Alec Baldwin thought ‘Beetlejuice’ would kill his career
Back in 1988, when he was just a fledgling actor without huge credits like Glengarry Glen Ross or The Departed, Alec Baldwin was jumping at every opportunity that presented itself to him. There was one film, however, that upon joining, he started to doubt whether it was the right choice: the Tim Burton cult-classic Beetlejuice.
This fantasy-comedy from Burton, whilst a roaring success that is still fondly remembered to this day, was certainly not a guaranteed blockbuster during its production. The film touched upon morbid concepts like death and haunting with a mischievous gleefulness that was relatively unheard of, and it asked audiences to commit to a rather specific world involving ghosts, the ‘Netherworld’ and a demonic salesman who is tasked with scaring off the new inhabitants of a recently deceased couple’s house.
Even upon its release, whilst the aesthetic vision of Burton and his knack for comic horror was immediately apparent, audiences still struggled to neatly categorize what it was exactly that they had just seen. For the actors involved, it was no different. Baldwin recalls the eccentricity of the director and how it proved to be somewhat unhelpful for an up-and-coming actor looking for some direction: “He would sit at a desk and draw things, draw the characters — he’s an illustrator, he’s an artist — and he would never look up at me,” he said.
Speaking to GQ as part of their ‘Iconic Roles’ actor breakdowns, Baldwin explained how he offered up one idea for his character to the director, in which he could perform the role of ‘Adam’ as a “posh, elegantly spoken man”, in the vein of old actor Robert Cummings. Burton, however, had other ideas. “Tim was looking down at a piece of paper, and maybe this is the only direction Tim gave me the whole entire movie,” he added. “He would look up and go, ‘No. Don’t do that.’ And then go back to the paper and draw.”
Ultimately, it was this lack of a sense of direction and not knowing whether he was doing the right or wrong thing that led Baldwin to doubt whether he had made the right choice or not with Beetlejuice. “When we did Beetlejuice, I had no idea what it was about,” Baldwin explains, mirroring the confusion felt by many upon leaving the auditorium. He adds: “I thought my — all of our — careers are going to end with the release of this film. Maybe we’re all going to be dead.”
Luckily, the film performed well at the box office and secured a cult status as one of the most imaginative and bold films of the 1980s. Not only did it launch Burton’s career as a director, but it also paved the way for Baldwin, who has enjoyed continuing success as an actor and producer, marred only recently by the tragic on-set Rust accident that saw a now-overruled death lawsuit filed against him.
