Michael Keaton couldn’t contain his laughter while recounting some of his favorite parts of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the upcoming sequel to Tim Burton’s ghostly 1988 classic. Sitting with Seth Meyers on Tuesday’s “Late Night,” the actor was positively giddy.
Watch the video below:
“I remember driving home from work one day, I was sitting in my truck at a stoplight and thinking, ‘This is the greatest thing I’ve ever done. This is so much fun,’” Keaton recalled of his initial go-round with the title demon. “It’s just one of my favorite things.”
“I liked his irreverence and subversion,” he said. “I just liked it. It’s an excuse to go nuts.”
Meyers chimed in, saying that one of his favorite additions to “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is the character’s habit of referring to himself in the third person with a special nickname: “The Juice.”
“He refers to himself as ‘the Juice’ a couple of times, which I don’t remember from the first movie,” Meyers said. “And that was maybe my favorite addition to this, is he talks about himself in the third person as ‘the Juice.’ I just thought, ‘What a great, new development that 36 years later that’s a thing that he’s added to his repertoire.’”
“I love when people refer to themselves in the third person … and there are a couple times where the Juice gets pretty sensitive,” Keaton said.
Meyers echoed that, saying that the parts “that really make me laugh the hardest” were when Beetlejuice gets “a little quiet with his shrunken head staff, and he’s sometimes introspective. He is a little introspective!”
“Sometimes introspective,” Keaton agreed. “That’s my favorite part, I’m serious, yes!”
“He believes himself to be a deeply thoughtful person — and he’s insane,” Meyers said.
Reflecting on why he and Burton wanted to come back with a sequel 36 years after the original fan-favorite comedy, Keaton said that the gift of the first one was “no one really knew what we were doing. No one was really paying attention to us.” He added that “there was a big, big long period of time where I thought, ‘Don’t touch it, just leave it alone.’”
But it’s clear the actor is pretty thrilled that he came around to the idea.
Watch Keaton’s full “Late Night” interview in the video above.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” hits theaters Sept. 6.
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