Jenna Ortega is a lifeless ringer for Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — however that was not intentional.
“We needed to be very respectful of the unique movie,” Christine Blundell, the movie’s hair and make-up designer, completely instructed Us Weekly on Friday, September 6. “What we wished with Jenna’s character was totally different than the Lydia little one [in the original].”
Whereas Ortega, 21, performs Astrid Deetz, the daughter of Lydia Deetz, within the Beetlejuice sequel, the characters are nothing alike. It was Blundell’s job to make the viewers see that.
“The Lydia little one was engrossed in the entire [thing] — she may see the lifeless folks and he or she was by no means towards it,” Blundell defined to Us. “Whereas Jenna’s character was type of virtually like, ‘Mum, you’re being daft, I don’t imagine you.’ They had been very totally different youngsters rising up as a result of Jenna’s character, Astrid, was very anti what her mum was about and didn’t imagine within the afterlife in any respect.”
To mirror that angle, the crew saved Ortega trying “as regular trying as doable” with barely any make-up.
“She wore the tiniest little little bit of concealer, ought to she want it,” Blundell recalled. “However apart from that, it was all a few little bit of lip balm, coming in for a cup of tea within the morning and having a chat [while] actually placing up her hair as scruffy as we may do it. For her character, it simply seemed like she wasn’t actually bothered.”
With Ryder, 52, the problem was preserving Lydia’s look the identical, solely aged up. Blundell defined that the movie’s director, Tim Burton, was “very particular” that he wished Ryder to look much like how she did for Beetlejuice in 1988.
“He wished to debate it when [the actors] had been sitting within the chair with us. It was a collaboration between us,” the make-up artist recalled. “As soon as Winona began, we performed about just a few totally different appears and 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. We positively determined to type of keep in that space.”
For Ryder’s make-up particularly, Blundell made it appear like “it had been accomplished just a few hours earlier than,” as a result of Lydia’s life is “too mad to maintain getting into and make her look exact.”
At one level within the film, Blundell determined to “overexaggerate the perimeter” for Ryder’s look.
“Virtually take it again to as near the unique as doable,” she mentioned. “That was the place we gave the nod to the unique.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is in theaters now.