WHO WILL SHAVE YOUR SOUL?
Tonsorial talk with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp
Interview by Robert Nesti
At the onset of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, there’s a short clip that highlights the collaboration between director Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp. In a series of quick cuts, scenes from Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, The Corpse Bride and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory flash across the screen, making viewers aware of the remarkable artistic relationship between these two artists.
Sweeney Todd, though, may be their most challenging project to date. Adapted from Stephen Sondheim’s landmark 1979 Broadway musical, it follows the bloody exploits of a serial killer in Victorian London who dispatches his victims by cutting their throats and, in an unholy alliance with an enterprising baker, turns their remains into meat pies that become the toast of the town. On stage the musical was a shocker – an exercise in Grand Guignol melodrama melded with Sondheim’s highly romantic, cinematic score and Harold Prince’s Brechtian staging. The result was as if “The Threepenny Opera” starred Freddy Krueger. The show was a prestige hit, winning a slew of awards, but losing some 40% of its investment; but has had a considerable life since then – turning up in smaller versions in resident and regional theaters throughout the world. Most recently, it premiered in Iceland; and an innovative British regional theater production (directed by John Doyle) was a hit in London and New York.
Yet when the original New York production was transferred to London in the early 1980s, it was dismissed by the British critics and only ran four months. One person who saw that production, numerous times it turned out, was Burton, then a student in London, and it left a considerable impression. He even contacted Sondheim about the possibilities of a movie version, but idea went nowhere. Years later he started thinking about it again and found an old drawing he had made of Sweeney Todd and his accomplice Mrs. Lovett and realized how much the figures looked like Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. What freaked him out was that he didn’t know either one at the time he did the drawing, and saw it as fate. He gave Johnny Depp a copy of the original cast recording, and after a few months the actor agreed to do it. He certainly picked, Burton observed, one of the hardest musical roles to do, especially for an actor who had never sung either on stage or film before.
“I was familiar to some degree with the earlier versions of this, this stuff that you know I’d seen the, the video of Angela Lansbury quite extensively,” Depp told reporters in London (courtesy of a transcript from Paramount Pictures). “And I’d seen the more recent production of it and then just thought it might be, you know, certainly a great opportunity to try to find a new Sweeney, a different Sweeney. Just like a little contemporary in the sense of like also the punk rock Sweeney you know.”
Whether punk rock or not, Depp’s Sweeney is definitely different than others that came before him - a grimly humorless figure (from which Burton derives much dark humor) with a single-minded determination to revenge a corrupt judge who initiated his imprisonment and stole his wife and daughter away from him. In both show and film, this single-mindedness causes him to become increasingly more deranged as he blithely cuts the throats of his victims and dispatches them to the baking ovens below the shop. In the original production the blood flowed, though in a stylized manner. Nonetheless Burton recalled when first seeing the show how the murders disturbed the composure of a pair of British women when the blood started to flow during the second act reprise of the song Joanna.
“(There were) these two ladies, these very proper, British ladies were sitting in front of me and they were kind of chatting throughout the show … and then when Joanna came up and the, you know, the blood started spurting across the stage they both stopped and paused for a minute and, one leaned over and said ’Was that really necessary?’”
In fact what may make or break Sweeney to an older demographic keen on musicals (such as his theater ladies) is the graphic violence. At an early screening a critic from Variety said that he felt he needed to be wearing a raincoat. Don’t be surprised to hear audible groans from the audience during these sequences. (And at a recent screening middle-aged woman was overheard echoing the sentiments of those British theatergoers with the comment, “Did I really need to see that?”).
Yet for Burton the violence is integral to his vision.
“… I’ve seen other productions of it where, you know, they’ve tried to be a bit more politically correct and skimp on it and it really lost something,” Burton explained, “because I mean the show is based in those old Grand Guignol (melodramas). You know horror theater, er melodramas, where you know they had buckets pouring out over the stage. So, it just felt like that was true to the spirit of what the show is … It’s more of an emotional release than it is kind of a reality thing in this movie.”
During filming this past summer, there were rumors that studio executives were so disturbed by the violence seen in the rushes they asked Burton to lessen it for fear of alienating viewers; those reports, though, were something the director feels misrepresented the situation. “So the studio, they were cool about it, they accepted it … But you know anything, any movie is a risk, but it’s nice to be able to do something (different)… where you know it doesn’t fit into either musical or slasher movie category; kind of its own category.”
Indeed, Sweeney Todd defies categorization, which may be why in its fidelity to Sondheim’s musical it may also alienated another key demographic – those who love today’s gorefests (such as Saw). Though musical numbers have been cut or condensed, the ratio of music to dialogue remains the same as it was on stage – roughly 80/20. What even makes it more unique is that it is being played by actors who sing, not professional singers, making the film an even riskier enterprise. But what the studio is banking on is the draw of Depp – one of Hollywood’s most popular actors who usually can guarantee a strong opening weekend. Still for the actor singing was a scary proposition.
“I think I was probably more frightened than anyone, (chuckles) except, except maybe Tim,” explained Depp. “No, … he really trusted me with it … and, and I was very lucky that he allowed me to … because I didn’t have a process really in terms of the singing. I’ve never sang before in my life so I had to kinda find my way to it. And thought it was important that I, you know, keep it very, very low key …”
Depp proceeded to record a demo in a friend’s studio to show to Burton, who was more than just pleased with the results. “I’ll say you know he just tries anything,” said Burton. “I mean the fact is that he’s not a singer; you know he’s musical, but that he would try one of the hardest musicals ever to do? … that just says it all. You know he’s just willing to go out there and believe me, something I learned is singing, especially if you’re not a singer, it’s a very exposing process … anybody that can do that can basically do anything … so for me it’s just a artistic pleasure to see somebody try different things and, and actually achieve it and achieve it beyond your expectations so.”
It seemed a foregone conclusion that Burton awarded the part of Mrs. Lovett to Helena Bonham-Carter — they are, after all, an off-screen couple; but she actually had to audition and it took the director six weeks for him to decide to cast her. “It’s a hard role,” Burton said ” … and I just didn’t want it to seem like I was just giving the job to my girlfriend or anything. So, I really was probably harder on that for that reason, and I just wanted to make sure that it was basically … really right for her, which she is, which she was and is. … yeah I probably was a bit harder on her than, than others, for the reason on just wanting to really make sure it was right.”
Another interesting casting choice is Sacha Baron Cohen as Signor Adolfo Pirelli, London’s most popular barber who turns out to be Todd’s rival. “Well.” Burton said, “it was after Borat came out and he came in to audition. He brought in the score of “Fiddler On The Roof” and basically did all “Fiddler On The Roof” in the studio … And no he was great you know. I admired him because you know he coulda gone off and done a whole bunch of different stuff but, he chose to do this and it was great that he did it.”
Inevitably comparisons are made to another signature Depp/Burton collaboration – Edward Scissorhands (which coincidently was turned into a stage ballet last year by British dance wunderkind Matthew Bourne). For Burton, though, the similarities are superficial.
“I think for me it’s only the fact that we did that movie and we did this movie. I mean you know we’re not lost on the sharp instrument angle. But you know the thing about this character which I love that’s different from that is that you know we did that a long time ago and… I certainly was much more optimistic (in 1990 when that film was made), you know, which that character sort of represented. And now the Sweeney character is a much more interiorized darker character, which I love.”
“I think there was only one moment when you saw Edward get angry,” added Depp.
“Yeah this guy is just quite angry the whole time,” said Burton. ” … Yeah it’s like if Edward Scissorhands, you know, went into a major depression for several years.”
What’s been special for Burton is how the role allows Depp to show the breadth of his talent.
“To see Johnny do both of those things is really amazing for me to see because you know I think this character for me is one of my favorite characters he’s done … I love the interior brooding quality of the character. And then you put that with him singing and it just created to me a really amazing new thing to me.”
In visualizing Sondheim’s grimy, Dickensian London Burton pivots between two visual styles. For Sweeney’s present he went with a grey palate with crimson touches (when the blood flows).”Well I mean you know our inspiration for this were these old horror movies and all, so you know we wanted to make the characters look like that,” Burton said.
And for the flashbacks and dream sequences (Mrs. Lovett’s By The Sea, by far the film’s funniest number), are shot in dreamy, rich Technicolor. “You know that was the happier time in his life so, you know it’s a bit more lurid, the color … sort of the opposite of flashbacks which usually are more desaturated. We sort of inverted that because that seemed to be more appropriate to the telling of the story. And then, you know, her fantasy we’d put a lot of color into because that’s her fantasy of (being) a wonderful wife. … (We) try to use color as an emotional character and that’s why we made those, those choices.”
While the film might look dark and grim, the atmosphere on the set was completely different. “I mean the funny thing is … during the filming we was like, you know, like a laugh riot,” recalled Depp, who admitted not yet seeing the final film. “… it was a great time, it was a great experience and great fun and we, we laughed a lot.”
But just what makes this collaboration tick? For Depp it is the connection that has lasted through the years; for Burton, it’s Depp’s energy and trust in his director. Said Depp: “Since the first … second that we met you know … all those years ago in a, in a café, in a coffee shop in, in, in Los Angeles, there for, for me there was a, there was a kind of instant connection … that weird connection right on the spot. And since I’ve only wanted to as an actor … give, just give him as much of what … as close to what he wants and what I, what I think he wants … when I’m working with Tim, as I’m coming up with the character … I’m thinking about, you know, and just hoping that I don’t let him down. So, so he comes first …”
Said Burton: “The other thing is he’s great because I love (that) he isn’t like looking at himself, which is great for me. … He’s just completely open to like, ’Okay. Whatever’, you know, and ’I don’t really care to look at myself or wanna look at myself.’ He just does a great job and believe me that’s a huge issue for me to not have that certain kind of vanity of like looking at yourself and, you know, stopping. It kinda keeps the process going, keeps it vital and, that, that means a lot to me and I think the crew and everybody else. They get, they get into the spirit of like just doing it, you know – not sitting around and, you know, analyzing everything.”
Robert Nesti is the national arts editor for EDGE.