Juliette Lewis has built a career on unforgettable performances, from Cape Fear and Natural Born Killers to Yellowjackets. But even with decades of acclaimed work behind her, there are still a few Hollywood “what ifs.”
While speaking with us about her return to the Cape Fear universe, Lewis casually dropped one of them: she once auditioned for Lydia Deetz in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice before the role famously went to Winona Ryder.
The revelation came during a conversation about the projects that almost happened throughout her career.
“I don’t really like to say them,” Lewis initially told me with a laugh before changing her mind. “Let’s see… what could I tell you that would be fun?”
Then she did.
“What’s fun is I did go up for Beetlejuice.”
Juliette Lewis Almost Played Lydia Deetz
Lewis didn’t sound disappointed about missing out on Burton’s 1988 classic. If anything, she looked back on it with perspective.
“So Winona Ryder got that,” she said. “I think I was blonde at the time, completely wrong for the part, but that came my way.”
Looking back on that era, Lewis noted there simply weren’t many leading roles for young actresses.
“There were only a handful of girls at the time, and the parts were very few and far between,” she explained. “So I’m pretty fortunate with what I got and have carved a path with.”
It’s the kind of casting story movie fans love to imagine. Ryder’s Lydia became one of the defining goth heroines of the late ’80s, while Lewis forged an entirely different lane, earning an Academy Award nomination just a few years later for Martin Scorsese‘s Cape Fear.
Now, more than three decades later, Lewis has returned to that franchise in Apple TV‘s new adaptation. Rather than reprising Danielle Bowden, the teenager she played in the 1991 film, she appears as a mysterious figure connected to Javier Bardem‘s Max Cady.
“It was so exciting to get this call and to have this full-circle moment,” Lewis said. “You don’t get these in a lifetime, and when you do you feel really lucky.”
The Britney Spears Video She Never Expected To Go Viral
One of the more unexpected turns in our conversation had nothing to do with Cape Fear.
Instead, we revisited Lewis’ delightfully hilarious 2016 Instagram video in which she pleaded, “Can’t you save us, Britney Spears? Can we be saved?”
I couldn’t resist joking that perhaps her famous Britney Spears monologue should have been the video her Cape Fear character leaves behind for Max Cady.
Lewis immediately laughed before delivering the line once again.
“Can’t you save us, Britney Spears? Can we be saved? God, why is Satan controlling the universe?”
When I asked whether people still bring up the clip nearly a decade later, she admitted she never saw its popularity coming.
“You never know what’s gonna hit,” Lewis said. “Just like a movie, you don’t know what series is going to be a hit.”
She explained the video was filmed during a particularly overwhelming moment in 2016.
“I didn’t know I was going to have a viral moment pulling over in my car when things were literally on fire and also politically on fire,” she recalled. “I was just saying, ‘Please, could we go back to innocent times?'”
I pointed out that Britney Spears’ “Work Bitch” was playing in the background, prompting another laugh.
“Can’t we just go back to times when I was jogging listening to Britney?” Lewis replied.
Returning To Cape Fear
Lewis’ return to Cape Fear may be brief, but it leaves an impression.
Her scenes opposite Javier Bardem’s Max Cady include one of the series’ most talked-about moments, a disturbing spit take that looks startlingly real.
According to Lewis, movie magic deserves the credit.
“That’s pretend, just so you know,” she said. “It was actually air, but Javier made it look so dramatic and offensive.”
She praised Bardem’s commitment to making the encounter unforgettable.
“We both knew we wanted to create something super memorable, dangerous,” she said. “When Nick first told me I’d be going toe-to-toe with Max Cady in this new version, that’s really what was exciting.”
Lewis also believes the new series succeeds because it updates the original’s fears for a different era.
“Cape Fear is almost biblical in its themes of revenge and justice,” she said. “But they’ve made it fresh through phones, stalking and all the different ways you can terrify people today.”
Whether she’s sharing long-forgotten casting stories, laughing about an accidental viral moment or stepping back into one of the defining franchises of her career, Lewis remains exactly what she’s always been: unpredictable in the best way.
Watch Cape Fear on Apple TV.
