Original subtitles

Tim is a filmmaker from the initial idea to the

finished or resulting piece of art.

And if you follow the whole arc of development, and I'm purposely

saying arc of development rather than career, and you watch the movies, and

they're actually in pretty clear...

order and sequence and ascent.

If you're invited by someone like Tim, you just kind of try to become

part of the flow. That's beautiful, because we're talking about art.

It's one artist and his art.

It starts with him.

Because he is such an inspiration, you want to do better.

Every single artist that works with him, they challenge themselves to go

somewhere they haven't gone before.

Everybody, him himself included.

You never want to do the same thing again.

He has the idea. He knows what it needs to look like and the emotion you need to

feel.

That's why the team around him is so important.

They bring it into a three -dimensional realm, and they bring color and texture.

That seed of an idea is so clear.

It allows them to level it up.

I always say Tim has a drawer with all these little people in it.

Martian Girl was a character like Edward that Tim had drawn, and it was the idea

of making a two -dimensional concept work as a costume.

The concept was a bad party dress that I drew with glue and put glitter on it so

we could get irregular patterns that made it unique and brought it to life.

Mars Attacks was so fun.

The scene with the spaceships.

Saw the one, became nine, became 27, became like a hundred.

I heard that piece of music in my head.

So clearly, that was like The Simpsons where something came to

me like that.

He sent me the Mars Attacks card, so I knew what the Martians looked like. And

it's like, oh, all right, this is going to be so fun.

For Lisa Marie's character, I got to get into lounge music.

I mean, the first time we did that was in the waiting room in Beetlejuice.

It's like, you ever hear of Martin Denny and this kind of like ultra lounge?

I go, yes, totally.

The inspiration, obviously, coming on the heels of Ed Wood, a guy who, in his

own mind, was making the greatest movies ever made.

He got a madcap group of people to make the film. And I think this was Tim's

version of doing that on a bigger scale.

This is a momentous occasion.

Like, if Ed Wood had the budget, what would those movies look like?

The Martians, the original plan.

was to do those purely in stop motion.

But then it proved it was going to be too time -consuming and not cost

-effective.

So like 1996, digital effects were kind of still in their infancy, but we could

actually scan those puppets and then create them in more computer -generated

environment and recreate that stop -motion look.

It feels tactile, different, and very unique, and handcrafted. I made all the

little puppet stuff. We were really trying to get away from the flatness of

animation to get it into another dimension, so I used a reflective velvet

the different outfits, for the cape on the Martian leader that had little

sparklies in it. The film was low -tech, so actually making it helps the

animators make it work in a way that Tim was happy and it felt real to him.

Those guys were, like, hating me so much for it. And then they, like, loved it

once they nailed it.

It was amazing for the time. It was really incredible.

It's a big practical effects film. Lots of explosions and car crashes, lots of

fire and flames.

And Tom Jones.

Mars Attacks is the most pure.

Tim movie in a way. They came in peace.

It feels to me like the closest to his comedic sensibilities and anti

-establishment and rebelliousness.

It was a little bit ahead of its time.

In the midst of where we were politically and presidentially. And

and never tried it again.

When they send the nuclear weapon up to destroy the mothership, aliens.

Bend out the probe and suck up all the energy out of the bomb.

Smoke it, inhale it.

That's Tim Schumer right there.

There's a whole Irwin Allen 1970s disaster flick aspect.

Like the Towering Inferno or Poseidon Adventure that had these all -star cast.

The joy of those movies is like, when are they going to die?

Tim was killing off all these A -listers, and they're loving it.

The Nancy Reagan chandelier.

A lot of them probably didn't get the opportunity to be killed off in film

because they're the star and they live through the film.

Jack Nicholson.

How many movies does he die in, right?

Jack's playing a couple different roles.

You get to kill him twice.

Michael J. Fox.

There's that aspect of having the fun of killing off these characters.

But then the aspect of who survives.

Tom Jones is the savior, and he survives in the end to rebuild a better Earth.

And it took about three weeks for me to say, oh, this is a comedy.

I mean, you'd think you would know right away, but that's how interesting it is

to work with Tim.

Taking that expectation and completely throwing you for a loop.

Nobody would think this is Superman.

Superman lived when people first heard about it. There was concern, like, what

is Tim Burton going to do to Superman?

He's this bright hero. He's not Batman.

Superman's apple pie, Americana.

Sorry, I've been away so long. But Tim had a great point.

That's the whole thing.

We would make it reminiscent of whatever we see on Krypton. Superman is an

alien. He's an alien. He's an outsider.

He actually would fit, strangely, into Tim's world and motifs very, very

securely. He is able to come up with very original, imaginative concepts. It

was this constant sort of creative engine that Tim had running. It's

Tim's world and his characters, but there is a wider scope of the

that everybody brought to it.

They bring themselves into that world and operate from within it.

There was Kay.

There's dogs or pets or animals in a lot of his films.

That's a very Tim twist.

It was a phenomenal undertaking because it was pre -digital. We sculpted a suit.

We had a muscle suit, and then over the muscle suit was another suit that was

the tubing, the sort of finer tubing.

He was completely engaged.

He was just on. He was on fire.

The challenge is with some of

Tim's movies, managing studio expectations and reactions.

It would have been a great movie. It always haunted us, like the what if.

would that have been like?

When Ram went down, that's when Tim was introduced to Sleepy Hollow.

Tim has a memory or a key that ties in in a way that resonates with him and

he examines in a different way to make something that's scary beautiful at the

same time.

That sort of tingly, scary, but beautiful.

The language of Tim is, you know,

often unspoken.

I call it the negative space by what he doesn't say.

He's a very reactive person to collaborate with.

So I always show him lots of options and watch what compels him.

You don't always do it the same way, but you still know the person and you know

certain things about them that they're going to gravitate toward.

In Tim's case, he loves the stripe. You know it's there.

So over the years, I've played with stripes with Tim in many different ways.

On Sleepy Hollow, I hand -painted the stripes for the dress for Christina

They're like a black -gray with a yellow edge because I didn't like the

manufactured stripes being the same distance apart, the same width.

It's more interesting to the eye when a stripe has a little wobble.

It's fun to be fluid with someone like Tim.

You can take a period and make it have modernisms within the period, so it has

unique style to it.

In collaboration, like with Rick, who I've designed with many times, it's

great to see his take on Tim's world, adding his own strength and genius to

It's funny we don't hang out.

You're just sort of in separate rooms doing your thing, and then it comes

together. You show each other what you're up to, but you don't always know

exactly how it's going to look. I try to get out of her way as much as possible

and make sure what you're looking at...

is her costumes within the appropriate environment and that our sets aren't

stepping on her beautiful costumes.

Sleepy Hollow was yet another watershed moment, design -wise for me in my

collaboration with Tim.

All the experimentation that we had done leading up to Vincent or Frankenweenie

or Nightmare Before Christmas, bringing elements of German Expressionism, of

forced perspective, all the tricks that we had done on a smaller scale.

allowed us to take on this project of applying that to a live -action film.

We were at Leavesden in the north of London.

It was a fairly raw industrial space.

We built woods, we built fields, we built the Van Tassel home.

Walking on the set, the detail, the...

Craftsmanship. It's really good stuff.

Several big sound stages with, you know, woods and trees. It was enormous.

One of the things I was using as a reference were paintings from the Hudson

River School.

Fabulous pictorial environments that showed mountains and skies.

We wanted the feel of the journey from New York up to Sleepy Hollow to be like

Ichabod entering a dream.

All of those things combined became their own original look that really put

across that feeling of a living nightmare.

Tim was requesting a Hammer horror movie look. In other words, to him, that

means a stage -based show that uses chiaroscuro and

Chivo Lubezki's lighting, all the fabulous techniques of horror movies.

in a very expressive and emotional sort of a way.

Rick Heinrichs in Tree of the Dead. Tree of the Dead.

The torture, pain, and wood sculpture.

Can you imagine that, a feeling reflected in a tree? We ended up

large tree, layering it with real bark so that it had this incredibly realistic

and believable texture.

And the impression that you get is of a crouched, formidable, animal -like

presence in this tree.

And it bleeds.

That was a fun thing for Tim. And Tim had a funny relationship with Johnny in

that Johnny was chopping into the tree, and off -camera, Tim had a bottle with

ketchup or blood, and he would squirt it in Johnny's face after each chop.

You can almost see Johnny laugh right before the scene cuts.

I think that Tim was insanely happy to be in an environment, having a good time

with his star, and just literally playing around, coming up with their

and with all the effort that goes into that, but with a sense of fun.

Windmills appear throughout the films.

Where does the windmill come from in Tim's movies?

It's kind of the swirling of ideas going through his mind. Maybe it's just sort

of the aimlessly spinning quality that represents my mind. The windmill that we

use for Sleepy Hollow is probably the biggest example of windmill in Tim's

Interestingly, I associate...

The bow tie that Jack Skellington has with the wind vanes that we use on the

windmills.

In Sleepy Hollow, one of my favorite scenes, Ichabod meets the character

by Richard Griffith. We had haystacks, painted backings, painted trees with the

swirling mists.

Suddenly there's a chill in the air and the headless horseman arrives, chops his

head off.

The horse rears.

The head rolls down the hill and parks right between Ichabod's leg.

And he faints.

He fainted.

He fainted all the time.

That was Ichabod Crane, you know, pre -teen detective.

We didn't know he was going to be that guy that was so out of his league and

uncomfortable.

His name's Gunpowder.

He should do just fine.

Tim sometimes is that way in the real world. He plays that so well.

Much appreciated.

We were pals, certainly from Scissorhands.

I feel like it was Sleepy Hollow where I felt like I was fully welcome in

Tim's world.

Come in.

He doesn't give nothing away in that regard.

It must be earned.

With every character, no matter how silly or weird, I've been accused of

over the years, weirdness, but with each character, all you're trying to do

really is bring something different.

If there's no risk of falling flat on your face, then you're not doing enough.

With Johnny, you get the light and the dark in the same character, and it's

symbiotic with Tim in that sense.

There's always a sort of dark, but there's always a kind of wacky lightness

goes with it that helps balance it from being a total cliche of just moody

darkness, which is what I think is a secret to Tim's humor.

Whether it's Barnabas Collins or the heartbreaking sadness of Ed Wood

along with the joy and insanity of his character.

The in and outness of elevated ecstasy and agony of the Mad Hatter.

It's very human, and it's very sometimes extreme on both points, but the fact is

they both exist, so it balances out in these characters that Johnny's been able

to convey with Tim.

This is my illness, is that I will do my best to make.

Anyone laughs. The attacker wrote Masvidal.

I'm ruining a take. I don't care. I just try something, and then you hear these

weird giggles at the end of the take. He came back to clean the head.

He shoots a lot of takes to get it exactly how he wants it in terms of

performance. He knows about actors. He knows the process, and that's unusual.

Very good directors, they hire actors for certain reasons.

because they know that that particular thing is what they want, and then set

them free.

Thank God you're here.

Johnny Depp, who's so brilliant, he's brilliant, knocks it out of the park.

We were doing the hair and makeup camera tests.

Tim and I were talking, and Chris Walken had just arrived on the set.

He's totally, you know, decked from... Conk the Stomp is the Hessian warrior.

He's got the sharp teeth in his mouth.

And as we're approaching him to say hello, he just looks at us and he goes,

Beaver is a funny word.

And we're like, Frozen.

Hi, Chris.

I don't know. If I said that, I don't remember.

Ken called me and he talked about that moment that humanizes the Headless

Horseman. You know, he was once a man and he loved his horse.

I said to him, I've been in a couple of westerns.

I get on the horse, I say my line, and then they kind of lead it off because

a terrible horseback rider.

Grew up in New York and I'm a little scared of them. And he said, you don't

to worry because we have this robot horse.

It was the same horse that Elizabeth Taylor used in National Velvet.

And it's amazing, the nostrils flare and the ears.

It's the Rolls Royce of robot horses.

I wish I could have been as scary as a guy on that horseback without the head.

That was fantastic.

It was just me and my robot.

He makes for a very nice atmosphere and people are comfortable.

And when you go home at night, you have the feeling that you did something

unique.

Throughout Tim's career, I think there's been a real respect for elders.

He's at Disney starting out his career. He reaches out to Vincent Price, someone

he admired so much.

And Vincent Price says, yes, what can I do? I love this. And then goes on to do

further works with him, and he's in Edward Scissorhands as the inventor,

ended up being his last role.

Christopher Lee, another old -time Hollywood classic from the Hammer Horror

films, someone that Tim and Johnny both looked up to.

Tim had interest in him having a role in Sleepy Hollow.

It is a place called...

Tim mentioned Christopher Lee's name to one of the producers.

Have you heard of him? And the producer was like, no, no, he's not with us

anymore. He died.

Tim's like, I don't think he's dead. I think I would have heard that. And sure

enough, like, Christopher Lee is alive.

You learn respect. They get him in the movie. He's phenomenal.

These are people he looked up to as a child who ended up being in his films.

You've got Sylvia Sidney in Beetlejuice and Mars Attack.

Come on, kid, I'm not that old.

Martin Landau in Frankenweenie and Ed Wood.

Michael Goff was in The Two Batman and Corpse Bride.

Terrence Stamp in Miss Peregrine and Big Eyes. And the list goes on and on and

on. There's something really beautiful about Tim remembering another

Maybe it has something to do with when Tim was young, he went to live with his

grandmother. Nothing is impossible.

He finds wisdom and protection from another generation.

Your primary job is to stay safe.

In Miss Peregrine's Jake, again, a lot of Tim in that character.

He doesn't really connect with his dad and mom.

He connects with the grandfather.

They kind of make it like he's senile, he's lost it. You think I'm crazy.

Sometimes we dismiss the older generation.

They still have something to offer, whether it's in storytelling or in our

lives.

Richard Zanuck, Hollywood royalty.

Richard fit that mold from a producer aspect.

Fox approaches Tim about directing Planet of the Apes.

They put forward Richard as a producer on the project.

Dick protected him from the studio and would allow him the headspace to dream

and imagine. He called it his laboratory, which was his head.

Dick was really important in Tim's life.

He was a thorough good father.

We talk about how the team around Tim is family, and the movies are life.

Richard was the patriarch of that for multiple pictures.

How intimidating, right, to take something as classic as that original

Apes and put your own spin on it.

We even had Charlton Heston involved.

A classic Hollywood actor. I can't help thinking somewhere in the universe there

has to be something better than man.

He wasn't trying to remake that original movie. He was trying to do his own take

on a similar story.

Flipping the world on its head.

The most entertaining points of the film.

are the ones that are purely Tim's take.

These humans carry terrible diseases.

The social commentary. And there's a whole message in there about guns and

destroying themselves.

What you hold in your hand is the proof of their power. The absurdity of

Charlton Heston being the turnkey for that theme. From my cold, dead hands.

It was kind of really surreal.

I met Tim a century and a half ago.

My agent said, Tim Burton's interested in a phone call with you.

And I said, Tim Burton can phone me up, yeah.

His first sentence to me was like, I don't want you to... He's got a very

-spoken, gentle voice. I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but you're

the first person I thought of to play the lead chimp in my movie of Planet of

the Apes.

He said, I have this feeling that you like to get away from what you look

And I said, you're absolutely right.

We immediately thought eye to eye.

So I was a chimpanzee. I went to ape school.

The whole absurdity of it, of being a chimp going to ape school, even though

script was really, really bad, I knew I had to do it. Why would you take that

chance?

Because you're not usual.

Can you show me how we're at here?

I promise you, I'll show you something that will change the world forever.

It was just such an adventure, I couldn't say no.

The thing is with Tim, he's one of the few... He's a visionary.

They're film directors, they're people who know where to put the camera, they

know how to tell a story, but you know with him and the precious few that he's

going to invent a whole world. You're going to be safe.

It's kind of a testament to him that I still said yes, even though the script

was so bad.

That's just how talented he is.

The studio had a release date before we had even started filming. It was a

struggle.

Tim was actually on a scout for Planet of the Apes when he heard the news of

father passing.

That was really hard, and the pressure to release in the time that we had to

release it was absolutely insane.

A film of that scale, of that importance, literally by the time we

actually see something assembled, maybe even have some notes, nope, it's got to

go into the movie.

The studio didn't have the interest of the film and what the film is.

You just wanted more time. You just wanted a little more time.

Tim lost his father in 2000.

And then his mother passed away a couple years later. That was around the time

that the script for Big Fish came by his way.

It also came after making a big movie like Planet of the Apes.

Reception was difficult.

He wanted to make something where he could connect with himself emotionally.

He wasn't super close with his dad, but there were efforts there to make a

connection before he passed away.

Dad? If you don't get that opportunity...

at the end to make those amends that can be quite haunting.

Tim's the first to admit each film is therapy. That's how he works through

issues and problems.

You know about icebergs, Dad?

Big Fish is definitely an expression of that. I saw an iceberg once.

They were hauling down to Texas for drinking water. There were efforts to

maintain a certain level of relationship there.

It's like you yearn for that connection, but you don't know how to do it.

The thing about icebergs is you only see 10%. The other 90 % is below the water.

And there's never that moment to connect.

That's what it is with you. And the reveal that happens to a lot of us in

life is the myth of the person is more than the person that you knew.

No idea who you are. When you lose a parent, you're obviously looking.

There may be things you want to get on with in life.

They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops.

And that's true.

That was the beginning.

It was a year after we did Planet of the Apes that we connected emotionally.

When I read Big Fish, well, it was magic.

We had a lot of sort of magical coincidence with what happened to us in

lives. My father died.

Tim's father.

I'm going with you.

And I was pregnant.

That sort of often happens.

Older generation goes and the younger comes.

Tim would squirm at these parts of a documentary because he likes to keep it

elusive and obscure, and he doesn't like to think you could break it down into

something tangible.

Big Fish was the biggest blurring of the lines.

That movie, every day, was like a different dream.

All these fantastical experiences. Then the actual experience of making the film

was almost as insane and ridiculous.

You kind of lose track of what is real and what is a dream, which makes for an

amazing creative experience.

Did you see that woman?

It's not all in your face.

It's not a woman. It's a face.

A lot of it's inferred. A lot of it's interpretive. This looks different.

That's a strong part of Tim's character, and if he's given the right script,

he's a master at it.

It would bloom in this blue suit in the sea of yellow daffodils.

Color is something that Tim uses throughout his movies. You see that in

saturated primary color flashbacks versus the present. And all that is

in production design.

This beautiful gothic castle on the hill in suburbia. You see that in the

underworld of Corpse Bride versus the muted tones of the living.

These color juxtapositions communicate a visual expression.

He's not telling the audience, oh, this is how you should feel, but rather this

is the moment for you to let your mind wander.

He relies on his process.

You know, he's got a particular process. A lot of it is getting himself out of

the way and the head out of the way and not overthinking things.

When I talk about music with Tim, he doesn't deconstruct at all.

He doesn't get into the... unconscious motivation of what's going on.

There really is no way to accurately describe music that doesn't exist.

So Tim doesn't try to do that.

He just tells me how he feels about the characters, and that's it.

There's an underwater scene where there's a mermaid.

And I wrote this theme, and it became Jenny's theme.

But we already had a theme.

So I thought, I have to choose one or the other. Tim, he goes, why?

And I go, there is no reason. And I was tortured on Edward Scissorhands.

But I'd written these two themes for Edward.

So when I got to Big Fish, I also realized that it doesn't need to be

reason.

Starting out, he would say, like, how are you able to do four films between

of my films while you're in a band?

And I go, unless I do that, I'm not going to be up to where I need to be,

because each of your films that you're giving me is more challenging.

Carly and the Chocolate Factory was a real crazy fun one.

Tim says, we're putting in five songs, and each one is in a different style. He

was very specific.

I'd written Augustus Gloop.

And I thought that would be the model for the other four songs.

And Tim was like, no, this one is inspired by ABBA.

And this one is inspired by Curtis Mayfield.

And this one is inspired by Queen.

And it's like, oh, all right.

Well, they brought in the Beatles things.

Paul McCartney, left hand, you know, that threw me completely.

After I finished that scene, he said, your rock and roll days are over.

That guy worked harder than anybody in probably any movie.

When he first asked me to do Charlie, he said, please don't watch Willy Wonka

because this is going to be different.

He doesn't do remakes. So I said, I know it's going to be a Tim Burton movie.

The story isn't his, but he works with the writers and makes it his own.

It's a collaborative medium.

Other directors may feel they have to shoot what was given to them, but with

Tim, the vision is evolving.

Tim Burton creates backstories.

All of these prologues was a way for Tim to build on the world that he's

created. The world is there, but why is the world there? That also is an

undercurrent that is in his personal life.

Maybe I'm not allergic.

Willy Wonka became Willy Wonka because of his conflict with his father.

Do I take a ton?

He needs character motivation.

What makes you feel better when you feel terrible?

My family.

Tim was all trusting with whatever I brought.

Sometimes on films, it's the first take of the first scene, there's a silence.

And then you hear the first action.

Please enter.

What's it going to sound like after cut?

When cut is silent, you've done something.

It could be completely ignorant and you've failed miserably. Or it could

be because you've delivered something that takes a minute for them to get

head around.

Wasn't that just magnificent?

I was worried it was getting a little dodgy in the middle part, but then that

finale, wow!

The only time Tim never had to fight for me to be in a movie was Charlie,

because it was after Pirates was released.

One of the greatest moments that I've ever had on a set, and the most

was... I was standing there with the top upper echelon execs from Warner

Brothers and the chocolate waterfall and all the chocolate rivers and

everything. It was massive and green and candy hanging everywhere.

And I'm decked out as Willy Wonka with the little Lord Fauntleroy hairdo and

hat.

They weren't doing Snoopy dances, I'll tell you that.

Richard asked me to go say hello to them.

How you guys doing? They went, great, great.

Good to see you, Johnny. Good to see you. Good to see you.

Great, great, great.

Set's incredible, isn't it?

Set's amazing.

Right at that moment, I knew.

There's no knowing where they're going.

They're worried.

Switch on the light.

Good.

They're all scared.

That means I'm... doing something.

There's a massive potential for allowing the studio to break you. He didn't do

it. And that I have always saluted.

I met Roald Dahl's missus.

You know what she said to me?

This was the one he is in his grave and saying at least that justice has been

done to the book.

Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Burton!

Tim really has no fear.

I remember in the beginning of Sweeney Todd, he said, I've never made a

Chris, but, you know, we'll do the best we can.

Tim called me one day and said, Hey, Charlie, can you sing?

I don't understand. What do you mean, like, sing, sing?

He goes...

Yeah, you know, like, can you sing?

And so I said, I don't know.

I really don't know, man.

So I'll tell you what, I'll go and do a demo of my friends, which took me about

a pack of roll -up cigarettes and two bottles of wine before I would stand in

front of the microphone.

But then I did it, and he seemed excited.

I guess it wasn't too bad.

He could absolutely sing. He had, like, a Bowie quality to him. I was completely

floored. It sounds like some kind of, like, rock star. All right! You know,

by the nature of him doing it brings something different to it. Come and

Of course, the first thing that made Tim laugh is the fact that it made me

uncomfortable to sing.

Tim lost it and had to run off the soundstage.

years before Sweeney Todd. He was just sketching thoughts about Sweeney Todd.

was a fan of thought many times when he was young.

Helena looks like she was created off of one of his sketch pads.

He hadn't even met Helena when he had drawn this sketch.

He manifests us, yeah. He drew me into existence.

Tim approached me and said, look, I think you are the right one to play

Johnny, but can you sing? And you've got three months.

You know, I was terrified.

You're fucking mad.

It was one of our early things in common, the fact we liked Bondi and we

Sweetheart. He knew that I loved it since I was 13.

I mean, Mrs. Lover, it was like my dream.

So I have three months, and I literally practice every single day.

I knew West Pies and Little Priest.

These are probably the worst boys in London.

I'd always totally worshipped Sondheim. There were a number of people that

auditioned for the part of Mrs. Love, while Helena was always in that running.

For Tim, like, there's a process to it. You can't just assume.

I had to audition back to front, upside down, singing, just everything. It was a

long, long process.

There definitely was a little bit of going through the hoops and seeing her

process and how hard she worked for it.

Good. Okay, same place?

It's very difficult to breathe here.

I think my happiest day of my life was when Sondheim said, yeah, you can do it.

And Tim burst into tears. It was pretty much the only time when he has,

actually. He came through.

To my side of the house, we had, you know, famously two houses next door to

other. But it was basically one house with a, anyway, whatever.

He said, Stephen Sondheim wants you.

And then he burst into tears because we did put ourselves and our relationship

and everything under a lot of pressure by me going up for that. But it was

every moment.

All good things come to those who care.

For both of them, they worked really hard to get stronger at it.

The most difficult thing was once you'd sung all that stuff, 50 % of your job is

done, right?

Rest now, my friend.

Because the rest is just lip syncing.

Nope. You can't actually let it sink and make it feel

right.

Obviously, your neck, your veins, your Adam's apple, and also what's happening

behind the eyeballs, which is the all -important, you know.

And so it was just my...

monstrous and naked voice bellowing like some mating call through the sound

stages. And I'm full of joy!

It was weird and embarrassing.

Amazingly, he kept bringing me back into his films.

He felt the same kind of thing, energy or whatever it is.

Neither one of us have ever been comfortable enough to kind of go, well,

because of this, you know, and this and this. No, no, no.

No. Never.

There's that duality aspect with their relationship.

And then definitely in that film, it's like this guy just wants to be alone.

Get out!

And he's got some things to work out on the inside.

It's like connecting with not only somebody who exhibits a lot of traits

you feel.

but then also the people around you that are trying to break through that wall

and connect with you too.

We got married on Sweeney.

It was weird.

In terms of the director relationship with the actors, there was something

really magical happening there. They were working at the top of their game.

And it's really, really heavy, dark stuff.

really intense, and you could feel it. You could feel it on set, but it was

exciting. Especially by the time we did Sweeney, Tim and I were very tight,

very, very tight.

He is a part of my family. I've grown up with him. I've grown up because of him.

I just never wanted to let him down.

Tim made huge sacrifices on Sweeney.

My daughter, Lily Rose, who was seven years old at the time.

Her kidneys were shutting down. Is everything all right, Mr. Todd?

She had contracted E. coli.

I beg your indulgence, Anthony. They put her on dialysis.

I'm on this far from easy.

And I had to call Tim and basically say, Hey, ma 'am, I'm going to have to drop

out of Sweeney.

I'm sorry, but I can't work until my...

My baby's better, you know. And he went, no.

Don't even talk like that, man. Whatever we have to do, we'll do.

She's going to be fine. We'll make it work.

Vanessa, my ex, my family, my children's mother, we lived in that hospital room

for a good three, three and a half weeks.

Tim, of course, being Tim, came by the day after I called and brought flowers.

You know, the great uncle and godfather that he is.

It's pretty special.

Very lucky.

We shut down for a couple weeks.

We're exploring some dark themes in that film. Really tough stuff. And here's a

character who is introspective and fighting demons and drawn to spill blood

seeking vengeance.

Benjamin Barker.

Benjamin!

And then he's going through this really dark, heavy, real thing going on in his

personal life.

So that definitely, at least for a time, shaded a little bit of the production.

My assessment is that there's points in that movie where you're seeing real

emotion come through, like he's channeling what he's going through

While we were filming, they discovered Helena was with the second child, which

was all beautiful and wonderful.

But here we are, like this really dark matter, and Helena's always so buoyant.

She's amazing.

But, like, for Tim to be able to remain focused, those personal kind of things,

they seep into the work, and I think it's one of the reasons why there's so

real raw energy and emotion coming through that film.

It was tricky because I remember the day I found out I was pregnant, I was on a

spinning machine.

Johnny couldn't walk, the one thing he can't do. What you're doing is better

than you think. And I was just feeling so sick because I was with child.

Helena brought such a wonderful, tragic...

poignancy to it, that even though she does terrible things, she does terrible

things for a valid reason and for love.

I had to do that big song, the opening pie song of making the pie and singing

the same time.

Tim contains quite a lot.

It's all about containing the big picture in your head.

Originally, when I was singing, I was using my hands because I thought I was

sender. You know, it was big, and it was like, jeez, no.

Sorry,

baby, sorry.

I mean, it drove him up the wall. On top of it, Tim would get quite stressed

with me, and I'd get stressed with him.

There, there, dear, calm down. No, I had him!

So if I have an idea, Tim was never really great at accepting my idea, if it

came from me.

I get too many ideas.

So I would give it to Johnny, and then Johnny would give it to Tim, and it was

marvellous. Probably talked too much for his liking.

We had different love languages, you could say, you know.

I loved it, it was great.

Having said that, there was nothing that was ever taken, given to me on a plate.

You know, I had to audition for Corpse Bride because originally he saw me as

Victoria and I said, that doesn't do anything for me. But I prefer to play

Emily. Who is she?

I'm his wife.

The female characters are at the emotional center of Tim's movies.

Corpse Bride is a great story.

Then Helena voiced the role.

Take my breath away.

Well, it would if I had any.

and breathe life into that performance.

I do.

Her brilliance and her emotional intuitions for what the character would

experiencing. And it seems that I still have a deal to share.

Her behavior is understandable and relatable.

I asked you to be mine.

He made a promise.

She was just following through on the promise.

In the woods, you said you found so perfect. She could be seen as a villain.

is... The ghost who pulls this man into the underworld.

Another very nuanced monster.

To find that heart beneath her tragic demise and pull that forward.

My dreams were taken from me. So that you're always embracing her and relating

to her.

No, I've stolen them from someone else.

When she blocks the truth of the dynamic, she takes the high road.

The magic of her release and becoming one with the butterflies was so

to Tim to really make sure that the emotion of that scene was as heightened

it could possibly be.

When I look at his female characters, it's the heart that comes forward, and I

think people lean into that.

Sally is one of the greatest characters ever created. Yeah.

Jack is so delusional the entire movie.

It couldn't be more wonderful. She's the one character. She sees the truth and

tries to do the right thing and subjugates her own needs.

We almost didn't include Sally's song in the movie.

But Tim was so passionate about how important her character was and how

important this moment was.

He did really amazing things for female characters.

The eccentricity of them, the uniqueness, the dignity he gave them to

objectified, the gentleness and respect that he treated all his female

characters with was really powerful.

He allows female characters to not be sympathetic, to not be traditional.

This is my art and it is dangerous.

They're equal to the men as far as who they are. Do you think that sexes should

be equal?

Heavens no.

Men would become unmanageable.

Michelle in Dark Shadows, Helena as the Red Queen, equal to the Hatter.

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is nothing like you've seen before.

The fact that the protagonist isn't somebody to be saved, but rather

who fights in armor and becomes the captain of a ship. It

was empowering.

It was much less of a trend at the time to have a female character that didn't

end up either in a romance or being rescued.

It's happening so quickly. That was really wonderful to see that shift in

culture.

It's a reimagination of Alice as a teenager.

That's such a pivotal time.

Parents and society and culture and expectations.

Do you know what I've always dreaded? All those things that are an essential

part of our being as challenged.

Ugly grandchildren.

But you were lovely.

You're bound to produce little imbeciles. At the time, computer

effects and animation were kind of coming into their own. It was exciting

on an initial wave of trying something like this.

Taking a story like Alice in Wonderland and immersing a live -action central

character of Alice into a completely fantastical world, it turned him on as a

filmmaker.

Let's try something that hasn't been done before.

This is limitless.

A lot of people think that Charlie with a lot of green screen, that was all

built. Like, no, no, like, those were real. We built them. Like, Sleepy Hollow

was all real. This was an experience where...

Let's challenge ourselves. Gentlemen, the only way to achieve the impossible

to believe it is possible.

That kind of thinking could ruin you. I'm willing to take that chance.

The experience of being on set without the context of what we're doing, it's

insane. Showing up every day and you're assaulted by this greed.

I wasn't there, but I know that Alice in Wonderland was a hard one for Tim.

Green screen is such a fun -killing color.

You never know exactly where you are and what you're looking at.

Everything was green.

Everything was green, except for my hair, which was quite red.

My character runs into the scene, grabs a green prop, talks to green people.

It's just green, and it just sinks into you.

Every filter of your body is going, please don't let me look at this green

anymore today.

It's impossible.

Only if you believe it is.

There's nobody there. There's no nothing. It's nuts.

Hatters, back in those days, the glue that they were using was riddled with

mercury. So Hatters actually did go mad from smelling mercury all the time.

Never mind him. He's mad.

Come along.

And they started to go kind of sideways.

Stop that.

Johnny and Helena, it could be as simple as when Tim dreamed these characters.

Even before he met them, they encompass a lot of those elements magically.

They sit in that world perfectly.

He was quite far gone in the casting process.

And then he summoned me and said, I want you to play the Red Queen. You have to

play her because this is obviously you. And there's this drawing.

He thought it was unmistakably me.

I said, is it really obviously me? He said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I spoke to Linda Wolverton, who'd done such a great job with the script.

The actual book has no plot. It's just a series of meetings.

And it is meant to match the illogicality of a dream.

She's a big girl.

And what is this? We talked about, psychologically, why she had a big head

what it might do to your personality.

She may have some kind of growth in there, something pressing on her brain.

If you do have a tumour, you're going to have labile moods. Her name is, um,

Idiot!

And the pig.

I need a pig here!

It's that sad thing of everybody's meanness comes from their pain.

I love a warm pig belly for my aching feet.

She just sort of has these animals, like, as her chairs and those

moments, like monkeys holding chandeliers and all the sort of ways

tortures people. I feel like she stayed somewhat in character, so she was

slightly scary for me half of the time and then really sweet and warm the other

half of the time. I loved Helena's character.

I mean, I love everything Helena does, but she was just having so much fun with

that part.

The Red Queen was like a gift.

I had the luck of having a costume because a lot of people didn't because

in front of the green screen.

And with Colleen, it's really collaborative.

I can have as many ideas as I want, and she loves that too.

She'd realize your own fantasies.

I think that the simplicity of not over -design is one of the things that Tim is

really a genius at.

Like sometimes it's about the doorknob and not about anything else in the room.

His eye is so spectacular in that way. And the same thing with what he

gravitates toward in costume.

The queen made out of curtains.

Someone find us some clothes.

Use the curtains if you must. That was like another fabric that I painted

stripes on.

It was reflective of the queen's world.

We covered cardboard hearts with gold foil, so that has like a real kind of

craft aspect to it that adds to her inconsistent messiness.

In the case with Johnny, oftentimes, which is really mind -blowing to me,

Johnny doesn't look in the mirror. He feels the costume.

He'll ask for little things like, can this... button do something or can there

be something in this pocket that i can pull out he was like the first mobile

maker he had everything on his body that he could actually make a hat with it's

a fascinating thing for me as a designer to see how they take on a costume and

the journey that it makes as characters evolve the hatter came out of nowhere

shall it be a bonnet or a boat or a

All that dialogue I had to spit out, my God.

That I, of course, tortured myself with because I wrote it in there.

No. I wanted him to have a million different hats to ask the Queen.

You look stunning in that hat.

Yes.

Next.

that I met Johnny as the Mad Hatter.

I couldn't see much Johnny Depp in him, and I remember he turned up to do off

-camera lines for me, and he was dressed as himself.

I almost couldn't look at him. I felt really at ease with him as the Mad

because there's sort of an essence of him inside it, but it doesn't look like

the celebrity that has plastered all over the place, which is maybe what it

feels like to be Johnny Depp.

Things came up that really made the character for me, such as every question

answerable, but kind of not.

What do you matter with me?

And the one thing I remember obsessing on in the book was the question of

why is the raven like a writing desk?

And I said to Tim, what if we plant it here? Have you any idea why a raven is

like a raven? writing desk.

And then we planted here again.

Why is the raven like a writing desk?

And then the last time, it's not me asking the question, it's Alice. Why is

raven like a writing desk?

There's only one answer.

As he quoted the raven from Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe.

That was the inspiration for that.

Watching Tim and Johnny and Helena They spoke their own language together.

I mean, they have such a long history and all sorts of references and jokes

between them. They're speaking English, but you have no idea what they're

saying. It started really truly when we first met, and I've had crew guys come

up to me after watching me and Tim talk, and the guy goes, I didn't understand a

fucking thing that you said. I had no idea what was happening.

Complete mystery.

I said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

The soundtrack to those films.

I remember Alice in Wonderland, Tim inviting me to the session and there was

enormous orchestra.

There's string sections and there's, I mean, it was madness.

Of my own work, it's one of my favorites.

I really got into it. I'll use this term opera for Tim. The way he's doing

something is kind of like a weird.

operatic sensibility to it and i remember listening on my earbuds and

i'm going oh crap i really hear a lyric every time the music was i

kept hearing alice oh alice like the music was saying the name alice to me

and i knew no one was going to let me do it and i didn't even tell tim you know

he had his hands full trying to finish that movie he was so stressed He didn't

need me coming in. And Tim, I got this new idea.

His head's already about to explode.

It was the middle of the night, and my supervisor had fallen asleep.

I decided, we're going to sing these lyrics. This is our moment. Go, go, go,

go. This was like special ops, top secret. So when I got back, I said, Tim,

did this thing.

And he goes, oh, it's pretty cool.

I was like, yes.

Through the process, we didn't know how it was going to turn out until the very

last minute.

What's the Cheshire Cat going to look like?

What are these other characters going to look like?

How are they going to play?

It's impossible.

Only if you believe it is.

It's always so rewarding at the end when it gets up on screen and you see the

finished product.

What we were able to achieve.

It's pretty extraordinary.

It opened tremendous numbers. It got multiple Academy Awards.

And internationally, it played really well, too.

The moment that your films are critically received and makes a billion

dollars, the moment you've been accepted on all those levels, you're no longer

the outsider. You're on the inside.

There's always going to be two sides to that.

You're not the things you were before.

That idea of muchness.

You were much more much here.

You've lost your muchness.

Being your real self.

In there.

It sort of encompasses all the things that make you you. You either lose a lot

of that or reconnect with who you are.

I thought that you were gone. He still embraces being an outsider.

I never want to lose you.

That's just who he is.

I promise you'll never go running off.

Okay?