getting him “caked” within the character’s signature make-up. “[It] is actually a correct grease paint,” Bundall confessed.

Catherine O’Hara, in the meantime, had six customized wigs ready in a “gentle copper shade” by an in-house wig maker. Nonetheless, Blundall instructed Us that the Emmy winner was all in when it got here to returning to Delia’s authentic purple hair, which finally led to a “entire night time coloring these wigs as much as the vivid purple and slicing them into kinds.”

One actress who didn’t want lots of prep work was Jenna Ortega, who portrays Lydia’s daughter, Astrid. Blundell mentioned that the character wanted to look as if she “simply wasn’t sporting any” make-up — and fortuitously, Ortega had the right complexion to make it work.

“Jenna, to be sincere, you may have her not sporting something and that’s just about what we did,” Blundell confessed, noting that the character is supposed to look as unbothered as attainable. “She wore the tiniest little little bit of concealer ought to she want it. However aside from that, it was all a few little bit of lip balm and coming in for a cup of tea within the morning and having a chat actually placing up her hair as scruffy as we may do it.”

It was crucial, Blundell mentioned, to offer a definite distinction between Astrid and her mother.

“What we wished with Jenna’s character was very totally different to the Lydia youngster as a result of she may see the useless folks and he or she was by no means towards it,” Blundell defined. “Whereas Jenna’s character was type of nearly, like, ‘Mum, you’re being daft, I don’t imagine you.’ As their characters had been, they had been very totally different youngsters rising up. Jenna’s character was very anti what her mum was about and didn’t imagine in [the] afterlife in any respect.”

Regardless of Blundell’s clear imaginative and prescient for the movie, she was not concerned within the authentic — and the job got here as a welcomed shock at simply the appropriate time. The hair and make-up artist instructed Us that she was on a “a lot wanted” vacation in Sri Lanka when she acquired a telephone name about an “availability examine for Tim Burton.”

“And I’m identical to, ‘Oh, OK.’ And so then reduce to me working round this form of retreat in Sri Lanka looking for reception so I may do a Zoom name,” she quipped, including that she spent the remainder of her trip “excited” about the truth that she may get to recreate a movie she is “such a fan” of.

“After I first form of had a correct sit down chat with Tim, he mentioned to me, ‘We wish maintain all the pieces as sensible and as near with out utilizing CGI as attainable’. So he mentioned my largest observe is ‘I simply want you to have enjoyable,’” Blundell recalled. “And I used to be identical to, ‘Acquired it.’”

Blundell then met up with the film’s prosthetic supervisor, Neal Scanlan, and the duo promised one another they might do what they might to make the very best sequel attainable. Fortunately for them, everybody else on the challenge appeared to have the identical thought.

“We each made a pact that we had been working very carefully collectively and to ensure that we’d assist one another as a lot as we positively may,” she mentioned. “There have been no egos on this movie in any respect. Everyone was simply there to tug off Tim’s imaginative and prescient, actually.”

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is now taking part in in theaters.