Jenna Ortega Says She Had a 'Recurring Nightmare' About Michael Keaton’s Beetlejuice as a Child

Mar. 15, 2025

Jenna Ortega; Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice in ‘Beetlejuice’.Photo:Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty; AJ Pics / Alamy Stock Photo

Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty; AJ Pics / Alamy Stock Photo

Jenna OrtegametMichael Keatonlong before they joined forces forBeetlejuice Beetlejuice— in her dreams!

Ortega, who said she first watched the film around age 8 or 9, revealed to host Lulu Garcia-Navarro that she was scared of the film — which was a common occurrence at the time. “I was terrified of everything when I was younger,” she said in the interview published on Saturday, Aug. 24.

“I actually had a recurring nightmare about Beetlejuice,” Ortega continued, before revealing that the scary dreams actually stemmed more from a person dressed as Keaton, 72, than the actual character.

“I saw a really terrible Halloween costume before I really knew what the movie was, and I think that the mold and smearing, bleeding green and black Party City makeup gave me a scare,” she said. “I just remember that image, and then I watched the movie later, and I thought, ‘Oh, man, this is what the guy was dressed as. This is just as scary.’ ”

Remembering the contents of the recurring dream, theScreamstar said, “I shared a room my entire life growing up. I was the bottom bunk on a bunk bed, and I had a dream that Beetlejuice would come down and swing around the banister to my bunk wearing a Superman cape, and he would offer me grape juice and say, “Got any grape?’ ”

When asked whether she ever revealed this tidbit to Keaton as they filmedBeetlejuice Beetlejuice, Ortega admitted that it never came up.

“No, no. Maybe I should have, but maybe there was something in me that was still potentially frightened, you know?” she told Garcia-Navarro. “Meeting him, a giant from your childhood, that’s intimidating, and I think maybe I reverted back to my old adolescent ways in front of him.”

‘Jenna Ortega’ in ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’.Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros. Pictures

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Elsewhere duringThe Interviewepisode, Ortega discussed a differentBeetlejuice Beetlejuicecostar — and another originalBeetlejuicecast member —Winona Ryder.

After revealing that she has “been really, really lucky to work with incredible actresses who definitely had a harder upbringing,” Ortega named Ryder as one such “mentor.”

“Winona Ryder, of course. She was so warm and welcoming and kind and inviting right from the jump, and I couldn’t be more grateful,” she said. “It was at a time where my career was taking a different turn, and I didn’t realize that I needed that from somebody who could relate, but I did.”

As for their connection, she said, “The way Winona and I got along was quite weird. It was like we were reading each other’s minds a little bit.”

Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Winona Ryder and Justin Theroux in ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’.Parisa Taghizadeh/Warner Bros. Pictures

Parisa Taghizadeh/Warner Bros. Pictures

Ortega did not name any specific advice Ryder, 52, gave her — “It’s hard to pinpoint because I think some of it I would like to keep between us” —  but she did say that the veteran actress “made me feel really, really beautiful and special.”

“And that was, again, during that time, it meant the world to me,” she added.

When asked what “that time” was, she said, “It was a very transformative period of my life. We shotBeetlejuicenot that long afterWednesdayhad come out, so one day I just woke up in somebody else’s shoes. I felt like I had entered somebody else’s life, and I didn’t know how to get back to mine.”

“Obviously with the success and the attention that she received in the ’90s, Winona had experienced that probably to an even greater extent, so she was the first person that I connected with on that topic,” Ortega continued. “Or she made me feel seen where other people necessarily in my life, as much as they wanted to, couldn’t relate or couldn’t understand.”

Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceis in theaters on Sept. 6.

source: people.com