Much like her Beetlejuice character Lydia Deetz, Winona Ryder’s relationship with Jenna Ortega is a bit strange and unusual.
In an interview for The New York Times’ The Interview podcast published on Saturday, Aug. 24, Ortega, 21, opened up about meeting Ryder, 52, while starring in the 1988 film’s long-awaited sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
After telling The Interview host Lulu Garcia-Navarro that she has “been really, really lucky to work with incredible actresses who definitely had a harder upbringing,” the Wednesday star revealed that one of these “mentor” figures was none other than her Beetlejuice Beetlejuice costar, Ryder.
“She was so warm and welcoming and kind and inviting right from the jump, and I couldn’t be more grateful,” Ortega said of Ryder, who plays her on-screen mom in the upcoming film.
Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder’s in ‘Beetlejuice’.
Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock
“It was at a time where my career was taking a different turn,” Ortega continued, adding that she “didn’t realize that I needed that from somebody who could relate, but I did.”
Reflecting on how they connected right out of the gate, Ortega said, “The way Winona and I got along was quite weird. It was like we were reading each other’s minds a little bit.”
While the Miller’s Girl star opted not to reveal any of the advice Ryder shared with her — telling Garcia-Navarro that “it’s hard to pinpoint because I think some of it I would like to keep between us” — she did provide one sweet tidbit about her friendship with the veteran actress.
“She just made me feel really, really beautiful and special,” Ortega said, before underscoring just how crucial Ryder’s support really was: “And that was, again, during that time, it meant the world to me.”
When asked why “that time” — the period in which she met Ryder — was so pivotal, Ortega explained, “It was a very transformative period of my life. We shotBeetlejuice not that long after Wednesdayhad come out, so one day I just woke up in somebody else’s shoes.”
From left: Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Winona Ryder and Justin Theroux in ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’.
Parisa Taghizadeh/Warner Bros. Pictures
“I felt like I had entered somebody else’s life, and I didn’t know how to get back to mine,” she said. That’s exactly where Ryder — and her decades of industry experience — came into play.
“Obviously with the success and the attention that she received in the ’90s, Winona had experienced that probably to an even greater extent, so she was the first person that I connected with on that topic,” Ortega continued on the podcast. “Or she made me feel seen where other people necessarily in my life, as much as they wanted to, couldn’t relate or couldn’t understand.”
Ryder echoed Ortega’s sentiments about their friendship while speaking with Screen Rant about the long-awaited Beetlejuicesequel.
“I don’t think I’ve ever bonded with someone like I did with Jenna,” she told the outlet. “It was insane.”
Plus, the Girl, Interrupted star said, speaking with 21-year-old Ortega often felt “a lot like I was talking to a younger version of myself, but she’s just like a thousand times cooler.”
Outside of their shared experiences in the industry, the two stars also connected over having “the same almost religious reverence for film,” Ryder told the outlet. “She is a cinephile, and we just can talk movies for years. We just bonded so intensely, and that was incredibly helpful.”
“And I do think she was able to bring her own thing to Astrid [Deetz], which I thought was really, really beautiful,” Ryder said of Ortega’s role as her on-screen daughter in the sequel. “She definitely has the gene, but she also has all this other stuff going on.”
“I was really just blown away by her,” she added.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is in theaters on Sept. 6.
