New Brunswick's Justin Collette is the ghost with the most in ‘Beetlejuice' musical
TORONTO - Even the walls of Justin Collette's dressing room scream, 'Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.'
While most theatre actors would choose a Zen-like atmosphere in their backstage quarters, Collette prefers a little anarchy.
Hanging around the room are nearly a dozen fan sketches of the living dead trickster he portrays in 'Beetlejuice: The Musical,' as well as drawings of his goth teen sidekick Lydia and the grotesque sandworm that invades her suburban home.
'This is like a fifth of fan art I've been given — so many cool, cool things,' Collette says with a smile, while the music of Italian rock band Måneskin blares over a speaker.
'I have to ship much of it home because it's hard to travel with anything on the road.'
Collette is preparing for opening night at Toronto's CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, where 'Beetlejuice: The Musical' runs for six weeks, until July 19.
It's the longest stop for the travelling show where he plays the character made famous by Michael Keaton in Tim Burton's 1988 dark comedy film. The New Brunswick native says he's excited to plant himself in a city where he once lived.
Everything about his life on the road is a routine, including the hours leading up to his nightly performance. He comes into his dressing room, surveys the fan art, and then settles into a chair as makeup artist Andrew Ozbun begins to apply his Beetlejuice face.
It's a process that Ozbun says once took an hour, but he now manages to finish in about half that time.
Over the past 2 1/2 years, Collette has been criss-crossing North America, playing the wisecracking Beetlejuice practically every night. It's a gruelling role that calls for high energy, spastic movements and improvised witty quips.
Before the show, Collette slips in and out of the character with ease, adopting the gravelly voice and wide-eyed mannerisms like he's flipping on a switch.
'One of the things about doing this for like 900 shows is that my facial muscles are atrophying,' he says.
'I don't know how Jim Carrey isn't lopsided because I have to get dry needled all the time to get my eyes and jaw to work.'
Despite the physical challenges, Collette is buzzing about this opportunity to entertain Canadian audiences for a good chunk of the summer. He spent his early career in Toronto sharpening his skills as an improv comedian, and the crew has draped a banner of little Canadian flags across his wardrobe as a reminder of his homecoming.
'I feel like here I can relax into my own sensibilities,' he says of performing for locals.
'Because I kind of agree with them on what is good and what isn't, because I'm one of them.'
Collette made his name on Broadway in the 2015 adaptation of 'School of Rock,' playing Dewey Finn, the music-obsessed teacher first portrayed by Jack Black in the Hollywood comedy.
On stage, Collette took over the role from Alex Brightman, who decided to leave 'School of Rock' to become live theatre's first Beetlejuice.
'He was so excited about how funny it was,' Collette remembers of his friend's leap to the ghostly character.
'When I went to see (it), I agreed. It really was like nothing I'd ever seen on Broadway.'
Collette didn't think he'd ever get to play Beetlejuice, until one day the opportunity arose for him to audition for the lead part in a travelling production of the show.
'I knew exactly how I wanted to do it,' he says of the character.
'It's hard to explain. I heard the cadence of how I was going to (speak) ... even when I read the script. I just knew.'
After Collette got the part, he began refining his version of Beetlejuice to make it independent of his predecessors.
'I don't think it looks good when somebody does an impression of somebody else's character in one of these things,' he says.
'It's just diminishing returns because you'll inevitably just get compared to them.'
Collette did lift a few mannerisms from the cinematic source material, he admits. Most notably, he liked Keaton's 'open-legged goblin run' in one scene of the movie, which he uses several times in throughout the musical.
'(It's) little things, because I don't want him to be unrecognizable, right?' Collette says.
'So you've got to borrow some stuff.'
Staying in the Beetlejuice role this long hasn't lost its appeal for him either.
Collette says he's set personal goals for his portrayal, and then pushed himself to go further by 'sharpening movements and trying to dig into moments to mine them for little comedy bits.'
Each night, as he stares out into the crowd of theatregoers and costumed Beetlejuice fans, he rises to another challenge of making Beetlejuice a little more his own.
''Make it your own' sounds so lame to me,' he interjects.
'You have to figure out who you are.'
And with that, his makeup is finished, and Collette is buzzing with mischievous energy.
Surveying his dressing room one last time, he pauses before whipping out one of Beetlejuice's trademark phrases, punctuated by his hearty growl.
'It's shooowtiiime!' he shouts.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2025.
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