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‘Sweeney Todd’: Johnny Depp and Tim Burton Make a Bloody Good Team

[IMG:L]When Johnny Depp first met director Tim Burton at a Los Angeles café, there was an “instant connection on a lot of different levels, on the most obtuse levels,” Depp recalls. The two chatted about their mutual “fascination or understanding of the absurdity” of 1970’s “macramé owls and resin grapes and fake fruit.”

The quirky and eccentric conversation over coffee led to a string of films just as off beat, including Edward ScissorhandsEd Wood and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

After 17 years the pair is now covering new ground with their first movie musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the story of a bitter barber who returns to London after 15 years in prison to seek revenge on the judge who put him in the pen and stole his beautiful bride.

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[IMG:R]Hollywood.com was invited to London to chat with Burton and Depp about the film–and in the process, we discovered what it takes to make a bloody musical!

Hollywood.com: Johnny, you created a sense of suspense because nobody knew if you could really sing…
Johnny Depp:
I think I was probably more frightened than anyone, except maybe Tim. He was amazing, he really trusted me with it and I was very lucky that he allowed me to…. I didn’t have a process really in terms of singing. I’d never sung before in my life so I had to find my way to it and thought it was important that I keep it very low key. So initially I did these demos in my friend’s garage studio because I didn’t know if I’d be able to hit a note to be honest, I really didn’t. I wanted to make sure I could do it for Tim. So the first demo I cut was my friend’s and I sent it to Tim and crossed my fingers and waited for the outcome [laughs].

HW: So does this mean you will be singing some karaoke soon?
JD:
Karaoke? I have to be honest with you. I’ve always been frightened of it so I’ve never tried it. It scares the hell out of me.
Tim Burton: If you’re not a singer it’s quite scary to sing unless you’re completely drunk or something.
JD: And I’ve never been that drunk. [Laughs]. And I’ve been drunk before…

[IMG:L]HW: We think Sweeney is almost like Edward Scissorhands–all grown up.
TB:
I think for me it is only the fact that we did that movie and we did this movie. We are not lost on the sharp instrument angle, but the thing about this character that I love that is different from that is we did that a long time ago and I was certainly more optimistic, where that character is represented, where now the Sweeney character is a more an interiorized, darker character, which I love.
JD: Compared to Scissorhands? No. I think similarities in the sense that with Scissorhands or even Sleepy Hollow and Ichabod Crane in the way the characters were very much, like he was talking about, living inside their own heads kind of thing. Edward was a bit more innocent. I think there was only one moment when you saw Edward get angry.
TB: This guy is just angry the whole time. It’s like if Edward Scissorhands went into a major depression for several years.

HW: Tim, why is Johnny your go to guy?
TB:
He doesn’t like looking at himself, which is great for me. You don’t have to [deal with] “after the take I’m going to go look and see.” He’s just completely open to whatever and … he just does a great job. That’s a huge issue for me, to not have that kind of vanity of looking at yourself. It keeps the process going and keeps it vital and that means a lot to me and the crew and everybody else and they get into the spirit of just doing it and not sitting around and analyzing everything.

[IMG:R]HW: Your girlfriend Helena Bonham-Carter stars in the film as Mrs. Lovett. She says you auditioned her for the role and then continued to see other women for the part, leaving things in limbo for weeks. What happened?
TB:
It sounds very sleazy the way you put it. I thought it was important that–I had never done anything like this before myself and it is quite a difficult musical to do. You know, like in the stage thing and it is a hard role, all of the roles are hard, and I didn’t want to seem like I was just giving the job to my girlfriend or anything. I really was harder on her probably for that reason and I just wanted to make sure that she was really, really right for it, which she was and is. So, yeah I probably was harder on her than others for the reason of just wanting to make sure she was right.

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HW: Johnny, how much effort did you put into researching this character?
JD:
I was familiar to some degree with the earlier versions of it–I’d seen the video of Angela Lansbury and listened to it quite extensively and I’d seen the more recent production of it and just thought it might be certainly a great opportunity to find a new Sweeney, a different Sweeney in a good way, slightly in a more contemporary way, like a punk rock Sweeney.

HW: You had a great scene with Sacha Baron Cohen in this film. How was it taking shaving lessons with him?
JD:
He still has scars all over his back [laughs].

[IMG:L]HW: How did Cohen land the role?
TB:
It was after Borat came out. He came in to audition and he brought in the score of Fiddler on the Roof and basically did all of Fiddler on the Roof. He was great, I admired him because he could have gone off and done lots of different stuff, but he chose to do this and it was great that he did it.
JD: God, I would have loved to have seen that.

HW: A violent musical is rare. Did you foresee a challenge at the box office with this film?
TB:
It is always a risk, of course. I remember when I first saw the show in London back when I was still a student basically. I didn’t know anything about the musical and I remember seeing the show and…these two very proper British ladies were sitting in front of me chatting throughout the show. When Johanna came up and blood starts squirting across the stage they both stopped and paused for a minute and one lady leaned over to the other and said “Is that really necessary?” [laughs] But in fact it was necessary…it is nice to be able to do something like that that doesn’t fit into the musical or slasher movie categories. It is in its own category.

HW: You had to shut down the production for a few weeks for very personal reasons. How close were you to not finishing this picture?
JD:
I don’t know what anyone else’s feelings were at that time in terms of whether I was I going to come back or not come back. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to come back. Tim was and the production [crew] were unbelievably supportive and just said, “Look it’s okay. We’re hitting pause…”
TB: We were all personally, you know, that kind of stuff is very private. And all of us the crew and us, we had positive feelings and we just kind of went on. We had other stuff to do. And everything worked out and moved on. It was good..

[IMG:R]HW: Johnny, you are one of the few “movie stars” who still takes risks as an actor and won’t play the game. Where does that come from and what was it about this film that appealed to you?
JD:
To answer the first part of the question, it’s probably a combination or something in between being hard-headed and ignorant [laughs] in terms of taking the road that I’ve taken. There’s an easier one out there for sure. And this, Sweeney Todd, Tim comes in the picture before all of that. Anything he would ask me to do I would jump at the opportunity.
TB: Except maybe a ballet
JD: I actually would [joking]. I would try.

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HW: Between Sweeney, Charlie and Jack Sparrow, you have done a lot of eccentric and different characters. At this point in your career, what do you see as your next artistic leap?
JD:
 Zsa Zsa Gabor story. [Laughs]

HW: With all seven husbands?
JD:
I want to play Zsa Zsa and Eva. No, I have no idea. I just hope. I feel like I’ve been so blessed to have these characters presented to me, come in front of me in my life. I just hope I keep getting jobs. I hope he keeps giving me jobs. No, I feel very lucky. I just want to keep trying stuff.

HW: So there is no dream role out there for you?
JD:
Dream role? I would like to remake Titanic. Shot for shot. [Laughs] 

Click here to read our Sweeney Todd Q&A with star Alan Rickman.

Sweeney Todd opens wide Dec. 21, 2007

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