The walls of Nevermore Academy are about to get a little darker, and a whole lot more iconic.
Netflix officially confirmed Monday that Winona Ryder has been cast in a guest star role on Wednesday Season 3, setting off a wave of excitement across the entertainment world that feels equal parts inevitable and electric. The announcement pulls together one of Hollywood’s most beloved creative partnerships, Ryder and director Tim Burton, while also engineering a reunion with Wednesday lead Jenna Ortega, who played Ryder’s on-screen daughter in 2024’s blockbuster Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. In short: the Tim Burton universe is folding in on itself in the best possible way, and fans couldn’t be more thrilled.
The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice connection is no small detail. In that film, Ryder reprised her iconic role as Lydia Deetz, now a mother herself, while Ortega played Astrid, Lydia’s sharp-tongued, fiercely independent teenage daughter. Critics and audiences alike singled out their dynamic as one of the film’s most electric elements, a beautifully volatile push-pull between two generations of darkly eccentric women that felt genuinely lived-in. There was a crackling chemistry between them that left viewers hungry for more. Now, with both actresses set to share the screen again under Burton’s direction, that hunger is about to be fed, just wrapped in a whole new mystery.
If you were to design a casting announcement tailor-made for the Wednesday audience, it would look exactly like this. Ryder is arguably the original “outcast queen” of American cinema, a title the show’s own creators acknowledged without hesitation. “When it comes to Outcasts, Winona Ryder is the GOAT,” showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar said in a joint statement. “Her legendary partnership with Tim Burton has defined some of cinema’s most unforgettable characters. We loved collaborating with her on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome her to Nevermore.” Burton himself was equally warm, saying: “I am so happy that Winona has joined us, she fits right into this world. And she’s a dear friend. I always feel lucky to work with her.”
There’s something poetic about the timing of this casting beyond just the Beetlejuice reunion. Ryder spent nearly a decade as the emotional anchor of Stranger Things, playing the fiercely devoted Joyce Byers across all five seasons of the series, which concluded its run in 2025 and ranks as the third most-watched English-language series in Netflix history. Wednesday, meanwhile, occupies the top spot, with Season 1 holding the all-time record and Season 2 landing at number five following its two-part release last August and September. In other words, Ryder is trading one Netflix behemoth for another, and the streamer that has quietly become one of the defining chapters of her career clearly isn’t ready to let her go.
Here’s where the suspense kicks in, fittingly so for a show built on mystery. Netflix and the production are keeping Ryder’s character name and story details tightly under wraps. What we do know is that she will appear in multiple episodes, suggesting this is more than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo. She joins Eva Green, who was previously announced to play Ophelia, the enigmatic sister of Morticia Addams, teased in a flash at the very end of Season 2’s finale. Green’s casting in that role means Ryder is playing someone else entirely, further deepening intrigue around her character’s identity. Season 3’s returning ensemble also includes Emma Myers, Hunter Doohan, Joy Sunday, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, Luis Guzmán as Gomez, Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester, Joanna Lumley as Grandmama Hester Frump, and Billie Piper.
The broader significance of this casting goes beyond a headline. Winona Ryder was, for an entire generation, the face of outsider cinema, the girl who made it cool to be strange, smart, and a little damaged. From Heathers to Beetlejuice to Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Girl, Interrupted, she built a filmography that practically invented a certain flavor of American gothic. Then Stranger Things introduced her to a new generation of viewers who immediately understood why she mattered. Now, stepping into Wednesday, a show that is itself a love letter to that same tradition of outsider storytelling repackaged for Gen Z, feels like a full-circle moment of genuine artistic coherence. It’s not stunt casting. It’s succession planning for a mythology.
Season 3 of Wednesday arrives at a pivotal moment for the franchise. After Season 2’s massive viewership performance last fall, Netflix has clearly signaled its intent to nurture Wednesday as a long-term tentpole property, and the caliber of talent being assembled for this new season reflects that ambition. The show is produced by MGM Television, with Gough and Millar serving as creators and showrunners, and Burton directing and executive producing.
Winona Ryder joining Wednesday Season 3 is the kind of casting that makes perfect sense the moment you hear it and yet somehow still manages to feel like a wonderful surprise. It reunites a director and actress with one of cinema’s most storied creative partnerships, brings back together two performers whose on-screen chemistry in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice left audiences wanting so much more, and places Ryder squarely in the center of one of Netflix’s most culturally vital properties. Her character remains a mystery. Her role’s full scope remains undisclosed. And honestly? That’s exactly the kind of suspense Wednesday thrives on. The Thing has been snapping. Nevermore is calling. And Winona Ryder is, once again, exactly where she belongs.