Willem Dafoe chats with THR at the London red carpet premiere of director Tim Burton's 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' and dishes on the "playful, goofy aesthetic" of the film.
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00:00And had you worked with Tim Burton before?
00:02No, no, and that was a big draw. I mean, I've followed him for years and I really like his
00:07movies. He's contributed a lot to movies, so when he asked me to do something, even
00:13if I'm not exactly sure what it's going to be, I was happy to sign on.
00:18And tell me a little bit about your character. What can you reveal to Beetlejuice fans?
00:25Listen, they should see the movie. I don't want to tell them what it is, but basically
00:29I've said it before, I'm basically a cop in the afterlife. But in life, before I died,
00:38I was a B-action movie star. And so this affords me the possibility to make fun of myself a
00:48little bit, because the narcissism of actors, things like that, are kind of played within
00:55this.
00:56And in your recent films, you seem to be having a lot of make-up, cool things going on.
01:00Yeah, make-up, make-up, make-up.
01:02Why is that?
01:03I don't know. People want to mess me up, I guess.
01:07How long did it take?
01:08They want to throw me a curveball. It took a while, because each piece is painted. And
01:14you know, that's another one of the pleasures of the movie, is all the low-tech effects.
01:19It's really hand-made stuff. It's really artisanal. It's not a lot of stuff that's done in post.
01:27So it's fun, because it has a kind of playful, goofy aesthetic. But yeah, it still sticks
01:38with the horror genre in some respects.
01:40Helps you get into character.
01:41Yeah.
01:44Yeah.
01:45Yeah.
01:46Yeah.
01:47Yeah.
01:48Yeah.