Tim Burton: At Home in His Own Head

The New York Times published a thorough article about and interview with filmmaker Tim Burton. Here it is in its entirety:

September 19, 2012
Tim Burton, at Home in His Own Head
By DAVE ITZKOFF
LONDON

IT would be a tremendous disappointment if Tim Burton’s inner sanctum turned out to be a sterile environment, barren except for a telephone on its cold white floor; or a cubicle with a “World’s Greatest Dad” coffee mug. Instead, the workplace of the filmmaker behind invitingly grim delights like “Beetlejuice” and “Edward Scissorhands” is a definitive Burtonesque experience: on a hill here in north London, behind a brick wall and a mournful tree, in a Victorian residence that once belonged to the children’s book illustrator Arthur Rackham, it lies at the top of a winding staircase guarded by the imposing portraits of Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee. Its décor is best characterized as Modern Nonconformist (unless Ultraman toys and models of skeletal warriors are your thing), and when the master of the house greets you, his drinking glass will bear a poster image for “The Curse of Frankenstein.”

That the word Burtonesque has become part of the cultural lexicon hints at the surprising influence Mr. Burton, 54, has accumulated in a directorial career that spans 16 features and nearly 30 years. Across films as disparate as “Ed Wood,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Big Fish” — released to varying critical and commercial receptions — he has developed a singular if not easily pinned-down sensibility. His style is strongly visual, darkly comic and morbidly fixated, but it is rooted just as much in his affection for monsters and misfits (which in his movies often turn out to be the same thing). He all but invented the vocabulary of the modern superhero movie (with “Batman"), brought new vitality to stop-motion animation (with “Corpse Bride,” directed with Mike Johnson, and “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” which Mr. Burton produced) and has come to be associated, for better or worse, with anything that is ghoulish or ghastly without being inaccessible. He may be the most widely embraced loner in contemporary cinema.

His success has also transported him from sleepy, suburban Southern California, where he grew up and graduated from the California Institute of the Arts, to London, where he lives with his partner, the actress Helena Bonham Carter, and their two young children, and where he has come to embrace the sensation of being perpetually out of place.

“I just feel like a foreigner,” Mr. Burton said in his cheerful, elliptical manner. “Feeling that weird foreign quality just makes you feel more, strangely, at home.”

On a recent morning Mr. Burton, dressed entirely in black, was talking about his new animated feature, “Frankenweenie,” which will be released by Walt Disney on Oct. 5., and which tells the charming story of a young boy (named Victor Frankenstein) who reanimates the corpse of his dead pet dog.

Like its director “Frankenweenie” is simultaneously modern and retrograde: the film, which is being released in 3-D black-and-white, is adapted from a live-action short that Mr. Burton made for Disney in 1984, when he was a struggling animator. That project did not get the wide release Mr. Burton hoped for, but it paved the way for him to direct his first feature, “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” the following year.

As he spoke (and occasionally shaped his feral, curly hair into something resembling satyr horns), Mr. Burton was in a nostalgic mood but also a defiant one. That may have been the result of the tepid reception that greeted “Dark Shadows,” his big-budget remake of the TV soap opera (which Mr. Burton said did not disappoint him), or a reluctance to analyze trends in his career. Whether he was talking about his upbringing in Burbank, his earliest frustration at Disney or the unexpected honor of a career retrospective presented at the Museum of Modern Art and other institutions, Mr. Burton still casts himself as an outsider.

“Wanting people to like you is nice, but I’m confident that there’s always going to be lots that don’t,” Mr. Burton said with gallows humor and genuine pride. “I’ll always be able to hang on to that.” These are excerpts from this conversation.


Q. Not only does “Frankenweenie” hark back to the start of your career, it seems to refer to many of the features you’ve made since the original short. Is that by design?

A. If I really thought about it, that’s something I would probably not do. [Laughs.] I don’t consciously make those points of: I did this, I’m going to put that in there as a reference to myself. Things that I grew up with stay with me. You start a certain way, and then you spend your whole life trying to find a certain simplicity that you had. It’s less about staying in childhood than keeping a certain spirit of seeing things in a different way.

Q. How much of your childhood are we seeing in Victor’s isolation?

A. I felt like an outcast. At the same time I felt quite normal. I think a lot of kids feel alone and slightly isolated and in their own world. I don’t believe the feelings I had were unique. You can sit in a classroom and feel like no one understands you, and you’re Vincent Price in “House of Usher.” I would imagine, if you talk to every single kid, most of them probably felt similarly. But I felt very tortured as a teenager. That’s where “Edward Scissorhands” came from. I was probably clinically depressed and didn’t know it.

Q. Were you encouraged to try sports?

A. My dad was a professional baseball player. He got injured early in his career, so he didn’t fulfill that dream of his. He ended up working for the sports department of the city of Burbank. I did some sports. It was a bit frustrating. I wasn’t the greatest sports person.

Q. That can be deeply disheartening at that age, to learn that you’re bad at something.

A. It’s the same with drawing. If you look at children’s drawings, they’re all great. And then at a certain point, even when they’re about 7 or 8 or 9, they go, “Oh, I can’t draw.” Well, yes, you can. I went through that same thing, even when I started to go to CalArts, and a couple of teachers said: “Don’t worry about it. If you like to draw, just draw.” And that just liberated me. My mother wasn’t an artist, but she made these weird owls out of pine cones, or cat needlepoint things. There’s an outlet for everyone, you know?

Q. Were horror films and B movies easily accessible when you were growing up?

A. They’d show monster movies on regular TV then, which they wouldn’t show now. Some of them were pretty hard core, like “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die,” or something where a guy gets his arm ripped off and is bleeding down the wall. My parents were a bit freaked out. [Laughs.] But better that I’m watching TV than them having to watch me or deal with me.

Q. There are emotions and experiences in “Frankenweenie” that audiences don’t often associate with Disney features.

A. People get worried and they go, “Oh my God, the dog gets hit by a car.” It’s funny how people are afraid of their emotions. I remember the original short was supposed to go out with “Pinocchio,” and they got all freaked out about it, like kids would be running, screaming, from the theater.

Q. Do you find poetic justice in the fact that, after all that, Disney is the studio that’s releasing “Frankenweenie"?

A. I feel like I’ve been through a revolving door over the years, and from my first time there as an animator to “Frankenweenie” to “Nightmare” and “Ed Wood,” it’s always been the same reaction: “Come back,” and then “Hmmm, I don’t know.” After I stopped working on “The Fox and the Hound” and trying to be a Disney animator — which was useless — they gave me the opportunity, for a year or two, to draw whatever I wanted. I felt quite grateful for it. At the same time I felt like Rapunzel, a princess trapped in a tower. I had everything I needed except the light of day. I felt they didn’t really want me, and luckily Warner Brothers and Paul Reubens and the producers of “Pee-wee” saw the movie and gave me a chance.

Q. If “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and “Beetlejuice” hadn’t been hits, would that have been the end of your filmmaking career?

A. I always felt bad for people whose first movie is a gigantic hit. [Laughs.] They were movies that were under the radar in a certain way. They’re both low-budget in terms of studio movies. Both were moderate hits, and were on some of the “10 worst movies of the year” lists. I learned quite early on: don’t get too excited, don’t get too complacent, don’t get too egotistical.

Q. When you see, 23 years after “Batman,” the extent to which superhero movies have become the backbone of Hollywood, do you feel a sense of pride or ownership?

A. No, not ownership. At the time it felt like the first attempt at a darker version of a comic book. Now it looks like a lighthearted romp. If I recall correctly, it wasn’t the greatest-received critical movie. So I do feel strange for getting such a bad rap on some level, and nobody mentions, oh, maybe it helped start something.

Q. When you worked with Johnny Depp for the first time, on “Edward Scissorhands,” what was it that connected you to him?

A. Here was a guy who was perceived as this thing — this Tiger Beat teen idol. But just meeting him, I could tell, without knowing the guy, he wasn’t that as a person. Very simply, he fit the profile of the character. We were in Florida in 90-degree heat, and he couldn’t use his hands, and he was wearing a leather outfit and covered head to toe with makeup. I was impressed by his strength and stamina. I remember Jack Nicholson showed me this book about mask acting and how it unleashes something else in a person. I’ve always been impressed by anybody that was willing to do that. Because a lot of actors don’t want to cover [theatrical voice] “the instrument.”

Q. Has your relationship with Johnny changed as your careers have evolved?

A. There’s always been a shorthand. He’s always been able to decipher my ramblings. To me he’s more like a Boris Karloff-type actor, a character actor, than a leading man. The only thing that changes — and this is something I try not to pay any attention to — is how the outside world perceives it. [Snidely] “Oh, you’re working with Johnny again?” “Oh, how come you’re not working with him this time?” You can’t win. I give up.

Q. You don’t have a formal repertory company, but there seem to be certain actors you come back to.

A. [Sighs.] I don’t want to respond to criticism I hear. People that go, “Oh, he’s using her again,” or “He’s using him again.” I’ve enjoyed pretty much everybody I’ve worked with. But it’s good to mix it up. If somebody’s right for the part — I’ve worked with them? Fine. Haven’t? Fine.

Q. Having a life with Helena Bonham Carter, do you have to be more careful about how you use her in your films?

A. The great thing about her is that, long before I met her, she had a full career. She’s also willing to do things that aren’t necessarily glamorous or attractive [Laughs], and I admire her for that. We’ve learned how to leave things at home, make it more of a sanctuary. But I probably take a slight, extra moment to think about it. On “Sweeney Todd” it was quite rough. Nobody was a singer, so I looked at lots of people. Everybody had to audition for it; she did as well. That one was a struggle, because I felt like, jeez, there’s a lot of great singers, and it’s going to look like I gave this one to my girlfriend. She really went through an extra process.

Q. In your last couple of movies you’ve burned her to a crisp, you’ve dumped her at the bottom of the ocean ——

A. I know. But she’s getting it on other movies. She’s being burned up alive a lot lately, or she’s getting set on fire quite a lot. Again, I’ve set another trend.

Q. Your “Planet of the Apes” remake introduced you to Helena, but was it otherwise a professional low for you?

A. Yeah. I’ve tried to learn my lesson. It usually happens on bigger-budget movies. You go into it, and there’s something about it I like, the studio wants to do it. But the budget’s not set and the script’s not set. So you’ve got this moving train. You’re working on it, and you’re cutting this because the budget’s too big, and you feel like an accountant. It’s certainly perceived as one of my least successful films. But at the same time I met with and worked with a lot of people that I loved.

Q. Will you ever explain its ending?

A. I had it all worked out. But it’s my own private thing. Someday we’ll go take some LSD and we’ll talk about it.

Q. Your recent films, like “Sweeney Todd,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,"have all in some way been based on existing properties.

A. I’ve heard that, but a lot of things are, in a way. Even “Alice,” there’s a book, there’s lots of different versions. But there was no movie I would look to and go, “Ooh, we’re going to have to top that ‘Alice.’ “

Q. Is it harder to put your personal stamp on something you didn’t create from the ground up?

A. For me, no. It may be perceived that way, but I have to personalize everything, whether or not it comes from me. If I were to cherry-pick things, even “Ed Wood” was based on a book, it’s based on a person. “Sweeney Todd” is one of my more personal movies, because the Sweeney Todd character is a character I completely related to. Even in “Planet of the Apes” there are things I have to relate to, otherwise I just can’t do it. “Frankenweenie” is a bit more pure that way. But you could argue it’s based on a short which is based on lots of other movies.

Q. Is it a danger when you have a style that’s so distinctive it becomes boilerplate and imitated?

A. It does bother me a bit. People thought I made “Coraline.” Henry [Selick, who directed “Coraline” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas"] is a great filmmaker, but when they say something, they should have to say the person’s name. “From the producer of " — well, there’s eight producers. It’s slightly misleading. Not slightly, it’s very misleading, and that’s not fair to the consumer. Have the courage to go out under your own name. But I don’t have any control over that, and it’s not going to make me change. I can’t change my personality. Sometimes I wish I could, but I can’t.

Q. Do you think that overfamiliarity might have been a problem with “Dark Shadows,” that people saw it was you, and Johnny, and monsters, and they thought, “I’ve seen this before"?

A. Even the fact that it was deemed a failure — financially, it wasn’t really. It may not have set the world on fire, but it made its money back plus some, so I can tick that off as not being a total disaster. There’s some people that I talk to that liked it. “Alice” got critically panned. It made over a billion, I guess, whatever. “Ed Wood” got a lot of critical acclaim, it was a complete bomb. It all has a weird way of balancing itself out.

Q. When you’ve had your own retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, do you feel bulletproof after that?

A. That was surreal. A lot of people thought I manufactured that, which I didn’t. They came to me and I was actually quite freaked out about it. To me, it was all private. It was never meant as, like, great art. It’s like hanging your laundry on the wall. “Oh, look, there’s his dirty socks and underwear.” But with the curators I felt I was in good hands, and they were just presenting it like, this is his process, this is what he does.

Q. Did it come with unforeseen pitfalls?

A. It followed suit with the movies. It got dismissed as “It’s not art.” Which I agree with.

Q. Are there other, more traditional forms of recognition you’d still like to earn?

A. Like public office?

Q. Like an Academy Award?

A. I grew up on movies like “Dr. Phibes,” that were not Academy Award-contending movies. [Laughs.] It’s not something that I’ve got to win. It’s like getting into film — I didn’t say early on, “I’m going to become a filmmaker,” “I’m going to show my work at MoMA.” When you start to think those things, you’re in trouble. Surprises are good. They become rarer and rarer as you go on. But anything like that is special. I’m not Woody Allen yet.

Q. This may seem strange to ask someone with many years of work still ahead, but what would you want your legacy to be?

A. What do I want on my gravestone?

Q. It sounds like something you’ve thought about.

A. I do. I think it’s wise to plan ahead. Start early — plan your funeral now. It’s not a morbid thought. If you want something to happen in a certain way, especially the last thing, you might as well.

The thing that I care about most — that you did something that really had an impact on them. People come up on the street, and they have a “Nightmare” tattoo, or little girls saying they love “Sweeney Todd,” and you’re like, “How were you able to see it?” Or you see people, especially around Halloween, dressed up in costume, as Corpse Bride or the Mad Hatter or Sally. It’s not critics, it’s not box office. Things that you know are connecting with real people.

Q. Is there something unrepentantly crowd-pleasing that you’ll admit to enjoying?

A. I’m always bad at this. Name something.

Q. Well, now that “Downton Abbey” is back on in Britain, will you watch it?

A. No. Helena, that’s more her kind of thing. That one I don’t quite get. To me that’s like getting a morphine injection on a Sunday night. And that can have its positives. But not my cup of tea. There’s shows like “MasterChef,” which I cry at. I don’t know why. I find it quite emotional when they cook something, and it doesn’t work out. Movies, I can’t quite think of, but especially if I’m on an airplane — I don’t know why, maybe because you constantly think you’re going to die — I find every movie, I cry if I watch it on a plane.

Q. I had that reaction to “Love Actually.”

A. [Draws a breath.] Ooh, no, no. I saw that with Helena, and I’ll never forget the ad campaign on that one. It was like, “If you don’t love this movie, there’s something wrong with you.” And we saw it, and we got into a fight and argued all the way home. It was the same with “Mamma Mia!” For a feel-good movie, I’ve never been so depressed.

Q. Your kids are old enough to see movies. Do you try to influence their tastes?

A. I don’t overly push it. I was quite proud when my daughter’s favorite movie was “War of the Gargantuas.” But now that she’s older, she’s gone off from that a bit. I don’t push my things on them. If they’re into it, they’re into it. They’ll find it, or not. You’ve got to let them find their way.

Richard D. Zanuck, 1934-2012

Famed Hollywood producer Richard D. Zanuck died on the morning of Friday, July 13th, 2012 of a heart attack. He was 77 years old.

Zanuck produced numerous films, including Jaws, Driving Miss Daisy, and True Crime, among others.

Zanuck also served as producer on six of Tim Burton's films: Planet of the Apes (2001), Big Fish (2003), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Alice in Wonderland (2010), and Dark Shadows (2012).

You can read more about the working relationship of Tim Burton and Richard D. Zanuck that lasted over a decade in this article by clicking here.

Christopher Lee, Tom Kenny Join "Frankenweenie"

IMDb reports that 90-year-old, legendary actor Christopher Lee and prolific voice actor Tom Kenny (Spongebob SquarePants, The Powerpuff Girls, Adventure Time with Finn and Jake) are providing voices in Frankenweenie. Lee will be reprising his iconic vampire role as "Movie Dracula," while Kenny will play multiple parts, including a fire chief, a soldier, and various townsfolk.

This is Christopher Lee's sixth collaboration with Tim Burton. Previously, they have worked on Sleepy Hollow (1999), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Corpse Bride (2005), Alice in Wonderland (2010), and Dark Shadows (2012). Lee was also going to have an appearance in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) as the head ghost, until that part of the film was cut.

Making the Opening Titles of "Dark Shadows"

Richard Morrison created the opening titles for Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. This was Morrison's third collaboration with the director, having previously worked on Batman (1989) and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) with him.

A short article from the website Dexinger has words from Morrison, who explained how he used footage shot by Tim Burton himself to get a sense of the design of the opening titles, settling on the Benguiat typeface to set the mood.

"Tim shot this long sequence where Bella Heathcote, who plays a young nanny, is travelling on a train through the New England brownwoods," commented Richard Morrison. "It's a beautiful bit of footage that sweeps the audience from the landscape right into the compartment of the speeding train.

"After looking at different treatment, we decided to keep things really simple and work with type to evoke the mood. Benguiat has a lovely feel that's reminiscent of 70's TV shows. And together with the music score, we arrived at a very simple opening, but one that's quite unsettling, which captures the essence of the film."

Burton, Zanuck Forge a Movie Family

Geoff Boucher of the Los Angeles Times wrote an article about the relationship director Tim Burton and producer Richard D. Zanuck have forged in the past decade they have worked together. Here is the article in its entirety:

With “Dark Shadows,” the tandem of director Tim Burton and producer Richard D. Zanuck has delivered its sixth movie, this one starring Johnny Depp as a confused and heartsick vampire who spends two centuries trapped underground before emerging with two urgent instincts: Drink blood. Find family.

Both those impulses stay with the fanged Barnabas Collins for the remainder of the Warner Bros. film, which arrives in theaters Friday, as he dedicates himself to restoring the fortunes of his cursed bloodline. It’s not the first time that the legacies of fractured families and a yearning for reconnection pulsed at the heart of a Burton-Zanuck film.

In “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” for instance, the film’s emotional payoff arrives with the doorstep reunion of candy-maker Willy Wonka (again, Depp, deep in the pale) and his estranged father (Christopher Lee). It’s a scene and subplot you won’t find anywhere in Roald Dahl’s book or the original 1971 film adaptation, but Burton viewed it as an essential addition.

“You want a little bit of the flavor of why Wonka is the way he is,” Burton explained in an interview just before the film’s 2005 release. “Otherwise, what is he? He’s just a weird guy.”

Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. (Peter Mountain / Warner Bros. Pictures)

Recognizing the complicated circuitry that runs between fathers and sons is also a way to frame the Burton-Zanuck partnership, which seems unlike any other major director-producer team today. At the very least, they are clearly unique among Hollywood’s “billion-dollar club” (their 2010 film “Alice in Wonderland,” is one of just 11 releases to go into 10-digit territory with its worldwide box-office tally).

Zanuck is 77 and seems immune to the passing decades — forever tanned, trim and tireless, a lifelong athlete who still enjoying ski slopes with his pal Clint Eastwood. Burton, at 53, is one of the most distinctive filmmakers of this or any other generation, with 15 feature films that usually glow in Halloween colors.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, the two met in a private dining room for a joint interview that quickly relaxed into warm conversation about the personal rhythm of their partnership in a business that rarely hums along with sentimental tunes.

Actress Helena Bonham Carter and director Tim Burton during the filming of the movie “Dark Shadows.” (Peter Mountain / Warner Bros.)

“We’re in our own weird family situation — that’s what we like,” Burton said, referring to Zanuck, key crew members and a core group of recurring cast members with whom he regularly works. “Mars Attacks!” in 1996 was the last time Burton made a movie that didn’t feature either Depp and/or Burton’s current romantic partner, Helena Bonham Carter.

Burton and Bonham Carter met during the filming of “Planet of the Apes” and have two children together, Billy and Nell. The godparents for both are Zanuck and his wife, Lili Fini Zanuck, also a producer. Last year, on the “Dark Shadows” set in London, Bonham Carter said the Zanucks are “part of our life in a special way.”

She added that the heritage of the name Zanuck made the producer an instantly compelling figure for her and Burton, both students of Hollywood history. “The stories are magnificent,” she said, “I never tire of hearing another.” The producer is the only son of Darryl F. Zanuck, the cigar-chomping Hollywood titan who founded 20th Century Films in 1935 and then two years later bought out Fox and added its name to the company.

The younger Zanuck carved out his own history, becoming Fox’s head of production at age 28 and saved the studio by putting all his chips on “The Sound of Music,” which still stands as the third-biggest film in history (behind “Gone With the Wind” and “Star Wars”) in terms of number of tickets sold.

The producer would love to add another hit to his career list with “Dark Shadows,” a movie that (unlike Barnabas) is hard to put in a box. Part comedy, part romance and part light-horror, the film is based on the namesake gothic soap opera (1966-71) that was beloved by Burton and Depp and as well by costar Michelle Pfeiffer. The old series was never a comedy (at least not intentionally), but the new movie, which has garnered early mixed reviews, sinks its teeth into the fish-out-of-water possibilities of an 18th century vampire encountering hippies, lava lamps and Alice Cooper in 1972.

Zanuck and Burton first sat across from each other in the spring of 1999 when “Planet of the Apes” brought them together. Zanuck says the conversation was stilted (Burton is especially shy, which is why he cloaks himself in black sunglasses) because “neither of us liked the script we had, but neither of us wanted to say it.”

That would change as the two keyed their partnership on candor.

“Richard always gives it to me straight, even if it’s something I don’t want to hear,” Burton said. “He has always based everything on the story and the best thing for the film… that’s not how everybody approaches it,” Burton said. “That’s something you can see if you look at his whole career as a producer. For me, there’s a lot of trust.”

The early turning point for the two men came one morning while scouting locations for “Apes.” Burton was ready to leave the hotel when word came that he needed to take an urgent call. As long minutes ticked by, Zanuck had a sense of dread and returned to the lobby, where he learned that Bill Burton, the filmmaker’s father, had died.

Burton and Zanuck collaborate on the set of “Alice in Wonderland.” (Disney)

“He was shattered, as anyone would be,” Zanuck said quietly as Burton nodded in silence.

Burton grew up in Burbank, and he’s said numerous times that he felt oddly removed from his parents and that he knew relatively little about them considering they all lived under the same roof. His father had been a minor league ballplayer and worked for the city’s parks department; his mother ran a cat-themed gift shop, and the boy felt like a stranger in his own life.

Despite that — or maybe because of it — the death of his father sent the director reeling. Zanuck was there to share his story. He and his father feuded and clashed for years. (“His father fired him when he was at Fox,” Burton said with a grin, retrieving a famous bit of Zanuck lore.) The legendary mogul died at his low-desert home just before Christmas 1979.

“I didn’t come out for three days. They had to sneak food in,” Zanuck said. “I was just a mess. The pangs of that are difficult. When it is a bumpy father-son relationship, it even makes it more of a tragedy when it hits. My father had dementia, but I had resolved things pretty well before that. The end was hard. I would go to Palm Springs and see him just sitting there all day watching cartoons. I thought, ‘My God…’ Can you imagine? Him, watching cartoons all day?”

Director Tim Burton chats with Richard D. Zanuck on the set of “Big Fish” in 2003. (Zade Rosenthal / Columbia Pictures)

The “Apes” production that followed was wrenching as Burton fought his way past the studio, the material and the effects challenges. Bonham Carter was there at his side, however, and Zanuck protected him throughout. The director had lost a father and found a family.

“It’s true — we’ve become very close,” Zanuck said. “I think part of it is the connection we have because of our fathers and what we went through when they died.”

The next Burton film was “Big Fish,” a marked departure from Burton’s storytelling and stylistic trademarks, a “wild card” in the deck, as Zanuck once described it. The story is about William Bloom (Billy Crudup), who returns home after years of estrangement and discovers his slippery father (Albert Finney) is dying of cancer. He rushes to try to learn some sort of truth — any kind of truth — about this stranger.

“It’s a movie that was very much about that time in my life,” Burton said. “I was in a certain place. Definitely, that’s where it came from.”

It was by far the lowest-grossing of the Burton-Zanuck films and (along with “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”) among their proudest moments. Zanuck shook his head thinking about it. “If I watched it again right now,” he said, “I know I’d cry at the end.”

– Geoff Boucher

Burton, Depp on "Dark Shadows"

Collider recently spoke with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. In this interview, the two discussed numerous topics relating to Dark Shadows, including how they decided to make this project, Depp's role as a producer, whether or not they might do a sequel, playing a vampire and Depp's influences in taking the part, and much more:

Question: Tim, can you talk about Johnny Depp bringing this to your attention and getting this project going?

TIM BURTON: We’ve talked about it for many years, but this was the first project that I ever remember Johnny saying that he’d wanted to play this ever since he was a little boy.

JOHNNY DEPP: Just a wee tike.

BURTON: He knew Barnabas Collins before he knew his own father.

DEPP: Pretty much.

BURTON: It was one of those things where the show had a lot of impact for some of us. Johnny, Michelle [Pfeiffer] and I were there at the time it came out, and we just recall it being a very strong, interesting property. This was something that Johnny had had for a long time.

Johnny, as a producer, what did you want to make sure you got across with this film?

DEPP: It’s impossible to consider myself a producer. I can barely produce an English muffin, in the morning. That’s the producer [in me]. But, just as a fan of the show, our initial conversation about the thing was during Sweeney Todd, where I just blurted out, in mid-conversation, “God, we should do a vampire movie together, where you have a vampire that looks like a vampire.” Dark Shadows was looming on the periphery, and then Tim and I started talking about it. When we got together, Tim and I started figuring out how it should be shaped. And then, (screenwriter) Seth [Grahame-Smith] came on board and the three of us just riffed. One thing led to another, and it basically dictated to us what it wanted to be, in a sense, certainly with Tim at the forefront, leading the troops.

What were the key elements from the original series that you wanted to carry over to this film?

BURTON: It’s a tricky tone and we all recognize that. When we talked about Dark Shadows, part of its appeal was the weird nature of all the elements that went into it. It was very serious, but it was on in the afternoon, on a daily basis. There were certain reasons why we loved the show, but you couldn’t necessarily adopt to a film. It was the weirdest challenge to get the acting tone and the soap opera nature of the tone. That’s a weird thing to go for in a Hollywood movie. It’s not like you can go to a studio and go, “We want to do weird soap opera acting.” They go, “Oh, great! Whatever that means.” That’s why I was so grateful to all of the cast. Even the ones that didn’t know the show, got into the spirit of it. What made it Dark Shadows was trying to capture the spirit of what the show was.

Johnny, what was the key to playing Barnabas Collins?

DEPP: There is some kind of thread throughout all these characters. The idea of this very elegant, upper-echelon, well-schooled gentleman, who was cursed in the 18th Century and is brought back to the most surreal era of our time – the 1970s, with 1972 – and how he would react to things and how radically different things were, not just with regard to technology and automobiles, but actual items of enjoyment for people, like pet rocks, fake flowers, plastic fruit, troll dolls, lava lamps and macrame owls. Those were my favorite.

What do you think people find so tempting about vampires?

DEPP: It’s a strange thing because, as a child, I certainly had a fascination with monsters and vampires, as did Tim. There’s this darkness, this mystery, this intrigue. And then, as you get older, you recognize the erotic nature of the vampire and the idea of the undead. What was most interesting, in terms of Barnabas, was the combination. It was a real challenge, probably more for Tim than me, to make that vampire, who is clearly a vampire, fit back into this odd society and this dysfunctional family, and I think he did it rather seamlessly.

Tim, what was it like to re-team with Michelle Pfeiffer, for the first time in 20 years, since Batman Returns?

BURTON: It was weird because it reminded me how much I loved working with Michelle. It was a long time ago, but it just flooded back. I never really watch the movies again, but how impressed I remember being with Michelle just flooded back. She learned how to use a whip and jump around on roofs in high-heeled shoes, let live birds fly out of her mouth, and let cats eat her. It was very impressive stuff. So, it was a real joy to get a call from Michelle [before there was even a script] and find out that she was a closet Dark Shadows fan. I knew she was weird, but that confirmed the whole situation. It was great. Michelle and Johnny and I, we were the only ones of the cast that knew Dark Shadows. You can’t really show Dark Shadows to anybody else that doesn’t know it ‘cause they’d probably run screaming out of the room. It was nice that Michelle, playing the head of the family, was a fan. It just made me realize how much I enjoyed working with her. But, she did have trouble walking down the stairs in this movie. Some people’s powers diminish, at some point.

Johnny, what was it like, the first time you had to bite someone in the film?

BURTON: Yeah, how was your bite on that big construction worker? Did you enjoy that?

DEPP: Well, going back to the erotic nature of vampires, I felt as though I was biting one of the Village People.

BURTON: And then, he went on to the biker and the cowboy.

DEPP: And the cop. No. When I had the fangs in, I wanted to be a little bit careful that I didn’t actually pierce the jugular. It was kind of like my experience shaving Alan Rickman (in Sweeney Todd), which, by the way, neither of us want to do again, especially Alan.

Johnny, actor Chris Sarandon said that he felt sorry for you for having to wear the vampire nails because he had such a hard time with it when he did Fright Night. How was it for you to have to wear them?

DEPP: There are many more reasons to feel sorry for me. We can go through them now, or we can just cuddle after. We can have a big group cuddle, and all get greasy and weird. In every film that I’ve been lucky enough to do with Tim, there’s always some form of torture. The nails were Tim’s idea. They were the length of the fingers. But, it was okay because I had a troupe of people who would help me go to the bathroom. They had to have treatment afterwards, but they’re okay now. That is true.

How much of your physicality for Barnabas came from watching Jonathan Frid, and was there also some Nosferatu influence?

DEPP: Approaching Barnabas, even in the early days of trying to explore the possibilities of the character, no matter where you went in your head, if you tried to veer away from the original Jonathan Frid character, it was apparent to both Tim and myself that it had to be rooted in Jonathan Frid’s character of Barnabas. It just had to be. It was so classic, in the classic monster, Fangoria magazine way. In terms of that, when Jonathan was playing Barnabas, there was a rigidity to him, like he had a pole of the back and this elegance that was always there. Tim and I talked early on that a vampire should look like a vampire. It was a rebellion against vampires that look like underwear models. There was a bit of Nosferatu in there, too.

What was it like to use a cane for this character?

DEPP: The cane was one of the left-over things from the series. It’s pretty much the same design. It’s slightly altered. It’s not a silver-tipped cane because my hand would have burst into flame.

How was it to have the original cast on the set?

DEPP: Well, it was great! It was great of Tim to bring them into the fold. It was our way of saluting them, and Jonathan was terrific. He had written me a letter, a couple of years before, and signed a photograph to me, passing the baton to Barnabas, which I thought was very sweet. He had his original Barnabas cane with him and I wasn’t sure, when he actually saw me, if he was going to attack me with it, but he didn’t.

BURTON: It’s like having the Pope come visit. For us, part of the reason we were there was because those people inspired us, so it was nice to see them back in their early ‘70s clothing.

Tim, with such a big cast, what deleted scenes might be on the DVD?

BURTON: There’s stuff that we cut out. Each actor will have all of their best scenes that I’ve cut out of the film in there. No. I think there will be some stuff on it because, with the nature of it being a soap opera, we cut out stuff, but all the actors were great, so I think I’m going to look at having scenes that aren’t in the film. Because the actors did such a great job and because of the soap opera nature of it, we’ll probably have some stuff on there.

Johnny, after working on Dark Shadows, was the influence of Dan Curtis what led you to want to do The Night Stalker?

DEPP: From Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker appeared, and it was a show that I really loved. Again, there’s this weird tone to it. This reporter becomes a detective in these really odd situations. Yeah, Dan Curtis was a great, great influence.

Since this is not material that current movie audiences are familiar with, did you worry about whether the interest would be there?

BURTON: Going into this movie, you don’t go into it going, “Oh, Dark Shadows, what an easy peasy idea.” It’s not like you go into it thinking that. It’s actually a much more strange challenge.

There’s always a lot of pressure for summer movies to perform. Do you hope this film reaches beyond its specific niche audience and is seen by a larger group of people?

BURTON: There are Dark Shadows fans, and then there’s everybody else. You can’t really make it with projecting what you think it’s going to be. First of all, we made a movie that we wanted to see, and then you just hope for the best.

The ending of this lends itself to a possible sequel. Did you always think that this could be a possible start to a franchise?

BURTON: No. Because of the nature of it being like a soap opera, that was the structure. It wasn’t a conscious decision. First of all, it’s a bit presumptuous to think that. If something works out, that’s one thing, but you can’t ever predict that. That had more to do with the soap opera structure of it.

Johnny, people have said that you’re in this Marlon Brando phase of your career, making these very eccentric characters come to life. Having directed and worked with Marlon Brando, do you see that as a valid comparison?

DEPP: I couldn’t imagine my name and Marlon’s in the same sentence, in terms of the work. He was a great friend of mine, and certainly a great inspiration and a great mentor. I don’t know.

If you had to stay one of your characters for the rest of your life, who would it be?

DEPP: Probably the Earl of Rochester (from The Libertine).

Bonham Carter on Working with Burton, "Dark Shadows"

Actor Daniel Radcliffe recently interviewed Helena Bonham Carter for Interview Magazine. You can read the interview in its entirety here, but here are some relevant excerpts from the conversation about working with her director/partner Tim Burton on Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Dark Shadows:

RADCLIFFE: ...What's your relationship with musicals? Did you listen to them growing up?

BONHAM CARTER: I love musicals. Honestly, I'd always wanted to be in a musical, and I'd always wanted to be Mrs. Lovett [her role in Sweeney Todd], so when Tim said, "I'm going to make it, but you can audition if you want, you know . . .

RADCLIFFE: I remember you practicing singing.

BONHAM CARTER: Yes, again, you were there!

RADCLIFFE On the fifth [Harry Potter] film. I remember thinking, What is going to happen to Tim if she doesn't get this part? I think it's important to say you were also auditioning for [Stephen] Sondheim [a co-author of the original musical who was consulted for Burton's film]. And that's incredibly tough. What was that experience like?

BONHAM CARTER: It was one of the worst humps in our marriage. Not that we're married, but it's really hard—

RADCLIFFE: That's so brilliant. So can you talk about Dark Shadows? 'Cause I don't know the series really—

BONHAM CARTER: I didn't know it. I knew that Tim used to race home when he was a school kid and watch Dark Shadows, which was this really crappy soap opera-sort of Gothic soap opera, but it's all set around 1970. It's basically about Barnabus Collins, an unhappy vampire—a reluctant vampire.

It’s Tim Burton. He’s a genius. You can’t turn him down just because you go out with him and have two children together.

RADCLIFFE: Oh, cool! And you play Dr. Julia Hoffman?

BONHAM CARTER: I play the resident psychiatrist, who's an alcoholic. There's this sort of odd family . . . Barnabus Collins is resurrected from his coffin, and he comes back to his family. He's been away for 200 years. And Michelle Pfeiffer is, I guess, his great-niece by seven times.

RADCLIFFE: Excellent.

BONHAM CARTER: It was kind of worrying when I read it, because there's a sexy witch part. At the beginning of the film, before casting, Tim said, "I think we should take a break, because you get to work with all these other directors and I never get to work with other actors." I said, "Fine, absolutely understand it. Let's just be grown-up about it." And then [producer] Dick Zanuck—he's the most amazing man. He's 77, he's Daryl Zanuck's son, and he has produced flops, sensations—Jaws, The Sound of Music. I mean, he's a legend. So I'm on the Golden Globe red carpet, unfortunately dressed as usual, and Dick comes up to me—

RADCLIFFE: Oh, was this the different shoes?

BONHAM CARTER: Yeah. But you know, it was good because how do you do the carpet for an hour and half? So I thought, [forget] it. I looked at the dress and I thought, It's not gonna be well received, so let's just distract. At least you've got some control, you know?

RADCLIFFE: That's, frankly, inspired.

BONHAM CARTER: So Dick comes up to me and says, "Have you read it?" And I said, "Yeah, but he doesn't want me to be in it." He said, "No, no. You're the doctor . . . " I said, "Angélique, the sexy witch, right?" He said, "No, not Angélique. You're Dr. Hoffman." Doctor Hoffman! An alcoholic psychiatrist.

RADCLIFFE: Right, so you had pictured other actresses?

BONHAM CARTER: Well, I had, but I also thought, What is it about an alcoholic psychiatrist that makes you naturally think Helena?

Atwood on Depp's "Dark Shadows" Vampire Look

MTV News spoke with acclaimed costume designer Colleen Atwood recently. The three-time-Oscar winner described working on Dark Shadows with star Johnny Depp.

"Johnny's very open about what things are in the process, but he really lets people present things to him. He never really pushes at all," Atwood said. "Sometimes he doesn't even look in the mirror in his fittings. It's so funny. It's pretty amazing. People would be surprised, because I think they have this image of Johnny, because he's so stylish always, but he really feels his costumes more than looks at them, and the movement and the feeling in them is really important."

"He plays a vampire who wouldn't normally go out in the daytime, but we wanted him to be able to have outings, so I did two or three different hat shapes and we tried them once he got his hair and makeup on," said Atwood. "I also found these amazing hundred-year-old sunglasses, but they were too small ... so I took them and had them copied. And the color of the sunglasses and the color of the hat and his costume coat, which was a really dark green, is one of our favorite combos we've come up with in our work together."

Dark Shadows included, Atwood and Depp have collaborated on eight films together, including five other Tim Burton films (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Alice in Wonderland). During all of those years, Atwood says the two have built a successful working relationship, saying, "There's a lot of trust there for both of us, so it's a nice process, because ... if he has an idea, it comes from someplace; it's not just some wanky fashion idea."

Video: Eva Green on "Dark Shadows"

Eva Green spoke with MTV News, giving us her thoughts on Tim Burton's upcoming adaptation of Dark Shadows, which begins shooting next month:

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

"I haven't seen the TV series, but from what I've seen on the Internet, it's very different. My character is very different. She's American, blonde, cool, in the '70s," Green told MTV News. "She is this sexy witch, very powerful in town, she's very cool. She has many faces." Green will be playing the role of Angelique.

"It's something that he's never done, I think," she said. "It's much more focused on the actors. It could almost be a play."


Green had a bit more to say about the film in an interview with Black Book:

Tell me about Dark Shadows, the Tim Burton film you’re shooting. Has that started yet?
No, in a month.

What can you tell me about that?
I’m not allowed to say too much about it. It’s extremely well written, very, very funny, in a Tim Burton way. It’s very focused on the actors, and the characters are really rich. My character is a full-on witch and she’s completely obsessed with Johnny Depp’s character, and she’ll do anything to get him.

Is it going to be a film children can see?
I don’t know, it’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever read. There will be blood, so I don’t know. It’s always dark and poetic with Tim Burton. It’s a mixture of Sweeney Todd and Beetlejuice—back to his old roots. But he wants to focus more on the actors this time and the relationships. It could almost be a play.

"Alice" Wins Two Oscars

Alice in Wonderland won two of the three Oscars it was nominated for this Sunday at the 83rd annual Academy Awards.

The film won in the categories of Best Costume Design, with Colleen Atwood receiving her third Oscar, and Best Art Direction, given to Robert Stromberg (Production Designer) and Karen O'Hara (Set Decorator).

Here is Atwood's acceptance speech:

"Thank you to the Academy and especially to my fellow nominees who are just so much fun to sit with tonight and who have been so supportive, it's great to be part of such a great group of people. The story, "Alice in Wonderland," was described by its publisher in 1865 as a story valued for its rare imagination, priceless humor, and power to transport the reader into a world of pure fantasy, a gift to us all. The heart of any movie lies with the director and I've been incredibly lucky on this and many films to work with the singular Tim Burton. Tim's imagination along with the amazing cast Johnny's incandescent Hatter, Mia's Alice for all girls, all times, Helena's the fearless big headed Queen, and our crystalline snowflake princess, Anne Hathaway, made my job a delight. We had the support of a production team headed by Richard Zanuck and Katterli Frauenfelder. Supported by Joe Roth, Suzanne and Jen Todd, and Disney, but I couldn't have done it without my team Christine Cantella and my entire group. Thank you all very much."

This is the ninth Academy Award nomination for Colleen Atwood. She was previously nominated for:

NINE (2009) -- Nominee, Costume Design
SWEENEY TODD THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007) -- Nominee, Costume Design
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA (2005) -- Winner, Costume Design
LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (2004) -- Nominee, Costume Design
CHICAGO (2002) -- Winner, Costume Design
SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999) -- Nominee, Costume Design
BELOVED (1998) -- Nominee, Costume Design
LITTLE WOMEN (1994) -- Nominee, Costume Design

Atwood also filled out a questionnaire sheet, giving us some tidbits of her interests, inspirations, and memories from working on Alice (click the thumbnail to enlarge the image):



And here is the joined acceptnce speech from Stromberg and O'Hara:


STROMBERG: Why didn't I lose that 20 lbs? First of all, the other nominees, Guy, all you guys deserve to be up here. Everyone at Disney from Iger and Ross and Bailey, Bruce Hendricks, Art Repola, the great Joe Roth. The Art Department led by Stefan Dechant, Crissy Wilson, and Todd Cherniawsky. This great set decorator. I'm standing here because of three people, Ken Ralston, the great Richard Zanuck, and the wacky world of Tim Burton. There he is!

O'HARA: Tim, this is yours. Thank you.

STROMBERG: Meet me with a saw because half of this is yours. There's one last bit of art direction for a Tim Burton Film. There it is. Thank You Academy and to my wife and kids and I dedicate this to my Dad.

This is the third Academy Award nomination for Robert Stromberg. He was previously nominated for:

AVATAR (2009) -- Winner, Art Direction
MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (2003) -- Nominee, Visual Effects

This is the second Academy Award nomination for Karen O'Hara. She was previously nominated for:

THE COLOR OF MONEY (1986) -- Nominee, Art Direction



Daniel Haim of Bloginity interviewed O'Hara and Stromberg back stage:

Q. Congratulations. What did you put on top of the Oscar? Oh, now I can see it.

A. You couldn’t see it? It’s a little Mad Hatter’s hat.

Q. Did you make that?

A. I had one of my prop makers make it, and I just thought it was a nice little punctuation to the end of the show. Could you not see it on the broadcast? You could see it.

Q. Congratulations. I just want to ask you, what was your biggest production design challenge on this film because it seemed like every scene probably would have been, but can you talk about that, but also in terms of set direction, what was your biggest challenge?

A. Well, you know, any time you work on a Tim Burton film, there’s a bar that you have to meet, and the challenge for a film like this is that we had a great deal of digital sets, but there were some challenging physical sets. And the biggest challenge was sort of making sure the director, the actors knew where they were at all times in these green environments through, having virtual versions of those sets available to them; physical models, and illustrations.

Q. The Academy made a big splash of connecting art direction, cinematography, and yet Alice’s other big below the line nomination is in visual effects. So, in an increasingly rendered age, what is the relationship between production design and the visual effects department?

A. You guys ask a set decorating question next. Well, I come from visual effects. But the difference between how we work now in these types of films is that the production designer is involved with the visual effects probably more heavily, and involved more in post production, which is actually good because the way it normally works is the production designer will sort of leave after the end of principal photography, and then you are relying on visual effects people to fill in those green screens. So, this keeps a more cohesive design coming from visual effects myself.

Q. This is your second in a row in art direction after your first nomination being in visual effects. Where do you see your art evolving from here?

A. I should probably retire (laughs). You know, I feel honestly, I feel that I’ve always done creative things, but design is design no matter what you do, no matter what form. We have lots of new technology that we’re trying and I feel like we are pioneering fusing art and machine. I am very proud of that because the next generation of kids coming up will know what they are doing.

Q. I just want to get some reaction from you, you’ve been up there before is it different the second time, and I want to hear from both of you about this?

A. Stromberg: Honestly, I was not expecting it. I was sort of following INCEPTION. I thought it had the upper hand this year, but I’m very proud that it was recognized and very happy to win, but all the nominees I take my hat off to.

A. Karen O’Hara: I think that the most difficult time that we had was when Johnny decided to walk across the table and suddenly all of our china and our tables, we had to triplicate. Other than that, though, we had a wonderful time working with Tim and this is really a nod to him and his supportive artists.
A. [Stromberg] Thank you all.

Q. Thank you, and congratulations.


Alice was also nominated for Best Visual Effects, but Inception took home that prize.

"Alice" Gets Three Oscar Nods

Alice in Wonderland has received three nominations for the Academy Awards this year:

-Best Art Direction:
Robert Stromberg (Production Design); Karen O'Hara (Set Decoration)

"This is the third Academy Award nomination for Robert Stromberg. He was previously nominated for:

AVATAR (2009) -- Winner, Art Direction
MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (2003) -- Nominee, Visual Effects

This is the second Academy Award nomination for Karen O'Hara. She was previously nominated for:

THE COLOR OF MONEY (1986) -- Nominee, Art Direction"


-Best Costume Design:
Colleen Atwood

"This is the ninth Academy Award nomination for Colleen Atwood. She was previously nominated for:

NINE (2009) -- Nominee, Costume Design
SWEENEY TODD THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007) -- Nominee, Costume Design
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA (2005) -- Winner, Costume Design
LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (2004) -- Nominee, Costume Design
CHICAGO (2002) -- Winner, Costume Design
SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999) -- Nominee, Costume Design
BELOVED (1998) -- Nominee, Costume Design
LITTLE WOMEN (1994) -- Nominee, Costume Design"


-Best Visual Effects:
Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips

This is the eighth Academy Award nomination for Ken Ralston. He was previously nominated for:
FORREST GUMP (1994) Winner, Visual Effects
DEATH BECOMES HER (1992) Winner, Visual Effects
BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (1989) Nominee, Visual Effects
WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988) Winner, Visual Effects
COCOON (1985) Winner, Visual Effects
RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983) Winner, Special Achievement Award (Visual Effects)
DRAGONSLAYER (1981) Nominee, Visual Effects

These are the first Academy Award nominations for David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips.


In related news, Helena Bonham Carter has been nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The King's Speech, one of the most acclaimed films of 2010.

You can see the televised 83rd Academy Awards on Sunday, February 27th, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time on CBS.

Interview: Burton on his Art, Personal Films

Reuters had an interview with Tim Burton to discuss his huge art retrospective. The art exhibition will be making its third stop in Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Bell Lightbox on November 26th, and will remain there until mid-April.

Q: How does it feel to be honored like this?

A: "It's a very strange thing because usually this stuff happens when you're dead. This doesn't usually happen when you're still going, so it is quite an honor and strange because it's stuff I never expected to be up on a wall somewhere."

Q: Some of your original drawings and concepts are featured. What's it like for you to see scraps of paper with a drawing on it or an old letter you wrote on display?

A: "I never really went to museums, so the idea felt like an out of body experience. It didn't feel like me. It's kind of like "Oh, there's my dirty socks hanging on the wall." There's something strange about it. But I felt like I was in very good hands with (MoMA). I felt like they were presenting me in a way that made it more comfortable...cause I'd never thought I'd look at this stuff ever again. It's just strange, which is fine. I don't mind strange feelings."

Q: Going through the exhibit, your characters are somewhat bizarre and scary, but they are beautiful and often vulnerable at the same time. Is that how you view people and the world?

A: "I always liked the mixture of things. I always feel like things are never one thing. Funny and sad, pretty and ugly. Most are always a combination of things, so it's my way of juxtapositioning things that shouldn't necessarily be together. But that's what makes up everybody, really."

Q: When you look back at your own career, what films are you most proud of?

A: "Each one you spend time with so they're all a part of you. Even the ones that weren't successful, they're still a part of you. But there are certain films like 'Edward Scissorhands' that are more personal to me because the themes in that movie were very strong, personal feelings that were being explored when I was a teenager. 'Ed Wood,' the main character from the movie, is a character I kind of related to in terms of delusional qualities. I like 'Sweeney Todd' because he didn't say very much. With every character you try to find something personal in it."

Q: In the exhibit, there are sketches of projects that didn't get made, projects like "Trick or Treat". Will you be revisiting these projects any time in the near future?

A: "Not necessarily. At that time when I was doing those projects I was thrown in a room working on random projects. Some were more developed than others; some were ideas that Disney was thinking about. So a lot of that stuff became like a grey area to me. It's one of the things I like about the way they presented the exhibition because it shows the weird crossover of how things start out more abstractly and how one little sketch might turn into something for a bigger idea. It shows the weird process."

Q: Do you start with an image and develop it into a story?

A: "Often times, yes. I was never a very verbal person so I do a lot of thinking through sketches and doodles or drawings or whatever. I think coming from an animation background you tend to think visually, rather than intellectually."

Q: And how do you find your muse? Do you create a character based on an idea or one based on a particular actor or person?

A: "You try to keep open to things whether it's a person, an animal, a thing, a feeling, the weather. Whatever it is, the key is to always try to be open to see things differently."

Burton and Depp on "Jonathan Ross"

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp were both on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on February 26th, 2010:

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:



Part 4:



Part 5:

Burton, Depp on Mad Hatter, "Sweeney Todd" Hysterics

ET interviewed Tim Burton and Johnny Depp and talked Alice in Wonderland. You can see the video interview here.

With Alice in Wonderland, Burton and Depp have made seven films together -- yet Depp hasn't seen a single one of them. The actor said his kids are more likely to see Alice before him. Burton says of Depp, "From working with him for so many years, the one thing I knew from the very beginning is that he goes for anything, and that's very exciting. ... That's what creation is all about."

Burton jokes of choosing Depp for the Mad Hatter character, saying, "After he lobbied for Alice, we went to the next logical character."

Depp explains why he continues to work with Burton, saying, "The atmosphere that he creates for that set is so conducive to creating essentially whatever you want and not being afraid to try something. ... There is the element of trust that's there."

Along with discussing Wonderland, Depp recalled how their previous collaboration, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, would put the director into fits of laughter. "It was the most normal I've ever looked in any of his films and that alone made me feel really uncomfortable," Depp tells ET's Mary Hart. "Then I'd come to the set and [Burton] would burst into hysterical laughter."

Burton on Spall, the Bloodhound

While the title is familiar, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is aiming to be quite different from previous cinematic adaptations. One example of this is the presence of a character that never appeared in the two "Alice" books by Lewis Carroll: the Bloodhound.

The canine character is voiced by Timothy Spall, who previously worked with Burton on his last feature, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, playing the Beadle Bamford. Spall is no stranger to fantastical films, having acted in Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Enchanted.

"Timothy Spall is amazing," Burton said. "I love him. He's exciting because he's always doing something different, he's always working and doing some interesting project. He does all sorts of cool things."

The bloodhound's presence may be "a reaction against the Cheshire Cat" in the film, says Burton, who is no fan of felines. "The film felt a bit feline- and rodent-heavy, perhaps, and I think the Bloodhound adds a certain little gravity to it. When you see all of the characters, the animal ones, together, he added a little balance to it."

Screenwriter Linda Woolverton explains her creation of the bloodhound character in this Los Angeles Times article, which does include a few SPOILERS.

Although much of the film is animated, Burton, a notorious dog-lover, really wanted to go for realism for the bloodhound character -- aside from the obvious talking bit.

"We were trying to find with this character and the other talking-animal characters the right kind of animation and the goal was to keep it naturalistic and to fit into that world in the background," Burton said. "The movement of the animals is really what I'm referring to, in some animation the characters don't move the way animals do and we wanted to go the direction of being naturalistic."

"Alice" Cinematographer on "The Green"

Alice in Wonderland Director of Photography Dariusz Wolski spoke with the Los Angeles times about shooting Tim Burton's newest feature film.

Wolski was the director of photography on Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and so was intrigued by the idea of working with Burton again for Alice.

"Alice was the most unusual thing I had ever done in my life," said the 53-year-old native of Warsaw. "Tim called me and said 'I am making this movie, will you do it?' I said sure because I like the guy. I had no idea what it was going to be."

"A debacle," Wolski described the experience as being with exaggerated distress. "I think Tim hated the green more than I did by the end."

The green, of course, is the vast green screen that the live-action actors performed in front of for the film. Wolski's camera would have to navigate through a non-existent world of fantastical, invisible landscape, which would be digitally sculpted later.

"It was quite absurd," says Wolski, who previous credits include the Pirates of the Caribbean films, The Crow and Crimson Tide. "You look through the camera and all you see is green. 'OK so there will be a castle there, a tree here and a hill there. And a moat, yes, a moat about there. There's this entire world that will be created but but it's not there on camera. It's...difficult."

The film being a live-action/animation hybrid in a sea of green wasn't the only difficulty. Another nuisance for the filmmakers was predicting Alice's changing sizes. This meant that Wolski and Burton had to compute the angles and orientation for each scene accurately.

"Sometimes she is six inches, sometimes she is two feet, sometimes she is eight feet. The eye-lines change, everything changes. It was a very bizarre project. And lighting? You're lighting blindly. everything will be filled in later after you are done. There is a lot of use of your imagination."

Wolski's next project will be the fourth Pirates movie. But he would he want to work in such a green-screen-heavy project again? "Uh. If it's Tim?" he asked. "Maybe."

Johnny Depp Film Season at the BFI

British Burton fans may want to check out the upcoming Johnny Depp film season at the British Film Institute in London. It includes a chance to see both Sweeney Todd and Corpse Bride on the big screen. More information below:

This February the BFI Southbank London presents a season of Johnny Depp films which includes some of Burton's most personal work in one of Hollywood's most successful collaborations. These screen alongside some of Depp's other work with some of the greatest contemporary directors, including Terry Gilliam, Jim Jarmusch and Roman Polanski.

"Johnny Depp's ascent to the top of the Hollywood A-list has been marked by a refusal to compromise, and by doing things his own way. We look at the work of an actor who's never happier than when he's messing with his appearance."

Helena Bonham Carter on "Alice," Burton

The Guardian asks actress Helena Bonham Carter about her career thus far, Alice in Wonderland, how her life has change since meeting Tim Burton, and much more. Also included are pictures from a Wonderland-inspired photo-shoot. You can read the entire article here, but here are some notable excerpts:


'I’m ­often criticised for what I wear. That’s my main label in the press now: disastrous dresser!'
Photograph: Gustavo Papaleo

Helena Bonham Carter discussed her exagerrated, tyrannical role in Alice as the Red Queen. "I've brought myself. It's me... in Alice," she says. Holding up a cardboard cutout of her character, she explained, "She's got Tourette's. She just says, 'Off with their heads!' all the time."

Bonham Carter has worked with Tim Burton in six films so far. Alice in Wonderland has gathered tremendous hype (and cost a bundle, too -- $250,000,000), but the actress revealed that she has not seen the film yet. No one has. The movie has been kept top secret. Then again, she may never see it. She and co-star Johnny Depp cannot stand seeing themselves on screen. "Johnny doesn't watch ­anything he's in. That's slightly comforting. You think if Johnny Depp can't watch himself..."

It doesn't help that Burton seems to dress her up in outrageous characters, either. "No, I can never rely on Tim to make me pretty."


'We do dress up at Halloween.'
Photo: Gustavo Papaleo


But playing such extreme and quirky characters has been working just fine for Bonham Carter. Prior to meeting Burton in 2001, she was mostly relegated to posh, corset-wearing roles in period dramas. She first emerged with a proper role in film at age 19 in A Room With a View, and went on to be a poster girl for EM Forster, English roses and the corset ­industry. Since then, her resume has altered dramatically.

"Ageing has helped hugely," she says. "There's no question I'm a better actor, and you leave ­behind a certain typecasting. I was like the corset bimbo." She stops, has a slurp of smoothie, a bite of toastie and starts again. "Well, not quite bimbo, but you know what I mean. The corset sex symbol, I suppose. Now I'm not going to be the sex symbol, I'm going to be the granny." She changes her mind by the mouthful. "Well, not quite granny."


Does Tim have a key to her house? 'No… He always visits, which is really touching.'
Photo: Gustavo Papaleo

Bonham Carter had had plenty of boyfriends, ­including Kenneth Branagh, but had never lived with anybody. "I remember I did think, 'Wouldn't it be nice if Mr Right moved in next door?'"

Eventually, he did. During the filming on Planet of the Apes in 2001 (with Bonham Carter as the female lead, the human rights advocating chimpanzee Ari), she met the director, Tim Burton. At the time, she barely talked to him. The only thing she remembers him saying to her is that he knew he wanted her as one of his apes, and that he had once lived in Hampstead and it was the only place in the world he'd felt at home. When the film was completed, they began their relationship, when she was 35, and he bought the home next door to hers in Hampstead. Today, they have two children, six-year-old Billy Ray and two-year-old Nell.

After meeting Burton, her acting work and wardrobe changed. "I'm ­often criticised for what I wear. That's my main label in the press now: disastrous dresser!" she exclaimed. "Sometimes it's really offensive, but it's kind of affectionate now. We're like the 'bonkers couple'."

Another common label that is tagged on her is 'goth,' but Bonham Carter is uncertain that it's an appropriate adjective for herself. "I don't like the music particularly, I've got no goth records. Is it the predominant black? The make-up? And the whiteness? The white thing. Yes... Tim sometimes puts grey make-up on for the press and he doesn't tell me, so afterwards I'm like, 'You're ill!' He goes, nah, it's the grey make-up. Heeheeehee!"

Burton gets similar descriptions in the press, but she was equally skeptical about that description. "He doesn't like the music, either. But we do dress up at Halloween." Do they just stay at home in their make-up, or go out? "No, we go out and play. I don't know... well, he likes death... It's not that he likes it, but he's considered it in his work."


'In the six weeks when you’re up for an Oscar, there’s a little ­window where you’re offered everything. Seventh week, when you haven’t got it, you’re fucked. Forget it.'
Photo: Gustavo Papaleo

Burton is still considered an oddball, and their aesthetics do differ from the Hollywood conventions. Bonham Carter speculated that Burton might have Asperger's Syndrome in the past, but she now says she tends to get such observations incorrectly. "All the auties love Nightmare Before Christmas." Again, she apologises, this time for the word ­auties. "I played Jacqui Jackson, a single mum with children on the autistic spectrum, and I feel partly it's OK to talk like that because I know her, know that world, and she calls them auties." It makes perfect sense what she says about ­Burton. "I think he felt very isolated in Burbank where he was born. Edward Scissorhands is a ­version of where he was brought up. It is a bit ­Alice In Wonderland – I don't belong here." Whatever he may or may not be, there is no doubt that Burton is a unique, creative person. "He's someone who's very creative and has a mad ­exterior, but he is funda­mentally very sane and ­practical. I don't think we're crazy at all, to be honest," Bonham Carter said.

They're practical in domestic arrangements, too. Needing their independent space, she has one house, he has ­another and the children have the third to play in with the nanny. Do she and ­Burton see each other much at home? "He always visits, which is really touching. He's always coming over." Does he have a key to her house? "No, the houses are joined. We have a throughway. Journalists think there's an underground tunnel, gothic. It's ­actually quite above ground, lots of light." Do they sleep together? "Sometimes. There's a snoring issue... I talk, he snores. The other thing is, he's an insomniac, so he needs to watch ­television to get to sleep. I need silence."

In the interview, she went on to show some family photos on her mobile phone. "That's Bill as a pirate for his pirates party. He's so ­unbelievably patient. Nell's two, she's going to destroy everything. He's­ ­introvert, she's extrovert. He's very tender, she's much more traditionally masculine."


'I feel more sexy than ever, not because I’m sexually attractive, I just feel I’ve grown into my body.'

Hair: Carol Hemming. Make-up: Louise Constad at Mandy Coakley Represents using Benefit.
Photo: Gustavo Papaleo.


She thinks she has changed since being with ­Burton. "He's made me more aware. He thinks I overact all the time. He's got a thing about me having a very mobile face. Tim has often said I've got hyperactive eyebrows – he calls them the dancing cater­pillars. He's all for minimal ­expression. He likes to simplify things, I ­complicate them. I think we can do this or this or this, optionitis, then I get frozen because I don't know which one."

Has she changed him? "People who know him say I have, and I feel really flattered. Made him talk more. He didn't ­really talk before. He's much shyer than me. Every ­sentence was ­unfinished. I used to say he was a home for ­abandoned ­sentences. Now he actually finishes them." She sounds so chuffed, as if the thought has struck her for the first time. She is often ­described as Burton's muse, but that makes her uneasy. She says she would not be upset if in future he didn't cast her; there's always going to be a film for which she isn't right. "You can't take it personally." But what if he decided he no longer wanted her in any of his films? "Well, if it's obvious that I'm right for it, I probably will take it personally. I'll let you know when it happens." Could their ­relationship survive that? "It will be interesting. It's not without its pressures, working with Tim. It worked on Alice. Sweeney was very stressful, very hard on our relationship." Is he a boss or partner on set? "No, he's a partner in our private life, but when he's directing, he's the boss. And maybe I confuse that."

At age 43, she feels adult for the first time in her life, and capable of playing almost any role. "I feel more sexy than ever, not because I'm sexually attractive, I just feel I've grown into my body." Did she feel sexy when she was a ­beautiful young thing? "No, absolutely not. ­Totally uncomfortable. It took me ages to grow into being a woman, into being happy with it. When I was young, I believed in being androgynous, you can't flaunt it, you can't use it. The whole thing was just something yuck, to be ­embarrassed about. And now it's just like, 'Hey, enjoy it!' Now I feel fine about shapes and things. It's nice to have curves. To be a woman."

"I suppose I'm just a late developer."