Depp has since been ingrained as the unique fairytale-like character, but the actor reveals that many big names were going for the role.
The Tim Burton and Johnny Depp collaborations are certainly prolific. While Depp was a teen star on the Fox series 21 Jump Street, he had a weird creative force inside of him that a high school cop series didn’t fulfill. Then came a new movie called Edward Scissorhands that paired Depp with his long-time director friend. Deadline reports that Depp is being featured in a new docu-series that’s a retrospective on the career of Tim Burton, and the actor reveals who he beat out for the part of Edward.
According to People, Depp said the competition was stiff for the titular character and names like Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and even the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, were being considered for the role. Depp explained that Cruise “was not far away from actually playing Edward Scissorhands — true story.” Depp admitted to thinking, “He’s never going to cast me when everyone in Hollywood is after the part.” He continued, “Tim’s really juggling because he’s getting hit by his agent, the studio, everybody. So I called my agent after reading the script and said, ‘Please cancel the meeting, I’m not going.’ She said, ‘Are you f***ing nuts?’”
Depp really wanted the role after reading the script. He said Burton and Caroline Thompson’s screenplay “passed through everything, anything, solid and went to the very core of whatever I am. The writing was beautiful. The character was beautiful. What I suppose [attracted] me emotionally was that Edward was me. It’s exactly what I should be doing.”
The documentary, which is currently untitled, will be a four-part series directed by Tara Wood. Wood had previously made two other documentaries about famous filmmakers with a Richard Linklater feature called 21 Years: Richard Linklater and a doc on Quentin Tarantino titled QT8: The First Eight. The Tim Burton documentary features interviews and participation from his regulars which include Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, composer Danny Elfman, Christopher Walken, and Danny DeVito. It will include newer talents he has worked with as well, like Jenna Ortega, Mia Wasikowska, and Christoph Waltz.
The series is being described as “an otherworldly, dream journey into the mind of the man behind Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Batman Returns, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, the Netflix series Wednesday, and many other indelible projects.” A release about the doc reads, “Tim continues to build his aesthetic, the Burton-esque style, derived from a wealth of art, cinematic and literary genres. The documentary explores how Burton brings his vision to life through his own joyous idiosyncrasy and his ability to meld the ominous and the frightful with a sense of whimsy. Tim’s films are just the tip of the iceberg.”