'Haunted Mansion' Director on How Winona Ryder's 'Delightfully Weird' Cameo Happened: 'Felt So Right'

"Haunted Mansion" director Justin Simien said the team behind the film wanted Winona Ryder to make a cameo "from the outset"

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Haunted Mansion, in theaters now.

Winona Ryder is no stranger to the strange and unusual — and Justin Simien took full advantage of that.

The Haunted Mansion director, 40, told The Hollywood Reporter about Ryder's appearance in the new Disney film, joking when asked about the actress's cameo, "We kidnapped her. We told her that she was shooting Beetlejuice 2, and she just went with it for a while until she caught on."

In reality, Ryder — known for her roles in darker films and TV shows like Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Stranger Things and more — was "someone that we wanted from the outset."

"Carmen Cuba, the casting director, myself and the studio were really enamored with this idea of plugging in classic faces in these cameo roles, and it just felt so right that she’d be the tour guide at the end of the movie," Simien said of Ryder, 51.

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Related: 'Haunted Mansion' Cast: Meet the Manor's Newest Tenants and Ghosts in the 2023 Remake

The director said the Haunted Mansion team was "shooting for quite a while," which meant Ryder "had time to rest up and regroup" after filming Stranger Things season 4 in Atlanta before joining the production of the Disney movie in the same city.

"She was just so delightfully weird and funny in her performance, and it was a super magical time having her on this project," Simien told THR.

Haunted Mansion is not the only spooky story Ryder is onboard for at the moment, as she also reprises her role of Lydia Deetz from Tim Burton's 1988 film Beetlejuice in its upcoming sequel. Jenna Ortega will play the daughter of Ryder's character.

The two actresses were spotted on the set of Beetlejuice 2 in Hertfordshire, England, last month, filming what appeared to be a wedding scene as Ortega, 20, wore a tulle-laden gown — in white, as opposed to the red multi-tier ruffled one Ryder sported back in the original movie.

Meanwhile, Ryder was dressed in her goth character's signature black and even sported Lydia's iconic hairstyle, complete with spikey bangs.

Based on the Disney Parks attraction of the same name, Walt Disney Pictures' Haunted Mansion marks the second theatrical film adaptation of the ride, following 2003's The Haunted Mansion starring Eddie Murphy.

Aside from Ryder, the movie's star-studded cast includes Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, LaKeith Stanfield, Danny DeVito and Tiffany Haddish, with appearances from Jared Leto as the Hatbox Ghost and Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota.

The film revolves around a single mother (Dawson) and her 9-year-old son (Chase W. Dillon) who move into a New Orleans mansion hoping for a fresh start. However, they quickly learn the home is not what it appears to be and they enlist the help of several different figures, including a paranormal tour guide (Stanfield), a psychic (Haddish), a priest (Wilson) and a historian (DeVito).

Haunted Mansion is in theaters now.

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