The Beetlejuice Characters: The Maitlands, the Deetzes, and the Ghost with the Most
“It’s showtime!” Two ghosts who just want their house back summon the one thing worse than the problem: a con artist from the afterlife who eats bugs, wears a mildewed pinstripe suit, and cannot legally be trusted with anything. Beetlejuice is a 1988 gothic comedy horror film directed by Tim Burton, starring Michael Keaton as the title character alongside Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder. Here is who everybody actually was in the house on Winter River’s Lonely Hill, who played them, and the casting history most fans never hear.
Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton)
Pronounced “Beetlejuice” and never, ever said three times if you can help it. He calls himself a “bio-exorcist,” a freelance ghost for hire who specializes in scaring the living out of a haunted house, and he is unpleasant, dishonest and depraved about it in every possible direction. He can only be summoned by saying his name three times, and once he’s loose, controlling him is a different problem entirely.
What casual fans forget: Keaton almost wasn’t in the role at all. Burton’s original choice was Sammy Davis Jr., and the producers also floated Dudley Moore and Sam Kinison before Geffen suggested Keaton, whose work Burton did not know going in. Betelgeuse’s screen time is famously short for how much the character dominates the film’s identity; the tighter deep dive on exactly how short lives on our Beetlejuice character page.
Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis)
The film’s actual protagonists, and the reason there’s a plot at all. Adam owned the local hardware store and was building a scale model of the town in the attic; Barbara devoted herself to the house and to him. They die in a car accident in the film’s opening minutes, discover they’re stuck haunting their own home for 125 years, and spend the rest of the movie trying to get rid of the new owners without ever meaning to become the villains of somebody else’s story.
What casual fans forget: the Maitlands are the ones who make the fatal mistake. It’s Barbara who first invokes Betelgeuse’s name to scare off the Deetzes, against her own better judgment, and Adam and Barbara who spend the film’s back half trying to put him back in the box they let him out of.
Charles and Delia Deetz (Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O’Hara)
The new owners, and the reason the Maitlands need a bio-exorcist in the first place. Charles is a stressed-out former Wall Street investor chasing peace of mind after a breakdown; Delia is his second wife, a self-styled sculptor with more ambition than talent, who guts the house into a new-wave showcase with the help of her interior designer, Otho Fenlock (Glenn Shadix).
What casual fans forget: Anjelica Huston was originally cast as Delia and had to drop out due to illness before Geffen offered the role to O’Hara, who almost turned it down because she couldn’t stop picturing Ned Beatty in the part. She flew from Toronto to meet Burton, went to the wrong Warner Bros. lot, missed him entirely, and signed on anyway.
Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder)
Charles’s teenage daughter from his first marriage, a solitary aspiring photographer with a taste for black clothes and a gift the adults around her don’t have: she can see the Maitlands. “Live people ignore the strange and unusual,” she tells them, quoting the Handbook for the Recently Deceased she’s already read cover to cover. “I, myself, am strange and unusual.” It’s the line the whole character is built on.
What casual fans forget: the role almost went to someone else entirely, and not for lack of trying. Sarah Jessica Parker, Brooke Shields, Lori Loughlin, Diane Lane, Justine Bateman, Molly Ringwald, Juliette Lewis and Jennifer Connelly all auditioned; Alyssa Milano was the runner-up. Burton cast Ryder after seeing her in Lucas, and the goth look that became her signature was baked into the casting from the start.
Juno and the rest of the Netherworld
Juno (Sylvia Sidney) is the Maitlands’ exhausted afterlife caseworker, the one who has to explain the rules of being dead to two people who keep breaking them, and Betelgeuse’s own former boss before he went freelance. Otho Fenlock (Glenn Shadix) is Delia’s design consultant, an amateur occultist who finds the Handbook and nearly gets everyone killed trying to use it. Maxie Dean (Robert Goulet) is Charles’s business partner, the investor Charles tries to sell on a supernatural theme park once the haircut. Rounding out the cast: Dick Cavett as Delia’s talent manager Bernard, and Patrice Martinez as Miss Argentina, the Afterlife’s own receptionist.
Remember when the Maitlands possessed Charles, Delia and their dinner guests and the whole table launched into Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” with “Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)” scoring a second set piece later in the film? Nobody involved could explain it in-story. It’s still the scene people describe first when they try to describe the movie at all.
Why it endures
Beetlejuice opened on an $8 million weekend that set an Easter-weekend record at the time, went on to gross $84.6 million against a $15 million budget, and finished as the 10th-highest-grossing film of 1988. It won the Academy Award for Best Makeup, took home three Saturn Awards including Best Supporting Actress for Sidney, and spun off an animated series that ran from 1989 to 1991, a Broadway musical, and a 2024 sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B with Keaton, Ryder and O’Hara all reprising their roles 36 years later. Not bad for a movie that got a “thumbs down” from Siskel and Ebert on release.
The honest bottom line
This is a movie built entirely around a character its own heroes are terrified of and its own audience can’t get enough of, and that tension never really resolves, it just gets funnier. Betelgeuse is not redeemed by the end. He’s still conniving, still hungry, still stuck in a waiting room working the system for a better ticket number. The Maitlands and the Deetzes learn to share a house. Nobody learns a lesson. That’s the joke.
FAQ
Who are the main Beetlejuice characters?
Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton), Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), Charles and Delia Deetz (Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O’Hara), and Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder).
Why is Betelgeuse’s name never said three times?
Because saying it three times is exactly how he’s summoned in the film. Characters who don’t want him around learn to avoid the name entirely.
Who almost played Betelgeuse instead of Michael Keaton?
Tim Burton’s original choice was Sammy Davis Jr.; Dudley Moore and Sam Kinison were also considered before producer David Geffen suggested Keaton.
Are the original cast in the 2024 sequel?
Yes. Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara all reprised their roles in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, released September 6, 2024.
What awards did Beetlejuice win?
The Academy Award for Best Makeup, plus three Saturn Awards including Best Horror Film, Best Make-up, and Best Supporting Actress for Sylvia Sidney.
Get the deeper cut on the character who steals the whole movie in our Betelgeuse deep dive, see who else made the cut in our iconic 80s movie characters countdown, and read the sourcing standard every page on this site runs on before we ever hit publish.