Michael Keaton’s favourite ‘Beetlejuice’ ad-libbed line
Legacy sequels continue to be all the rage in Hollywood, and looking at how Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has been faring since it premiered on the big screen, it’s easy to see why.
It’s been a follow-up 36 years in the making, with Burton and star Michael Keaton spending that entire time reiterating their desire to reunite for another surreal horror comedy. It may have taken longer than either of them could have expected, but absence has clearly made the heart grow fonder.
For comparison’s sake, the first Beetlejuice was something of a slow-burner during its initial theatrical run in 1988, with an $8 million opening weekend parlaying into a final tally of $75million in the United States. The sequel comfortably cleared that number within 72 hours, shattering pre-release projections by debuting at a mammoth $110m.
If it weren’t for the fact he’d played Batman, then there wouldn’t be any argument over which performance was the most iconic of Keaton’s career. What makes it even more impressive is that the title character only has 17 minutes of screen time in Beetlejuice, with the star ensuring that every single one of them counts.
Not only that, but by his own estimation, Keaton maintains that 90% of his dialogue was improvised. The script had a loose outline, but when it came to responding to the other characters, he was free to do or say whatever he wanted. The end result was a comedic tour-de-force that threw up plenty of unforgettable one-liners, quips, and bizarre asides.
Speaking to Empire, Keaton succinctly described the process as “fucking great”, with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice allowing him to stretch his improv skills like he hadn’t done in decades. “It has to be done as close to the way we made it the first time,” he explained. “Making stuff up, making stuff happen, improvising and riffing.”
There’s plenty of that in the second chapter, but when it comes to Keaton’s spur-of-the-moment line readings, he named the rebuttal when Alec Baldwin’s Adam Maitland asks for his qualifications as his favourite stream-of-consciousness spiel, and it’s one that most Beetlejuice fans are able to quote off the top of their heads.
“Ah. Well, I attended Juilliard,” he begins. “I’m a graduate of the Harvard Business School. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I’ve seen The Exorcist about 167 times, and it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it, not to mention the fact that you’re talking to a dead guy. Now what do you think? You think I’m qualified?”
One take is all it took to capture the magic, with Keaton unleashing his improvisational mind to cut loose with one of Beetlejuice’s trademark verbal assaults, made even more impressive by the fact nobody – perhaps not even him – knew what he was going to say before the cameras started rolling.
