From the title character to the mix of living and deceased characters, Beetlejuice has an amazing cast that contributes to its success as a classic movie. Tim Burton's sophomore feature established the director's signature gothic style, aided by Bo Welch's macabre production design, the Oscar-winning makeup of Ve Neill, Steve LaPorte, and Robert Short, and Danny Elfman's eerie but iconic film score. However, Tim Burton also deserves credit for choosing just the right actors for his films, often against type. Beetlejuice is one of Tim Burton's best horror movies, but it wouldn't work as well as it does with just any cast.
Released in 1988, Beetlejuice was a surprise hit, owing a lot to its distinct visuals and unique supernatural premise along with buzzed-about scenes such as the dinner party haunting involving Harry Belafonte's "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)." There'd never been anything like it before. Beetlejuice also features a number of Tim Burton's movies' best performances, including those in that famous number, and even from actors in minor, prosthetic-heavy roles appearing in the afterlife sequences. Here is a guide to the most noteworthy members of the Beetlejuice cast, which characters they play, how the roles fit within their filmography, and what else the actors are best known for.
Alec Baldwin as Adam Maitland
Part of the couple who dies at the start of Beetlejuice and returns home to learn they're ghosts, Adam Maitland is an artistic and genial small-town kind of guy, and Alec Baldwin is barely recognizable in this early casting. The actor had a breakout year in 1988, and his other characters then and since have mostly been more confident and conventionally attractive compared to the relatively quaint and nerdy Adam. He's now best known for his Emmy-winning performance as NBC executive Jack Donaghy on the sitcom 30 Rock and for lampooning Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live.
Alec Baldwin's other famous credits include Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October, Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross, Jake in the rom-com It's Complicated, Ellerby in Martin Scorsese's The Departed, CIA Director Alan Hunley in the Mission: Impossible franchise, and his scene-stealing role as Shelly in The Cooler, for which he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His voice can also be heard as the narrator of Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums and the Thomas and Friends children's TV series, and as the title character of the Boss Baby movies.
Geena Davis as Barbara Maitland
When cast in Beetlejuice, Geena Davis was coming off a different sort of horror movie, as Jeff Goldblum's love interest in The Fly. She also had a breakout year in 1988 with Beetlejuice and The Accidental Tourist, for which she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Her role as Barbara Maitland, one of the dead couple attempting to get a new family out of their home, is on the plain and pastoral side compared to the tougher and more assured characters she played later on. In the '90s, she even briefly became an action star through her collaborations with her then-husband Renny Harlin.
Geena Davis's most famous movie roles include Thelma in Thelma and Louise, which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination, Dottie in A League of Their Own, and Samantha/Charly in Harlin's under-seen action masterpiece The Long Kiss Goodnight. She also played Mrs. Little in the Stuart Little film franchise. On the small screen, she played the titular President Mackenzie Allen in the political drama Commander in Chief and led her own sitcom titled The Geena Davis Show in the role of Teddie Cochran. And on Gray's Anatomy, she played the season 11 character Dr. Nicole Herman.
Michael Keaton as Betelgeuse
The title character of Beetlejuice has a different spelling from the name of the movie, and that's only one of his many eccentricities. The self-proclaimed "ghost with the most" is a "bio-exorcist" who takes on the job of haunting the Deetzes, who've moved into the Maitlands' home. He's creepy and crude and ultimately the villain of the movie, and Michael Keaton stretched his usual blue-collar everyman type, seen in Night Shift, Mr. Mom, and Gung Ho, to make the character work. Keaton had played over-the-top comedy, especially in scenes calling for anger, and he could be slick and conniving, yet Betelgeuse is a whole other level.
Following his appearance in Beetlejuice, Keaton went back to more of the same and has played a lot of roles where the character is associated with their profession, such as the newsmen of The Paper and Spotlight or the business icon Ray Kroc in The Founder or even the actor of Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), which garnered the actor an Oscar nomination. Yet his most famous role is that of billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne and his superhero alter-ego Batman in two movies helmed by his Beetlejuice director. Again, Burton cast against type, and somehow Keaton's middle-class demeanor fit this particular portrayal of DC Comics' wealthy crime-fighter character.
Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz
Lydia is a brooding but sweet teenage goth girl who can see the Maitlands because of her self-identifying trait of being "strange and unusual." This was Winona Ryder's breakthrough role, and being cast in Beetlejuice immediately made her associated with darker, edgier characters, despite her general lack of similar castings — even in her reunion with Burton, Edward Scissorhands, she goes for an opposite look and tone as a brightly dressed cheerleader. Still, Ryder is best known for horror-related movies and shows including Heathers, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Alien: Resurrection, and Stranger Things. She also earned Oscar nominations for her period-piece dramatic roles in The Age of Innocence and Little Women.
Jeffrey Jones as Charles Deetz
Charles Deetz, the real estate developer who dragged his daughter and new wife out of New York City to the Connecticut countryside, seems more cast against type within the ensemble of Beetlejuice than his actor's career. He's wonderfully uninteresting compared to everyone else in the movie, which makes him something of an outcast, and fascinating as a result. He's played by Jeffrey Jones, who is best known as Principal Ed Rooney in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. His other roles include Dr. Jenning in Howard the Duck, Criswell in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus, and one of the titular duo of Mom and Dad Save the World.
Catherine O'Hara as Delia Deetz
Catherine O'Hara is well-known for her iconic maternal roles, but not as a uniform type. Her varied mother characters include the loving yet careless mom in the first two Home Alone movies, the overly dramatic has-been soap star matriarch Moira Rose on Schitt's Creek, and Delia Deetz, the cold and kooky artist who couldn't be bothered to be step-mother to Lydia, in Beetlejuice. O'Hara is also famous for being a regular in Christopher Guest's mockumentary movies, including Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, and prior to being cast in Beetlejuice, she was one of the Emmy-winning writers and stars of the sketch comedy series SCTV.
Beetlejuice Supporting Cast & Characters
Glenn Shadix as Otho - Friend and interior decorator for the Deetz's who is also interested in the paranormal. After being cast as Otho in Beetlejuice, Glenn Shadix reunited with Winona Ryder in Heathers and director Tim Burton on The Nightmare Before Christmas, where he voiced the Mayor of Halloween Town, and the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes.
Sylvia Sidney as Juno - The Maitlands' caseworker in the afterlife. Sylvia Sidney was a Hollywood star in the 1930s, appearing in such classics as Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage and Fritz Lang's Fury. She also earned an Oscar nomination for her supporting performance in 1973's Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams and later reunited with Burton for Mars Attacks!, her final film role.
Robert Goulet as Maxie Dean - Charles's boss, who reluctantly comes out to Connecticut for a pitch on a paranormal theme park. Robert Goulet was a singer and actor best known for the stage, including the Broadway productions of Camelot and The Happy Time. He also played the villain Quentin Hapsburg in The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear.
Dick Cavett as Bernard - Legendary talk show how Dick Cavett appears in the Beetlejuice cast as Delia's agent, Bernard. Almost all of his other movie roles consisted of him playing himself.
Maree Cheatham as Sarah Dean - Maxie Dean's wife. Maree Cheatham was a regular on the soaps Days of Our Lives and Knots Landing but would be known to young audiences today as Nona from Nickelodeon's Sam & Cat.
Susan Kellermann as Grace - Bernard's wife, Grace, appears alongside the main cast of Beetlejuice during the "Day-O" dinner party number. Susan Kellermann also appears in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and Death Becomes Her.
Tony Cox as the Preacher - While the voice of the Preacher in Beetlejuice was performed by cartoon staple Jack Angel, the actor under all the makeup is Tony Cox, who is best known for his sidekick role as Marcus in the Bad Santa movies.
Adelle Lutz as Beryl - One of the dinner party guests during the "Day-O" number. Adelle Lutz is also a costume designer but in addition to appearing as part of the cast of Beetlejuice, she features in the movies The Silence of the Lambs and Wall Street.
Annie McEnroe as Jane Butterfield - Real estate agent and friend of the Maitlands. Annie McEnroe also later appeared in Wall Street, in the role of Muffie Livingston.
Patrice Martinez as Miss Argentina - Juno's receptionist in the afterlife. Before she was cast in Beetlejuice, Patrice Martinez was best known for playing Carmen in Three Amigos. She later starred in the early '90s Zorro TV series.