8 Iconic Movie Characters That Were Mostly Improvised

4. Betelgeuse - Beetlejuice

For much of the 80s and 90s, Tim Burton seemed like a mad scientist. But one that had a really solid grasp on his own batsh*t ideas. Sure, his creations were bizarre and occasionally Frankenstein-esque, but it never seemed like he just showed up on set and started stitching limbs together at random. Yet, in a way, that's exactly what happened with Beetlejuice. Both Burton and Michael Keaton brought pieces of the Ghost With the Most to the party, and much of his creation occurred at the start of filming. Keaton says the Betelgeuse character was described to him by the director as "having lived in every time period, but no time period," which Keaton took to mean, basically "Do whatever you want with him, because I have no real clue what this guy's supposed to be but I thoroughly enjoy speaking in riddles." And so he did. He turned the character into more of a schticky, game show host version of the ghost, who was scripted with a wrier sense of humor. A generous portion of the dialogue was tweaked on set to fit the manic energy Keaton gave off. Even the Juice-man's famous outfit was patch-worked together on the set, with Keaton requesting the wild hairdo, moldy-looking makeup, and big buckteeth.
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Jacob is a part-time contributor for WhatCulture, specializing in music, movies, and really, really dumb humor.