Winona Ryder “got (her) hopes up a few times” about making a Beetlejuice sequel with Tim Burton over the years.

The Girl, Interrupted actress starred alongside Michael Keaton and Catherine O’Hara in Burton’s 1988 fantasy comedy and the trio recently reprised their roles 36 years later for the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

Over the past 15 years, she had been secretly talking to Burton about a sequel and she “got (her) hopes up a few times”.

“It was always very top secret,” she told Esquire. “Tim would call and we’d meet in LA. I definitely got my hopes up a few times, and then I’d hear he was doing another movie. I know he was having those conversations with Catherine and Michael, too, but not all of us together. The only way to do it right was to have all of us.”

When she finally found it was happening, she reached out to her co-stars to admit how scared she was.

“Like, ‘How the f**k am I going to do this?’ I texted Michael and Catherine like, ‘I’m so excited and I’m also really scared.’ And they were like, ‘So are we!'” she shared.

Ryder was only 15 when she played Lydia Deetz for the first time in Beetlejuice, which was only her third film. She told the publication that she had a “connection” with Burton and her adult co-stars treated her with respect.

“Michael was so gentle with me. And Catherine. They always included me. They were so kind and so thoughtful. It was unique because as a kid actor you don’t always get that. It’s about the adults,” the 52-year-old explained. “It truly was the first time I ever felt like I collaborated on a movie. And I really had a connection with Tim. I remember going on to other movies and it was not like that. People weren’t so kind. It was much rougher.”

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is in cinemas now.

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