BURTON ON
BURTON
(Revised Edition)
Edited by Mark Salisbury
Foreword by Johnny
Depp
Many a moon has passed since the days of my
brief brush with TV stardom, or whatever one might dare call it.
I mostly think of them as the do-or-die years: picture, if you
will, the confused young man hurtling dangerously towards the
flash-in-the-pan at sound-breaking speed. Or, on a more positive
note, forced education, with decent dividends in the short term.
Either way, it was a scary time when so-called TV actors weren't
eagerly received into the fickle fold of film folk. Fortunately,
I was more than determined -- even desperate -- to break away
from my ascent/descent. The chances were nearly impossible,
until the likes of John Waters and Tim Burton had enough courage
and vision to give me a chance to attempt to build my own
foundation on my own terms. Anyway, no time to digress ... this
has all been said before.
I sit here, hunched at the
keyboard, banging away on a ratty old computer, which does not
understand me at all, nor I it, especially with a zillion
thoughts swirling through my skull on how to proceed with
something as personal as an update on my relationship with old
pal Tim. He is, for me, exactly the same man I wrote about
nearly eleven years ago, though all kinds of wonderfulness has
flowered and showered the both of us, and caused radical changes
in the men we were and the men we've become -- or, at least, the
men we've been revealed as. Yeah, you see, Tim and I are dads.
Wow. Who'd have ever thought it possible that our progeny would
be swinging on swing-sets together, or sharing toy cars, toy
monsters, even potentially exchanging chicken pox? This is a
part of the ride I had never imagined.
Seeing Tim as
proud Papa is enough to send me into an irrepressible weeping
jag, because, as with almost everything, it's in the eyes. Tim's
eyes have always shone: no question about it, there was always
something luminous in those troubled/sad/weary peepers. But
today, the eyes of old pal Tim are laser beams! Piercing,
smiling, contented eyes, with all of the gravity of yesteryear,
but bright with the hope of a spectacular future. This was not
the case before. There was a man with, presumably, everything --
or so it seemed from the outside. But there was also something
incomplete and somehow consumed by an empty space. It is an odd
place to be. Believe me ... I know.
Watching Tim with his
boy, Billy, is an enormous joy to behold. There is a visible
bond that transcends words. I feel as if I'm watching Tim meet
himself toddler-size, ready to right all wrongs and re-right all
rights. I am looking at the Tim that has been waiting to shed
the skin of the unfinished man that we all knew and loved, being
reborn as the more complete radiant hilarity that exists
full-blown today. It is a kind of miracle to witness, and I am
privileged to be near it. The man I now know as a part of the
trio of Tim, Helena and Billy is new and improved and completely
complete. Anyway, that's enough of that. I'll step off the
Kleenex box and get on with things, shall I? Onwards
...
In August of 2003 I was in Montreal, working on a
film called Secret Window, when I received a phone call from Tim
asking if I could make it down to NYC for dinner the following
week to discuss something. No names, no title, no story, no
script -- nothing specific. And, as always, I said that I would
be there happily, 'I'll see you then', that type of deal. And so
I did. When I arrived at the restaurant, there was Tim, tucked
away in a corner booth, half in darkness, nursing a beer. I sat,
we enjoyed for the first time the fantastic, 'How's the family?'
exchange, and then zoomed immediately to the subject at hand.
Willy Wonka.
I was stunned. Amazed, at first, by the
outrageous possibilities of Tim's version of the Roald Dahl
classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but even more
floored that he was, in actual fact, asking me if I would be
interested in playing the role of Wonka. Now, for any kid who
grew up in the 70's or 80's, the first film version starring
Gene Wilder (who was a brilliant Wonka) was an annual event. So
there was the kid in me who was giddy that I should be, in this
case, the chosen one for the part. But there was also the
'thespian' in me who understood very, very well that every actor
and their mother and that mother's brother's uncle's third
cousin's pet iguana's goldfish would have hacked each other up
into tiny morsels -- or at best, gladly knocked each other off
in a more civilized fashion -- clamouring, gagging for the
chance that was being presented to me by one of the people I
admire most. I was also keenly aware of the many battles with
many studios that Tim had had to endure over many years to
secure my involvement on the various films we'd alread done
together, and it made every kind of sense to me that he'd
probably need to take the gloves off for this one. I couldn't
believe my luck ... I still can't.
I think I probably let
him finish a sentence and a half before I blurted out the words,
'I'm in.' 'Well', said he, 'think about it and let me know ...'
'No, no ... if you want me, I'm there.' We finished our dinner
with more than a few titbits and amusing ideas about the
character of Wonka and, of course, traded the occasional
nappy-changing story, as grown men who are dads are wont to do.
We ventured out into the night with a handshake and an embrace,
as grown men who are pals are wont to do. And I then handed him
the complete set of Wiggles DVDs, as grown men probably
shouldn't do, but do anyway and deny later. We said goodbye and
I then wandered off back to my day-job. Several months later, I
found myself in London to begin the shoot.
Our early
discussions of Wonka had been incorporated and we were ready to
play. The idea of this solitary man and the extreme isolation
he'd inflicted upon himself -- and what effect this might have
-- was a colossal playground. Tim and I had explored many areas
of our own pasts with regard to the various layers of Wonka: two
grown men in serious consultation, debating the merits of
Captain Kangaroo versus Mr. Rogers, even spicing things up with
a dash of, say, a Wink Martindale, or Chuck Woolery, two of the
finest game-show hosts ever to crack the boards. We were
navigating through territories that would eventually wind up
bringing us to tears, laughing like teenage school chums.
Sometimes we even travelled into the arena of 'local'
kiddie-show hosts, who in some cases could be defined as being
just this side of mimes, or carnival clowns. We braved some
treacherous possibilities and discarded all things unnecessary.
My memories of the process are a gift that I'll treasure
always.
The experience of shooting the film with Tim was
as good as anything gets. To me, it felt as if our brains were
connected by a blistering hot wire that could have generated
sparks at any minue. There were moments in certain scenes where
we'd find ourselves precariously high on an unbelievably thin
thread, trying to work out just how far the limits were, which
would only give birth to more absurd notions and
mirth.
To my surprise, while shooting Charlie he invited
me to play another part in his stop-motion feature Corpse Bride,
which he was working on simultaneously. The size and scope and
commitment level of these projects if taken on one at a time
would have been enough to drop a horse. Tim glided effortlessly
from one to another. He is an unstoppable force. There were
plenty of times when I was unable to fully grasp his
inexhaustible, almost perverse energy.
All told, we
worked hard and had an absolute ball. We laughed like mad
children about everything and nothing, which is always about
something. We shamelessly swapped imitations of some of our
favourite entertainers of days gone by, such brilliant
individuals as Charles Nelson Reilly, Georgie Jessel, Charlie
Callas, Sammy Davis Jr (always), Shlitzy (from the Tod Browning
film Freaks), et cetera. The list could go on and on and on, ad
infinitum but, the names would get more and more obscure and our
readers might just derail. We'd dive into these deep
philosophical conversations concerning whether or not the guests
of the Dean Martin Roasts were actually in the same room
together when the show was taped -- and became really
super-worried that maybe they weren't.
His knowledge of
film is staggering, far into the obscure and downright scary.
For example, in conversation one day at work I happened to
mention that my girl, Vanessa, has a thing for disaster films,
and preferably bad ones. Right away, Tim's side of our gabbing
became incredibly animated, the hands waving and zigzagging
dangerously through the air. He rattles off a list of things I'd
never heard of in my life. We settled on a couple of humdingers
that Tim tracked down from his personal library for us -- titles
like The Swarm and When Time Ran Out. And then, for good
measure, he'll break out something a bit more soothing like
Monster Zero, or Village of the Damned. The point is, his
relationship with cinema is not, even in the slightest sense,
jaded. He has not tired or bored of the process. Each outing is
as exciting as the first.
For me, working with Tim is
like going home. It is a house made of risk, but in that risk,
there is comfort. Great comfort. There are no saftey-nets, for
anyone, but that is how you were raised in that house. What one
has to rely on is simply trust, which is the key to everything.
I know very deeply that Tim trusts me, which is an amazing
blessing, but that is not to say that I am not always paralytic
with the fear of letting him down. In fact, that is first and
foremost in my thinking as I am approaching the character. The
only elements that keep me sane are my knowledge of his trust,
my love for him, and my profound and eternal trust in him,
coinciding with my hefty yearning to never disappoint
him.
What more can I say about him? He is a brother, a
friend, my godson's father. He is a unique and brave soul,
someone that I would go to the ends of the earth for, and I
know, full and well, he would do the same for me.
There
... I said it.
Johnny Depp
May
2005
Dominica, West
Indies
.......................
