HBC was quoted saying 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street' is a "portrait of her home life". by http://www.femalefirst.co.uk
The actress - who stars with Johnny Depp in the macabre musical directed by her long-term partner Tim Burton - joked the dark film is a mirror image of her relationship with the filmmaker.
Talking about the movie, Tim said: "I thought it was a light-hearted comedy musical. I thought it was quite funny. If I was an actor the role of Sweeney Todd would be the perfect part for me. You don't have to talk, you don't have to say anything, you just look out the window and look brood and be angry."
(I knew it was supposed to be comedy! No one belived me! Everyone in the theater stared when I was cracking up durring the second Johanna song when Johnny kills everyone, I guess tim and I have the same twisted sense of humor...)
To which Helena replied: "That would be a portrait of our home life too."
Tim - who has two children, a one-month-old daughter, and a four-year-old son Billy, with Helena - also revealed he soundproofed the door connecting the couple's two separate houses so he couldn't hear Helena practising her singing.
Helena said: "I had to practice every day but luckily we live in separate houses. We have a door in-between but the door was always shut."
There is alot of talk of the Academy Awards, Here's one of many articles, from http://www.efluxmedia.com
Johnny Depp received his third Academy Award nomination for best actor for his role as the title character in Tim Burton’s gothic musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” though no nods went to the film, its director or co-star Helena Bonham-Carter.
The nominees for the 80th Academy Awards were announced Tuesday from Beverly Hills, California, with Johnny Depp seeing his portrayal of the psychotic criminal whom he managed to make endearing to the audiences receive a nomination in the best actor category.
Depp, previously nominated for “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” in 2004 and “Finding Neverland” in 2005, will compete against George Clooney in “Michael Clayton,” Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood,” Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah” and Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises.”
While “Sweeney Todd” was not nominated in the best picture category, the trophy will be fought over between “Michael Clayton,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Atonement,” “Juno” and “No Country for Old Men.”
As it is, the Coen brothers' film version of Cormac McCarthy's novel that is the critically acclaimed “No Country for Old Men” leads the race with an impressive eight nominations in major categories, as does “There Will Be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson's big screen adaptation of the Upton Sinclair novel “Oil!.”
Following closely is “Michael Clayton,” with nominations for best picture, best director (Tony Gilroy), best actor (Clooney), best supporting actor (Tom Wilkinson), best supporting actress (Tilda Swinton) and best original screenplay (Gilroy).
Nominated in the best actress category are Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” Julie Christie in “Away from Her,” Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose,” Laura Linney in “The Savages” and Ellen Page in “Juno.”
In the best supporting actor category, Wilkinson vies against Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men,” Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson's War,” Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild” and Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton.”
Cate Blanchett receives a second nomination for best actress in a supporting role for “I'm Not There,” as do Ruby Dee in “American Gangster,” Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement,” Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone” and Swinton in “Michael Clayton.”
The nominees for best director are Ethan and Joel Coen for “No Country for Old Men,” Anderson for “There Will Be Blood,” Julian Schnabel for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” Jason Reitman for “Juno” and Gilroy for “Michael Clayton.”
The organizers of the Academy Awards ceremony have been adamant that the event will take place regardless of the ongoing WGA strike, on the scheduled date of Feb. 24 at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre.
Forecasts that this season’s race to Oscar nominations has been one of the most unpredictable in recent years proved true on Tuesday with several notable films left out of the run for 2007’s best movie, including musical “Sweeney Todd.” That film, based on the stage play of the same name, had been picked as one of this year’s favorites last fall, but in recent weeks Oscar watchers had seen it fall off the pace. But the film’s star, “Johnny Depp” did earn a nomination for best actor.
Surprise nominations included Tommy Lee Jones scoring a best actor nomination for “In the Valley of Elah,” an anti-war movie that bombed at box offices and, as a result, left Jones largely out of the Oscar race until Tuesday’s nominations. Laura Linney also staged a comeback in the best actress race for “The Savages,” another movie that had high Oscar hopes early in the season but failed to make its mark at box offices.
Big winner: teen pregnancy comedy “Juno,” its director Jason Reitman and star Ellen Page. They earned nominations for best film, director and actress, respectively.
But were they your favorites. Let us know what you think hit or miss in this year’s Oscar sweepstakes.
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Tim Burton jokes about his relationship with Johnny Depp fromwww.contactmusic.com
Caption: Tim Burton. 2008 National Board of Review Awards at Cipriani - Outside Arrivals. New York City, USA - 15.01.08
"We were married in Las Vegas in 1980. We had a double wedding with Joan Collins and Michael Jordan. I'm getting teary eyed just thinking about it!" Director TIM BURTON jokes about his close relationship with JOHNNY DEPP.
With properties situated around the globe, actor JohnnyDepp is rumored to have chosen England as the place where his children -- Lily-Rose, 8 ½, and Jack, 5 ½ -- will obtain their education. According to a report in today's Mail on Sunday, Johnny has enlisted the help of Countdown presenter Carol Vorderman in his efforts to find the best school possible; Carol lives close to the $2.5 million home Johnny and longtime partner Vanessa Paradis purchased near Bath, England last year. Said an unnamed source,
[Johnny and Carol] have met up a few times and their kids get along well. He is set on sending the children to British schools. Carol's go to Clifton College in Bristol and Johnny may check it out.
Lily-Rose and Jack are Johnny's children with Vanessa. Carol has two children, Katie and Cameron, with ex-husband Patrick King.
I’LL admit it here – I have shaved a grown man before, laughs Johnny Depp, who lathers his customers before gruesomely slitting their throats as the eponymous murderer in new musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, out Friday.
“He is alive,” says Johnny of his ‘client’. “He’s walking round to this day.” READ THE REST AT THE LINK
Born in Kentucky in 1963, John Depp, better known as Johnny, is a Golden Globe-winning actor and star of almost 50 films, including Edward Scissorhands, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Pirates of the Caribbean. He lives in France and Los Angeles with Vanessa Paradis, the French singer and actress, and their two children
Actress Helena Bonham Carter thinks her Sweeney Todd co-star Johnny Depp has an “incredibly sexy” singing voice.
Helena - who stars alongside Depp in the new Tim Burton film ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street’, discovered a whole new side to the actor when she first heard his “naked” vocal talents.
She said: “Johnny’s singing voice is incredibly sexy. He really sings from the gut and it’s a very emotional role. His singing is very naked and very touching.”
Helena also said it was hard working under the instruction of her long-term partner, director Tim Burton.
She added to Britain’s Independent newspaper: “I’ve learned not to talk so much and basically just obey him because he’s the chief at work. It can be difficult living and working together.
“It depends on the day. Sometimes we revert to a couple and our relationship at home on set, which isn’t help
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An exclisive interview (video) of JAYNE WISENER and JAMIE CAMPBELL BOWER http://www.thesun.co.uk
In an exclusive interview the talented duo talked about Depp, Burton and the lengths they will go to for an onset prank! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IT'S usually the actors of films, not the directors, who are the stars and attract the majority of the attention.
But one definite exception to this case is Tim Burton. Most people know of the eccentric director of brilliantly gothic fairytales, doomed romances and sweet ghost stories.
The intriguing auteur attended the press conference for his most recent release Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Here's what he had to say.
What was the appeal of Sweeney Todd for you, Tim? Why did you feel it would transfer well to film?
Well, I was still a student when I first saw it so I didn't know if I would be making movies or working in a restaurant. I had no idea what I'd be doing and I didn't go to the theatre much and I didn't even know who Stephen Sondheim the writer/composer behind Sweeney Todd was.
I didn't know anything about the show, I just wandered into the theatre and it just blew me away because I'd never really seen anything which had the mixture of all those elements. I went three nights in a row because I loved it so much.
Having already worked together many times, in a wide variety of projects, do you and Johnny still surprise each other on set?
Obviously seeing Johnny sing, I've never seen that in the many years we've worked together. So yeah, it's always something new. A journalist told us in America we've been working together for 10 decades. So we're a lot older than we look! We've actually known each other since before the invention of cinema; we have quite a long, good relationship that way.
What are your thoughts on the awards such as the Golden Globes being cancelled, due to the writers' strike?
I have to answer that one! I don't know, I haven't spent much time there and it's different just hearing about it from over here, so I'm not really in tune with what's happening. The only thing I can say is awards shouldn't have an impact on a film in terms of people seeing it, though in some cases if films are different or fall into strange categories like this one, awards probably helps awareness of a film. So that's, I guess, the sad part about it. Maybe films which are different won't reach as many people but I don't really know what to say.
Because a lot of things are changing and while the strike's going on and people aren't writing and things aren't being done, people then just go and watch YouTube, so in some ways I wonder if something shouldn't be worked out quickly because otherwise the thing that everyone's worried is going to happen is going to happen anyway. I find it very complicated and I really don't know what to make of it all.
Tell us something about the creation of the blood for Sweeney Todd. Is it true it was actually orange?
Well the blood, as everyone here can attest to, especially Alan Rickman, is our own recipe, very sticky, very sweet and burns your eyes.
I think it took Alan a couple of weeks to get it out of his underwear. But it's our own secret recipe.
What is your interpretation of the Sweeney Todd character? Because no matter how many people's throats he slices or how cold he is towards Mrs Lovett played by Tim's partner Helena Bonham Carter you never quite hate or dislike him.
We always just saw him as a sad character. We didn't see him as a villain or anything. He's tragic. When you meet him he's basically a dead person. The only thing that is keeping him going is one single-minded thing, which is tragic and you don't see anything else around him.
What draws you to such dark tales?
Well, I thought this was a light-hearted comedy musical. I guess I'm the wrong person to ask because I thought it was quite funny.
You've assembled a fairly impressive cast for this film. What were they like to work with?
All I can say is, this is one of the best casts I've ever worked with. All of these people are not professional singers and to do a musical like this, which is one of the most difficult musicals, well, they all went for it. Every day on the set was a very special thing for me because hearing all of these guys sing wasI don't think I can ever have an experience like that again. So I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all.
How important do you think the music is in Sweeney Todd?
One of the things I love about a musical is you listen to a soundtrack and it tells you the story and we didn't want it to be what I call a traditional musical where there's a lot of dialogue and then singing.
It felt like a silent movie with music. That's why we cut out a lot of choruses and extras singing and dancing down the streets because each of the characters is repressed and has their emotions sort of inside and through the music was the way to let them express their feelings and was sort of the structure we used for it.
When I first saw the show, the imagery which is quite dark and harsh set with the music which is quite lush and beautiful was something that I'd never seen before and was the reason I wanted to do it.
What was it like to have your actors singing on set?
Very painful for the crew. You can't just lip-synch because you see the breath and the throat. Every take had to be belted out.
It was very enjoyable for me to have music on the set and to see them walking around and see them act in a way I've never seen before. Just walking across the room, sitting in a chair, making a pie, using a razor, whatever, they all did it in a way that you could sense was different if there hadn't been music.
Helena said it was odd to be paid by her boyfriend to fall in love with his best friend in this film but that you all handled it ok
It's a very incestuous business to be in!
Your book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy has a huge following. Do you have plans to do anything else like this?
I still do little things, I have a backlog of stories and when I get enough of them I'd like to do another book like that because it was quite fun to do. So between projects I'm working on it.
There aren't many, if any, 18-certificate musicals. Was there ever a possibility is might have been something else?
It was an amazing thing for a studio to do. We were going to do an R rated musical with lots of blood, with no professional singers, about a serial killer and cannibalism and they go, Great!' That was unheard of. I've never had that happen in my life before. That gave me hope there are still people in Hollywood willing to try different things. So that was a very positive thing.
The first meeting I went into I said, Blood is a part of the story' because I'd seen productions where they try to scrimp on it, be more politically correct and the productions really lost something, so it was one of the first things I said to them and they accepted it.
The show's three hours long and we weren't out to film the Broadway show, we were out to make a movie so we try to keep the pace like those old melodramas and because it's such a simple story you kind of get what the story is, so I felt the pace had to be more what it is. Sondheim himself is not a real big fan of movie musicals so he was really open to trimming it down and honing it down.
Burton Ready to Wed HBC! http://www.thecheers.org 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street' director - who has a yet to be named one-month-old (?) daughter and four-year-old son Billy with the British actress - is set to marry Helena six years after he first proposed.
He told the Radio Times magazine: "Helena and I have been engaged for more than six years and we feel married already so we never got around to it, but I'm thinking about it now.
"I'm a late bloomer."
Tim and Helena first met when she starred in his remake of 'Planet of the Apes' in 2001.
She has since featured in his movies 'Big Fish', 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', 'Corpse Bride' and 'Sweeney Todd...'.
Helena recently said of her part in musical 'Sweeney Todd...': "I would safely say it made it much harder for me to get the part because the director was my boyfriend.
"He told me you look right for it, and potentially you are perfect for the role, but we have no idea if you can sing. I said I will go away and try to learn, but I had to be righter than right. For my sake, I didn't want to feel like I got the part just because I slept with the director."
JOHNNY DEPP struggled with one song on the SWEENEY TODD soundtrack - because he had to hold a note he feared he'd never be able to. When the movie star signed up to play the demon barber of Fleet Street in Tim Burton's dark musical he insisted he'd stay true to Todd creator Stephen Sondheim's songs - even if they proved difficult to nail, like Johanna. He tells Rolling Stone magazine, "It's such an emotional song and as far as I was concerned, when Stephen Sondheim writes the note and it has to be held for this many beats, you do it. "Don't be a pussy, you f**kin' hold that note. You can't cheat. You can't whisper... You just gotta belt it out. "I really beat myself up, making sure I could hold those notes. In Johanna, some are, like, 12 beats. That was a bugger. At one point, I was close to passing out - I got dizzy and saw black."
The "City of Lights" welcomed Johnny Depp and Tim Burton on the Champs Ellysee Wednesday night to hundreds of fans who waited hours in the rain for their arrival.
Seventeen years after their first collaboration, Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton are teaming up once again - this time on the drama Sweeney Todd. For the first time together they are winners of two Golden Globes - Depp for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical and Tim Burton in the category of Best Film/Musical or Comedy.
The thriller is based on the hit Broadway musical and Depp actually sings in the film.
Depp plays Benjamin Barker, a man who was falsely imprisoned for 15 years after a judge sets him up in order to take his wife and daughter. Barker escapes and takes on the name of Sweeney Todd. Todd, who is a barber by trade, seeks to take out revenge on all of the people who have wronged him.
Depp, who was at home in France when the winners of the Golden Globes were announced, told AP Television:
"Uh, I was at my house. I was at home you know. Yeah, I was at home, just hanging out. I was very surprised, certainly. Moved, you know. Flattered. Honoured. They nominated me about 17 years ago. It was the first time."
Tim Burton was also shocked to hear of his honour while sleeping at home: "Well, I was in London and I was asleep. So, I read about it in the newspaper the next day because nobody has my phone number so I was not really aware of it until the next morning."
Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter also star in the film.
ohnny Depp, the iconic Pirate of the Caribbean, has a killer role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
He talks about hitting the high notes as a singing slasher, playing with Barbie dolls and how even his kids have come to know him as “weird”.
How did Sweeney Todd come about for you?
It’s something that Tim and I had talked about for a long time. Then it all kind of came together. Tim’s outdone himself this time. It’s a great script, a great cast, great director, great music and one not very good singer – me!
Was it nerve-wracking having to sing and act?
I think for an actor it’s important to challenge yourself and to be potentially teetering on the brink of absolute flopdom because otherwise you’re just sort of there.
Do you sing at home?
God, no. Never. I wouldn’t inflict that on my family. The only thing I did do while preparing for this movie was I would sing in the car and to the music for Sweeney over and over again. I recorded the songs with an old friend of mine, Bruce Witkin. It was just him, me and a microphone.
Do you think this character is going to scare off your fans from Pirates of the Caribbean?
It is a radical change, that’s for sure. But I’m not trying to scare people away. The challenge for me is taking a character like that and attempting to make people feel for him at the same time he’s slashing people up.
How hard was it filming Sweeney’s really cut-throat scenes with all that blood?
I remember everyone except me being covered in plastic trash bags. There’d be a countdown. Three, two, one... action! And then blammo, you know? The great deluge. The process we shot in called for a slightly over-the-top kind of colour. It was kind of orangish... tasted kind of syrupy. It was oily and dangerous. Slippery. You’d see these big English grips, tiptoeing through the swamp of blood. Very surreal.
Do your kids watch your films?
Yeah. My whole family went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I hadn’t seen it. I was waiting at home, and they came back. And my daughter came up and went, "You're really weird." I knew then, okay. I’m okay. I’m all right.
Have you watched it with them?
No. I still haven’t. I find it so difficult to watch anything I’m in. I love discovering moments on the set. But I can’t stand the idea that I have to see it later.
Is it true you play with your daughters’ Barbies?
I have had some very good situations with different Barbies and Kens. So yeah, I’ve played with a lot of Barbies for my kids. It’s actually one of the only things I am good at. What’s nice is, now that my son is growing up, I get to do the boy stuff: Frankenstein, Dracula and Wolfman.
Up close: Johnny Depp hates to murder a song. He’s less worried about his victims as slasher supreme Sweeney Todd. Having jumped ship from the Black Pearl, Depp finds himself in far darker waters with his old shipmate Tim Burton’s adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd.
In his new film Sweeney Todd, Tim Burton brings his dark vision to Victorian London, with his closest conspirator Johnny Depp taking up the razor for the bloodiest of musicals. MARTYN PALMER is thrilled.
ACCORDING to Helena Bonham Carter, who is, after all, uniquely placed when it comes to observing what makes cinema’s Odd Couple tick — that’s Tim Burton and Johnny Depp — it’s a shared sensibility, an off-kilter take on life and a love of what she describes as “poo jokes”.
She has made five films with Burton (and three of these with Depp, too) and does, of course, share a London home and two children with him.
For the latest, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, she took the role as Mrs Lovett, opposite Depp as the serial killer who dispatches his victims with a slash of his cut-throat razor and a song.
This is a musical quite unlike any other: an X-rated Tim Burton horror film with tunes, buckets of blood and a leading man who owes more to Lon Chaney and The Hunchback of Notre Dame than Christopher Plummer and The Sound of Music. “It’s the perfect date movie,” giggles Burton.
Burton and Depp are on their sixth collaboration. All is well in Burton’s cinematic world when Depp is its leading citizen.
There are other directors who have found their muse with one particular actor — Martin Scorsese with De Niro, Ridley Scott with Russell Crowe, while the Coen brothers have taken a shine to George Clooney.
But Burton and Depp have a logic all of their own, a secret, imagined universe that only they inhabit.
For Burton, Depp has vividly brought to life the ultimate gawky teenager (Edward Scissorhands), an endearingly eccentric but hopeless movie director (Ed Wood), a warped Pied Piper (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), as well as playing Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow, and voicing Victor Van Dort, whose intended is on the wrong side of mortality in the brilliant, animated Corpse Bride.
These two clearly get along and bring the best out of each other, and Sweeney Todd, the long-awaited adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s hit Broadway and West End musical, bears all the hallmarks of a classic Burton/Depp partnership.
Depp first met Burton in 1989. The actor was fresh out of a hit TV show, 21 Jump Street, and Burton was casting Edward Scissorhands.
“We met at a coffee shop in this hotel,” recalls Depp. “And instantly for me there was a connection and a kind of weird distance from the Hollywood way.”
Burton immediately recognised an actor who was desperate to escape from the box marked “teen heartthrob” that casting directors had earmarked for him.
“I always admired him for the simple reason that he always did what he wanted to do,” says Burton. “He could have gone and made millions of dollars as this great-looking leading guy. But no.
“There’s integrity there, there’s risk-taking in terms of making himself into different characters, and he’s got a great love of movies. He’s more like Peter Lorre or Boris Karloff or Lon Chaney than a glamorous movie star. And that’s the amazing thing.”
Sweeney Todd won two Golden Globes recently for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) and Best Actor for Depp. It also received two other nominations for Best Director and Best Actress for Bonham Carter.
So if letting Burton loose on a Sondheim musical/horror movie — which in the States has an R rating because of the “buckets of blood” — with a reported US$50 million (RM162 million) budget was a gamble, it appears to have paid off.
“I’m not a huge musical fan, but I liked this one, I just loved it,” says Burton.
“I sent Johnny the CD (of the soundtrack). Johnny was like, ‘Great, great, great...’ and everybody was, ‘Yeah, great...’ and then it was like, ‘Um, can he sing?’ Nobody knew. I didn’t know.”
But as a teenager, Depp had played and sung in a band called the Kids.
For Depp: “I knew I wasn’t tone deaf because I play music, guitar and all. But I didn’t know if I was actually going to be able to sing. So I went into a friend’s studio and recorded My Friends — a song from the show — and I sent him that and he liked it.”
Sondheim himself was delighted to get Burton on board as director. He also trusted that Depp wouldn’t take the part unless he knew that he could do it justice.
“So I said, ‘Listen to the score carefully and if you think you can handle it, fine by me — and I was right,” says Sondheim. “I knew he was not about to get up there croaking. So Johnny Depp cast Johnny Depp.”
The composer did, though, have casting approval and was sent audition tapes of all the hopefuls — Sacha Baron Cohen as flamboyant rival barber Signor Adolfo Pirelli, Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin, Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford and even the director’s girlfriend, Helena Bonham Carter, who has been a huge Sondheim fan since she was a teenager.
Sweeney Todd is the story of one man’s desperate desire for revenge and his descent into madness.
The story is believed to date back to the early 1800s and some claimed that it was based on a real case, although historians have consistently dismissed this.
It appeared as a melodrama on the London stage in 1847 and the first film version was made in 1936.
In 1973, British playwright Christopher Bond gave the world the basis for the version that we have now: a gruesome tale of a wronged man, Benjamin Barker, who is sent to Australia for a crime he didn’t commit, by the evil Judge Turpin — played by a suitably villainous Rickman — because the judge wanted to steal his beautiful wife.
Some 15 years later, when Barker returns to London, he vows to seek retribution on those who have ruined his life and sets himself up as a barber, Sweeney Todd, above a pie shop owned by Mrs Lovett.
In 1979, Sondheim turned this version into a hit Broadway musical, most famously starring Angela Lansbury as Mrs Lovett and Len Cariou as the murderous barber.
A Broadway musical does not necessarily make for great cinema, but Sondheim, the toughest critic of them all, is delighted with the film.
“I was pretty stunned by it, I must say. Both John Logan (the screenwriter) and I were nervous about seeing the first cut and Tim was nervous about our reaction. It was a very happy afternoon for everybody, a lot of self-congratulatory stuff going on.”
Depp, Bonham Carter and the rest of the cast recorded their songs before filming started at Pinewood Studios.
Then, during each scene, the music would be played back through speakers. Most of the actors, though, still sang along to themselves on set.
“And the great thing is, you hear certain pop bands and they could be anybody, but these are all actors and their characters and voices come through,” says Burton.
“It’s really exciting to hear, like, a duet between Johnny and Alan Rickman. I mean, who would ever think about that?” — Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox/Warner Bros.
Hollywood actor JOHNNY DEPP is hoping to play troubled pop star MICHAEL JACKSON in a movie of the singer's life. The Sweeney Todd star was rumoured to have modelled himself on Jackson for his role as Willy Wonka in 2005 movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But although Depp believes any similarities to the pop superstar in his portrayal are purely coincidental, he would love to take on the role of the Thriller hitmaker, insisting, "There is still time to play him."
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp show that even demons have a heart in their offbeat rendition of Sondheim's classic, writes Stephanie Bunbury.
WHEN Tim Burton and Johnny Depp first met, they sat for hours at a coffee table mulling delightedly over the odd artefacts they remembered from the '70s that seemed perfectly normal at the time. "For me there was an instant connection on the most obtuse levels, with this weird fascination or absurdity of things like macrame owls and resin grapes and fake fruit," says Depp in his quiet, hesitant way. "Like plastic fruit on your table. Nobody thought twice about that. So there was an instant connection on the spot."
Burton lived in Burbank, California. It was the kind of place, he has said, where nobody was really religious but everyone sent their children to Sunday school. "It was just the framework. There was no passion for it. No passion for anything. Just a kind of quiet, floaty, semi-oppressive, blank palette that you're living in."
He was a loner as a child, roaming around with his sketchbook and pencils. Inexplicably, his parents bricked up the windows in his bedroom that looked out over the lawn. "They gave me this little slit window that I had to climb on a desk to see out of." Anyone watching his movies can easily picture that child doggedly getting into position to catch a glimpse of something like beauty. In a sense, surely, he's still there. There is not really any hint, wrote critic David Thomson a few years ago, of the straight world. "Everything in a Burton film expresses the distorted feelings of a resolute, inescapable loneliness."
His newest film is Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, his adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's grim, gory hit musical. A man driven by revenge who murders a succession of men and women with a flick of his razor in an effort to reach the scheming judge who ruined his life, Burton's Todd is a combination of comic-book villain and angst-ridden victim. He is not really a demon. "His family has essentially been stolen from him and he's sent away for 15 years to some hellhole," says Depp. "The way we looked at it is that, essentially, the guy died. The only way his heart has continued to beat is to go and avenge that hideous wrong that has been dealt to him." There's more of this article so check out the link!
Johnny Depp put his hairdressing skills to the test when he shaved a journalist’s head during an interview.
The quirky actor, who plays deadly barber Sweeney Todd in his latest film, was amazed when Steve Wilson handed him a pair of clippers and dared him to give him a haircut.
“Oh my God,” said Depp as he started shaving off Wilson’s hair in a Mohawk style. “Do your worst, I’m used to pain but just don’t do it near my throat,” said the game presenter.
After finishing the trim, Depp, 44, admitted he was quite impressed with his first attempt at cutting hair.
“It’s pretty good, I got to tell you I’d quite like to do this again,” he added during the interview filmed for chat show This Morning.
So if you haven't heard, Sweeney recived the golden globe for best musicla or comedy and Johnny got one (his first) for his role in Sweeney.
Helena Bonham Carter loved getting paid by her boyfriend to lust after Johnny Depp in the trio's new movie. (So would I!!!) http://people.monstersandcritics.com
The British actress - who stars as Mrs. Lovett in 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street' directed by her long-term love Tim Burton - had no qualms about falling in love with Tim's best friend, who plays the murderous barber, on screen.
When asked if she found it awkward lusting after Johnny in front of Tim, she told BANG Showbiz: "Weirdly not, maybe it should have been, but you know I was pretending. It is odd, I was being paid by my boyfriend to fall in love with his best friend. It was a strange situation."
Helena - who gave birth to her second child with Tim last month - also revealed she tried extra hard in her audition because she didn't want to feel like she only got the part because she slept with the director.
She added: "I would safely say it made it much harder for me to get the part because the director was my boyfriend. He told me you look right for it, and potentially you are perfect for the role, but we have no idea if you can sing. I said well I will go away and try to learn, but I had to be righter than right. For my sake, I didn't want to feel like I got the part just because I slept with him. But at the end of the day Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the original musical, had the final say and I definitely didn't sleep with him!"
TIM BURTON - BURTON RELISHES IN BONHAM CARTER'S BAD PRESS
Caption: Tim Burton. 2008 National Board of Review Awards at Cipriani - Outside Arrivals. New York City, USA - 15.01.08
Director TIM BURTON encourages girlfriend HELENA BONHAM CARTER's wacky wardrobe choices - because he loves to read the ensuing criticism from the fashion press. The British actress, 41, is well-known for her mismatched clothing and unkempt hairstyle, which are frequently targeted by the disapproving media. But Bonham Carter's long-time partner Burton doesn't mind her unusual outfits, because it provides him with some humorous light reading. She explains, "He goes to the corner shop and buys any newspapers that have unflattering articles about me, and brings them home to tease me. Which is slightly irritating because it's not as if they're free - he actually spends money on this!" But the Fight Club star insists she pays no attention to the tabloids' caustic remarks - because she is determined never to let their input influence her trademark style. She adds, "The fashion police should get on with their lives. There's nothing I can do about them, and if someone's going to say something unkind about me, that's their bad karma, really. "If they feel better for pointing out that I'm badly dressed, well, good for them. At lease I made somebody happy!"
TIM BURTON and HELENA BONHAM CARTER laid down strict ground rules before filming SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET together - fearing the stress of the musical would wreck their relationship. The pair enjoys a famously eccentric union - they own adjacent London houses that are joined by a door - and both feared spending an extended period in each other's company would drive them apart. Bonham Carter reveals, "Being involved with people you work with is not a very good idea. To make it work, Tim and I had to lay down some commandments, set some rules. "For me, it was a matter of learning to shut my mouth, because my initial instinct is to talk and talk. And he's not very forthcoming with compliments, so I needed a bit of reassurance here and there. "And not talking about work at home, of course."
Based on all of the hype there is one certainty surrounding the new Michael Mann flick Public Enemies - Wisconsin is going to be terribly broken hearted if the movie doesn't at least shoot one scene somewhere in the state. Especially with the most recent potential casting decision.
We already know that Johnny Depp is confirmed for the John Dillinger biopic, but now Variety is confirming everyone's favorite Newsie, Christian Bale, is in negotiations to pursue Depp's Dillinger as FBI agent Melvin Purvis (it should be noted that Bale is confirmed as a cast member on IMDB).
In an attempt to be the first to break the story of Hollywood star power coming to the state an overzealous reporter broke some inaccurate news last Wednesday morning that the film had been confirmed for shooting in Wisconsin. The story was on news sites and in the Associated Press feed even before the official press conference was scheduled to start. Oops...at the last minute the press conference was canceled with the news that negotiations were ongoing and the Wisconsin media learned a hard lesson as to why it is so important to adhere to Hollywood style press embargoes. Tsk, tsk.
Depp started music career by stealing guitar chord book (It's true, he is baaaad!)
http://www.thaindian.com Hollywood actor Johnny Depp has revealed that he stole a guitar chord book as a child because he wanted to learn to play the instrument.
It was a Mel Bay book that he stole, Depp says.
“When I was 12, I talked my mom into picking up a Decca electric guitar for me for 25 dollars. The first thing I did was steal a Mel Bay chord book. I went to this store, stuffed it down my pants and walked out, Contactmusic quoted him as telling Rolling Stone magazine.
“It had pictures - that’s why I needed it so badly, because it was immediate gratification. If I could match those photographs, then I was golden. I conquered it in days,” he recalled.
Depp has performed on Oasis and Shane MACGowan records, besides featuring in bands like The Kids and P.
“The Oasis stuff was fun… I enjoyed playing slide on what was it called? Fade In-Out, he said.
“I was playing a guitar that had some strange tuning, and I didn’t know the chords to the song. So, looking back, it was sort of miraculous that I was able to stay on key,” he added.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star has also been appreciated a lot for playing singing barber Sweeney Todd in Tim Burton’s dark new musical.
Johnny Depp admits to having been a terrible salesman(I love this, Johnny's such a sweetie!)
American movie hunk Johnny Depp admitted to having been a terrible telesales person, because he would always try to dissuade people from buying the products he was selling.
Depp had taken a job selling pens over the phone when he first arrived in Los Angeles with his band The Kids.
The job helped him to stay off the streets, but he was not comfortable with it, as he had to con people into buying his pens with the promise of giving them treats.
“You’d guarantee them a grandfather clock or a trip to Greece. The couple of times that I actually got people to buy the pens, they only agreed because they wanted the grandfather clock, Contactmusic quoted him as saying.
“When the supervisor wandered off, I would say, ‘Listen, don’t buy these pens. The clock is made of corkboard. I’m a thief; we’re ripping you off,’” he said.
However he insisted that the job was his first acting role, even to the extent of giving him a stage name.
“You’re reading a whole spiel. There was a character on the soap opera General Hospital - the name stuck in my head - so I would call people up and say, `How do you do, this is Edward Quartermaine,’” he concluded. http://www.hollyscoop.com Once again I state, Johnny is SUCH A SWEETIE!!!
Saint Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp's heart is as big as his bank account. Last night Johnny paid a visit to Great Ormond Street Hospital and donated £1 million of his own money to the hospital as a thank you for saving his daughters life.
Last week Depp invited 5 doctors from the hospital to join him at the London premiere of 'Sweeney Todd.'
"It was the most frightening thing we have ever been through. It was hell. But the magic is that she pulled through beautifully. Great Ormond Street was terrific, a great hospital." Depp has said about the experience.
On November 29th, Depp had his Jack Sparrow costume from 'Pirates of the Caribbean' flown in so he can play dress up and read bedtime stories to the young patients. Isn't that the cutest thing ever? Depp just earned extra extra extra brownie points!
Johnny Depp shows a little skin on the latest cover of Rolling Stone. Interview highlights below!
What was the first song you could play through?
DEPP: Every kid with a guitar at that time, the first things that came up were almost always “Smoke on the Water,” obviously, and “25 or 6 to 4,” by Chicago.
But the first song I played all the way through must have been “Stairway to Heaven.” I remember getting through the fingerpicking and just cursing Jimmy Page.
What was your first band?
DEPP: When I was about thirteen, I got together with some other kids in the neighborhood. This one guy had a bass, we knew a guy who had a PA system, we made our own lights. It was really ramshackle and great.
We’d play at people’s backyard parties. Everything from the Beatles to Led Zeppelin to Cheap Trick to Devo — and “Johnny B. Goode” was the closer.
You’ve got that wistful look in your eyes.
DEPP: You’re thirteen years old and you’re playing rock & roll. Loud. Poorly. But somebody’s letting you do it in their back yard. And it was absolute perfection. It was freedom. Right off the bat, there was no question: I had found my future.
At this point, my computer won't load any new pages... I'll post more soon, Sunday at the latest, I promise!
US actor Johnny Depp arrives at the Uk premiere of US director Tim Burton's film Sweeney Todd at the Odeon Leicester Square in Central London, Britain, 10 January 2008. Sweeney Todd tells the story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and is a compelling and original vision based on the award-winning musical sensation by legendary lyricist and composer Stephen Sondheim. US actor Johnny Depp stars as Benjamin Barker, a man unjustly imprisoned for 15 years on the other side of the world, who escapes back to London with a vow of revenge, opposite British actress Helena Bonham Carter as his obsessively devoted accomplice, Mrs. Nellie Lovett. More pictures and captions, (click 2-13) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
Hollywood’s biggest heartthrob causes chaos as he appears for the Sweeney Todd premiere…
Johnny Depp was in Leicester Square last night for the Sweeney Todd premiere.
The dreamboat wore a sparkling black jacket and his trademark glasses and told MTV News he was amazed by the fans who greeted him: “It's always surprising that anyone shows up at all,” Depp said.
He continued: “What is super-sweet is the idea that these people come out and support you to this degree. They stay in this cold weather for all these hours, but these people are the only reason we're all here, they're our bosses you know."
Sweeney Todd is directed by frequent Depp collaborator Tim Burton (Sleepy Hollow, Willy Wonka, Edward Scissorhands) whose partner Helena Bonham Carter also stars in the film.
Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall- who also appear in the gory musical- were on the red carpet too.
More on Alice in Wonderland, Burton's next project, from http://jam.canoe.ca
BURTON IN WONDERLAND: Legendary producer Richard Zanuck isn't kidding when he says if you want something from Tim Burton, you have to go through him.
Fr'instance, as his Sweeney Todd gets fluffed for awards season (including today's lower-key Golden Globes), Burton is cagey about rumours that his next project will be a dark adaptation of Alice In Wonderland.
What does he have to say about it? "Nothing, it's a great book, nice dresses, whatever," Burton says.
His producer, however, is more forthcoming.
"I'm pretty sure that's his next movie and I'm going to be on that with him," says the 74-year-old Zanuck in a separate interview. "We haven't started doing anything yet, but there's a script already written and ready to go," he says, referencing the Writers Guild strike.
Burton and Zanuck have been a team since Planet of the Apes (an ironic pairing because Zanuck greenlit the original Charlton Heston movie when he was head of Fox in the '60s.).
"I will say this," says Zanuck, "Of all the directors I've worked with, John Huston, George Cukor, George Roy Hill, Willie Wyler, there's no one who's given me more pleasure to watch than Tim. He's so visual and so instinctive.
"Many times during the shooting of all the pictures we've done together, when we're about to start a new scene, I've put myself to sleep trying to imagine how he will visually attack that scene. And I've never been right. He always surprises me the next morning."
Actor Johnny Depp says he never wanted to be an actor and that music was his "first love".
Depp is currently promoting his new movie Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, reports contactmusic.com. Depp sings his own songs in the movie and reveals that he became interested in movies only because there was more money to make.
Depp is famous for his unconventional roles like Edward Scissorhands in the 1994 Tim Burton comedy Ed Wood.
He says, "I never wanted to be an actor. It just seemed like a good way to make easy money. I didn't care what the movies were. If they're going to pay me, fine."
Depp joined a rock band in his teens and played at parties in his neighbourhood. Depp called playing at parties "absolute perfection" and felt he was meant to be in music.
He added, "It was freedom. Right off the bat, there was no question: I had found my future."
When casting ‘Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street’, Tim Burton made his partner Helena Bonham Carter audition. Nine times. So, has the healing begun?
ONCE everyone’s favourite English rose – thanks to her roles in the likes of A Room With A View (1985) and Howards End (1992) – the delightfully kooky and genuinely aristocratic Helena Bonham Carter finally managed to shake off her corset queen image in 1999 when she popped up as Brad Pitt’s bit of foul-mouthed rough in Fight Club.
From there on in, Carter started delivering the kind of sexually-charged performances – in movies such as Women Talking Dirty (1999), Novocaine (2001) and Conversations With Other Women (2005) – that would make your average Merchant-Ivory fan choke on their tea and scones.
Having met her current partner during the illfated 2001 remake of Planet Of The Apes, Carter and writer-director Tim Burton last month added a little sister to their family for their four-yearold son, Billy Ray, to play with.
That the couple, who got engaged in October 2001, are still together after the making of their latest movie (an adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street) is something of a relief for both parties, given that Carter has called the production “one of the toughest, most gruelling rites of passage we went through in our relationship”.
PAUL BYRNE: So, Helena, do you want to talk about it?
HELENA BONHAM CARTER: Yeah, it was tough, it was definitely tough. Auditioning, and not knowing if he wanted me, and he was tortured about whether I wasn’t right, but then Sondheim chose me, so that made it okay. But it was tough on both of us, making sure that I delivered, that he delivered.
You play Mrs Lovett, the pie shop owner who takes in Johnny Depp’s Sweeney Todd just as he goes on his roaring rampage of revenge against the judge who took away his wife and child and sent him to prison. It’s a role you had to do nine auditions for? You clealy didn’t want to get the Linda McCartney tag here…
Absolutely. It wasn’t an easy gig to get, but then again, I didn’t want to be cast for the wrong reasons. I knew Tim wouldn’t cast me for any obvious reasons – for any emotional reasons. He’d never do that. It was kind of a good thing to go through all those auditions, because, by the time I’d gotten the part, I knew that I really deserved it.
Tim has dreamt about adapting this musical for the big screen ever since he first saw it at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, back in 1980. Does that mean you’ve had years to prepare for this role?
No, no, no, I hadn’t, because he was going to do Ripley, and suddenly that collapsed, and he had time on his hands. I think it was me who told Tim he should try and make this, this dream project, but it all had to happen very quickly. Which meant we had very little time. It was all much shorter than usual, and I had three months of going to this poor teacher: “Can I sing in three months? Can you teach me?” The fact that it was this ridiculously hard part to sing didn’t really enter my head.
Sweeney Todd should turn out to be a very special movie for your latest addition, given that they probably know the songs just as well as you do…
Yeah, because I’m sure they’re going to recognise at least half of the songs here, and not know when or where they heard them.
It must make your job that little bit easier, given that you’re starring alongside your good friend, Johnny?
Yeah, he’s very conscientious and disciplined, and he’s probably a bit more obedient to Tim than I am. And he was very helpful, because I was pregnant halfway through, and therefore my focus wasn’t always the best. I had to give up caffeine, and that didn’t make it easy to jump to it. Johnny was very good at giving me signs offcamera when I was missing my cue.
Tim and Johnny are almost Fight Club close – is it like dealing with a second marriage for you?
They’re not like a married couple. They’re more like brothers, I’d say. They’ve got a lot of old jokes – poo jokes mainly, and American TV culture reference points. They’re pretty much on the same wavelength. And in this, Johnny’s hair was so much like Tim’s, they looked like twins at times.
Given the amount of razors on the set of this movie, was Tim ever tempted to go for a close shave, and the full back-and-sides?
Actually, sometimes he’ll come downstairs, and he’ll surprise you. It’s the comb, but he doesn’t really. Once I woke him up with a comb hanging over him, like a horror movie scene. He is clean though, I’ll give him that. He may look like he doesn’t care, but he does. He cleans his hair, conditions it and combs it, but then, within a day…
As a teenager, you were a big fan of musicals, and Sondheim’s in particular. At 13, you were so desperate to be Mrs Lovett you even had her hairdo…
Yeah, but the funny thing is, I didn’t quite realise I was doing it until one of my friends told me recently, “Well, we used to call you Mrs Lovett, don’t you remember?” I was a strange child…
Johnny looked at old movies like Mad Love and The Penalty to find Sweeney’s madness. How did you prepare to play a heartless wench like Mrs Lovett? Watch The Bride Of Frankenstein? The speeches of Margaret Thatcher?
Maybe I should have, but Tim wanted me to look at Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? – Bette Davis – and Bonnie & Clyde. Mainly those. And Mad Love, but I’d seen that already. We watch Mad Love at Christmas. Better than It’s A Wonderful Life.
Given that you’re sleeping with the director here, is it hard to keep your home life sane during the making of a movie this complex and intense?
We didn’t talk about the movie at home. That was banned. I listed rules to keep in place if we were going to work together. Rule number one was, don’t even go there at home; don’t talk about the job. Even if it’s a great idea, just keep it for the next day. And then it also became pretty obvious early on that I should watch my mouth on set too. Shut up, basically.
Are you able to judge one another’s work? Can you say to Tim, “Actually, honey, I think you went a bit too off the rails there”?
Eh, we don’t really watch our work, to be honest. I mean, I’m always gobsmacked when I see something that he’s made, because he’s very private, and doesn’t reveal much about what he’s doing. So, when you see the results, you’re going, “Oh, my God, you’ve been carrying that around in your head all this while”. So, it’s always a surprise, and I’m always amazed…
HBC video about Sweeney:
And another HBC interview from Time Out New York, Issue 639 : December 27, 2007 - January 2, 2008
As British icons go, Helena Bonham Carter’s up there with Tony Blair and clotted cream. Simply pronouncing her name is enough to make you feel refined and dignified. But the 41-year-old actor sure as hell doesn’t suffer from stiff-upper-lip syndrome: Talk with her for 30 minutes and chances are you’ll blush and crack up, then hope she’ll become your lifelong friend and/or lover.
Preparing for the role of Mrs. Lovett in the long-anticipated, megaviolent film version of Stephen Sondheim’s morbid musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Bonham Carter faced the biggest challenge of her career: training for two and a half months with famed vocal coach Ian Adam, who died one week after filming wrapped. Envious rivals will assume she got the part by sleeping with the film’s director, Tim Burton—the father of her son, Billy-Ray, and the man she shares adjacent homes with (they connect via hallway) in London. Bonham Carter is quick to emphasize she was chosen by Sondheim.
TONY (Time Out New York) talked to the actor on the phone from London, just days before she gave birth to her second child with Burton. By the time you read this, she’ll be up to her porcelain chin in soiled bibs and poopy diapers.
TONY: How do you feel? Are you nervous about the birth? Helena: It’s all been a bit stressful with the movie coming up. My real worry is that I won’t be able to hold off until Tim gets back from the States. But other than that, no—not really. Truth be told, I’m rather looking forward to the epidural.
TONY: Not a fan of going au naturel? Helena: Oh God, no. Besides, if someone offers you drugs, and it’s free and legal, and there’s a good reason for it, and it’s good quality? Why would you not get high?
TONY: Are you the breast-feeding type? Helena: I think it’s wonderful. You know you’re providing a real service. After carrying around your boobs for so long, it’s nice to know they have an actual purpose.
TONY: Surely there’s a dark side, too. Helena: Well, Billy was a bit of a succubus. It gets to a point where you feel awkward. If they can crawl up and reach for it, perhaps it’s time to move on.
TONY: What tricks did you learn while training for Sweeney Todd? Helena: Smile when you want to hit a high note. When you want to go high, think low, and vice versa. I also got a flat tummy without once going to the gym.
TONY: Thanks to breathing exercises? Helena: You’ve got to sing from your “front bottom,” as it were. Although Ian wouldn’t call it that, he’d just shout, “Sing from your cunt!” He was also fond of emphasizing exactly where that was, so he’d scream, “You’re not singing from your cunt!” Then he’d storm over and molest you.
TONY: So in polite company, I could say, “So-and-so is quite the front bottom”? Helena: That’s what I do, but not Ian. He goes straight for the c-u-n-t.
TONY: That makes for a fitting segue into asking what Broadway snobs think of your performance. Helena: People are going to think what they want. Both Johnny [Depp] and I kept singing high and enunciating sharply, but Tim discouraged that. He was like, “Don’t do that Broadway thing!”
TONY: How do you maintain an “office romance”? Helena: I’m afraid I don’t have anything positive to say about that. Being involved with people you work with is not a very good idea. To make it work, Tim and I had to lay down some commandments, set some rules.
TONY: Such as? Helena: For me, it was a matter of learning to shut my mouth, because my initial instinct is to talk and talk and go on about what I think. And he’s not very forthcoming with compliments, so I needed a bit of reassurance here and there. And no talking about [work] at home, of course.
TONY: I bet you’re fun to hang out with. Helena: That’s very sweet. Unfortunately, I won’t be hanging out with you or anyone else for the next week or so. Something will be hanging out of me, that’s for sure.
TONY: The miracle of birth. Helena: Yes—very wet, with lots of blood and gore and bodily fluids. Just like Sweeney Todd, really.
Director TIM BURTON was determined to help his wife HELENA BONHAM CARTER shake off her image as a period actress - by casting her in bizarre movie roles. Bonham Carter was once famed for her portrayal of characters in period dramas, but Burton, who has two children with the star, insists the 41-year-old's acting remit has now changed drastically. He says, "Yes, I do put Helena in some strange roles considering she's my partner and the mother of my children. I started off putting her in a monkey suit (in Planet Of The Apes). In Sweeney Todd, her character ends up thrown into an oven. And in The Corpse Bride, I had her as a decomposing corpse with maggots in her head. "That's a problem you're going to have if you're around me. 'Forget those period costumes in Florence or those Elizabethan wardrobes,' I told her, 'It's not going to be like that anymore."
She made her name in Merchant-Ivory's exquisite corset dramas, but her Gothic beauty has since brought her a host of unexpected roles - not least in her partner Tim Burton's latest gore-fest, Sweeney Todd. Helena Bonham Carter talks to Barbara Ellen about slasher movies, motherhood and why you won't find a comb in their home
Helena Bonham Carter isn't quite what you'd expect. All these years into her career (she is now 41, and made A Room with a View and Lady Jane when she was barely out of her teens), she still seems fixed to a large degree in the public imagination as the Merchant Ivory poster girl - the perfect English Rose forever wafting elegantly around, looking fragrant and distressed in bustles and corsets.
In truth, Bonham Carter's career has been more complex and interesting than that, and so, it transpires, is the woman. While Bonham Carter does have the posh vowels (she is the great grand-daughter of former prime minister Herbert Asquith), she is also disarmingly friendly and has an earthy (if not filthy) giggle, which she employs a lot. In short, otherworldly and ethereal Helena Bonham Carter is not.
Then there are her looks. For someone so long hailed as the definitive 'English rose', it turns out that Bonham Carter is a proud 'mongrel', boasting a Czech/Spanish/Austrian Jewish/French/Russian heritage. In person, as on screen, Bonham Carter is hauntingly beautiful, with a childlike face, brown-rimmed eyes and that great bush of wild electrocuted-looking hair that makes her look as if she's rushed straight from some Bronte-esque melodrama on the Yorkshire moors.
Then, of course, there is Bonham Carter's 'unique' dress sense. (The press love to snap her looking like a pile of Gothic laundry.) Though today, when we meet in a cafe near her north london home, she is disappointingly restrained in a black jumper and ruffled skirt. 'I don't think I dress eccentrically,' says Bonham Carter, placing my tape recorder on the arm of her chair so that her tiny, tumbling voice can register. 'I'm just not conservative, I guess - I dress according to what like. And I'm not a mannequin, as you can tell.'
At the time of our talk, Bonham Carter is also pregnant by her partner, leftfield Hollywood director Tim Burton, with whom she's worked on projects such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish and The Corpse Bride (since their relationship began, she has often been referred to as Burton's 'weirdo muse').
Bonham Carter and Burton already have a son, Billy, four, and, shortly after we meet, she gives birth to a baby girl. At our meeting she is still pregnant, and how - her bump is so big she can barely sit up properly and keeps threatening to slide off the chair.
'Yes,' laughs Bonham Carter, 'I am technically about to have a baby. I could technically go into labour right now.'
She tells me she was working so hard on Burton's latest project, a film version of Sondheim's musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, that she didn't think she could get pregnant. When she did, she wasn't popular with costume and continuity. 'If you look at the film and see my breast size, it goes up and down like a yo-yo. I have my usual tangerines and I walk around the corner and suddenly they're melons.' Sliding down in her chair again, Bonham Carter erupts into giggles.
We're here to discuss Bonham Carter's playing the pie-making Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd, also starring Johnny Depp in the title role as the throat-slashing barber.
Recently nominated for a Golden Globe, Sweeney Todd is as gruesome, murky and twisted as they come (blood and guts oozing everywhere). Depp and Bonham Carter are impeccably sinister, and rather brilliant, dramatically and musically, right up to the climax, where, throats having been slit, they bleed to a grisly crimson death. 'It's not feel-good,' says Bonham Carter, by way of understatement.
Bonham Carter loved playing Mrs Lovett, and refers to herself as a 'musical whore'. 'I've always loved musicals,' she says. 'Tim thought I was making Billy gay because that's all I'd sing to him.' She even claims that singing for Sweeney Todd may have got her pregnant. 'It was all the oxygen. And my pelvic floor has never been so fit. I've got great hopes that after this baby it's going to bounce straight back.'
Bonham Carter adds that, contrary to what people might think, she does not get parts in Burton's movies simply because they are a couple. 'I really do have to be righter than right before Tim lets me do a part,' she says. 'Sexual favours don't get me anything.' In the case of Sweeney Todd, Sondheim had the final say over casting, and Bonham Carter auditioned for him. She describes getting the part as 'the most absolutely amazing thing. I just could not believe it. Nor could Tim, actually. He burst into tears. And I burst into tears.'
I ask Bonham Carter if being with on set with Burton is a bit like being the teacher's kid - always mindful of charges of favouritism, they criticise and ignore you more. She nods: 'It's inverted favouritism. Or maybe just sadism. Whatever the opposite of favouritism is.'
I point out that Burton uses Depp again and again, and nobody criticises that. 'Tim doesn't sleep with Johnny though,' drawls Bonham Carter, deadpan. 'I can vouch for that. He only sleeps with me.' Her lips twitch. 'But he and Johnny have a perfectly cordial relationship.'
The way Bonham Carter tells it, things occasionally got rocky between her and Burton on the Sweeney Todd set. 'There are certain stresses that come with working together,' says Bonham Carter. 'There's no pretence with us, you see. No "Let's adopt our formal selves".'
What sort of thing is she talking about? 'Well, he was all: (growls) "How difficult is it to come through the door and cover that spot!" And I'd be (whines): "I've got wool in my head because I'm fucking pregnant, and there's blood everywhere and I didn't see it, all right?" And all I get is: "Action!"'
During all this, says Bonham Carter, people working with them on set would either look down or away ('Johnny was forever polishing his razors'). She grins: 'One weekend, Tim and I came up with Indian nicknames for each other. I called him Big Chief Little Patience. His name for me was Little Squaw Running Mouth, ie I talk too much. Stay schtum!'
Sounds like being a muse, even a 'weirdo' one, isn't all it's cracked up to be?
'I don't know if you could call me a muse,' grins Bonham Carter. 'Most muses are silent.'
Bonham Carter was born in Golders Green, north London, in1966. Although 'under-confident', she was a clever child ('a bit of a swot') and had a 'fertile imagination'. She would watch the television wondering if she could climb inside it. Other times she would play around and dress up, watching movies and pretending she was in them. 'I remember ...#8594;...#8592; when The French Lieutenant's Woman came out,' says Bonham Carter. 'I would pretend to be the French lieutenant's woman. I was always a romantic. I still am, actually.'
Bonham Carter says she had a 'very happy' childhood. However, her father Raymond had a stroke when she was 13, leaving him paralysed in a wheelchair. The young Helena decided then and there to 'reinvent herself', picking up the phone to get an acting agent.
Was this her way of escaping reality? 'It was an escape, I guess,' says Bonham Carter. She credits her parents with giving her the inner strength to deal with the situation positively. 'I was just determined to have self-sufficiency. It was just thinking: I don't need to be defeated by this - it's going to be OK.'
This fortitude is at odds with the fey, somewhat ethereal image people had of her in her youth. 'I was not that,' says Bonham Carter. 'I never was. I was a very tough 13-year-old. And so determined. I just thought: I can make a happy ending out of this.'
Her father died in 2004, but it was he who encouraged Bonham Carter to grasp her first big break. A photograph that had been taken of her for Tatler resulted in film offers (not least to play Lady Jane Grey), but it meant she would not be able to go to Cambridge. 'University would have been a kinder start,' says Bonham Carter. 'But I remember my dad saying: "You've got a break, and that's something you can't manufacture - you've got to go with it and see where it takes you."' She smiles ruefully: 'I suppose you can't go to university, then three years later say: "Can I have my break now, please?"'
Bonham Carter says she's had her moments of regretting this decision ('Mainly when my friends went off to their universities'), just as she had pangs about her lack of formal training, but now she is at peace with it all: 'You don't go on regretting the things you do, do you?' These early movies, such as A Room with a View, Maurice and Howards End were to cement Bonham Carter in the public imagination as a human Merchant Ivory corset, but all she could think about was that she couldn't bear to watch herself on screen.
'It's not false modesty,' insists Bonham Carter. 'I hated what I looked like. I did look, as somebody said, like a bloated chipmunk! I had a lot of criticism, and I've always been more aware of the criticism than the praise.'
Bonham Carter says she has always hated watching herself on screen ('It's torture!'), and has only ever liked herself in Planet of the Apes (where she wore an ape suit) and The Corpse Bride (which was animated). 'For me, acting is about getting away from myself. So to look at myself is the last thing I want.' Is she shy? 'Yes, I am,' she says, unexpectedly. 'And I love to criticise myself. Well, I don't love it, but you know what I mean.'
Bonham Carter was to go on to boast a more restless and adventurous CV than perhaps people realise - including turns in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite, the mother of autistic sons in Magnificent 7, and the disreputable nihilistic chain-smoking Maria in Fight Club (which won her an indie audience).
In 1997, back in a corset for The Wings of the Dove, she found herself Oscar nominated. In the end, Helen Hunt won ('For two syllables I thought I was up there,' laughs Bonham Carter). Being nominated, she remembers, was 'Incredibly nice. A bit like being pregnant - everyone was so friendly. Taxi drivers were saying, "Go for it!" Suddenly I felt very patriotic.'
More recently, Bonham Carter has appeared in Conversations with Other Women. Directed by first-time director Hans Canosa, and co-starring Aaron Eckhart, it tells the story of old flames meeting up at a Manhattan wedding.
Bonham Carter also appeared in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as Bellatrix Lestrange. She loved it because she loves the books, but the special effects made for a tough, drawn-out shoot. 'You can get a bit bored,' she winces, looking around her as if JK Rowling might be listening. 'But it's such fun to be involved, to be part of that world. I love witches and magic and dress-up and make-believe.'
One wonders how she perceives her own career. Part of the Bonham Carter 'myth' is that, from the start, she was damned by those corset-friendly 'Edwardian' good looks; her beauty got her noticed, but also cruelly limited her potential.
Perhaps bored of answering this kind of question, Bonham Carter just shrugs. She's always maintained that she never set out to deliberately 'subvert' her early roles (she makes a good point about them being leads, and therefore great for women). She also feels that everyone tends to get defined by how they look in the acting profession, not just her. 'Even if you've got that interesting indie look or one of those faces that can transform, you end up getting defined by your look. You've just got to work with what you've got. And you know, it couldn't matter less what people think after a while. You soon come to realise there's really no point worrying about it.'
These days Bonham Carter lives with Burton in unworried, unwedded bliss in Hampstead. They first met when they were making Planet of the Apes in 2001. Is it true that the first thing Burton ever said to her was: 'I can really see you in an ape mask'? 'Yes,' says Bonham Carter. 'He said: "Don't be offended, but you're the first person I thought of."' She grins: 'Then he explained himself, which was much more intuitive. He said: "I just got the feeling you like to change what you look like." And I said: 'You're absolutely right."'
She did Planet of the Apes partly because of the ape suit ('I always like to do the thing you're never going to be able to do again'), partly because she wanted to work with Burton. 'I was excited to work with Tim Burton, even though the script was absolutely crap,' she says. 'But it wasn't a case of: "I want to work with him because I'm going to have two children with him, and he's going to be my husband!"'
Bonham Carter tells me that, long before she and Burton got together, one of the first conversations they ever had was about her home place, Hampstead. Burton had stayed there while filming Sleepy Hollow and told her it was the only place in the world he felt he belonged. Now he and Bonham Carter are living there together, and are perceived as an odd (as in eccentric) pair, The First Couple of Kook, but nevertheless kindred spirits, a good match.
'Well, yes, I think we are,' says Bonham Carter. 'I think it's to do with our hair - the lack of comb, the lack of hair care.'
One detail the public finds endlessly fascinating about the couple is the fact that, rather than live together conventionally, they reside in adjoining houses, rumoured to connect via a secret underground passageway (the more excitable reports have it illuminated only by candlesticks, with bats and owls swooping about). 'We haven't got a passageway - we've just got a room ...#8594; ...#8592; between the two,' corrects Bonham Carter. 'And to me it makes complete sense: if you've got some money, and you can afford it, why not have your own space?'
Why not indeed - it all sounds fine to me. I tell her that they're the London Woody and Mia (before it all went wrong, of course). 'Thank you,' says Bonham Carter. 'It really is a great idea. You never have to compromise emotionally or feel invaded.'
In their house, is it a case of Tim-Land and Helena-Land? Not really, says Bonham Carter. 'The whole thing has morphed into Billy-Land.' She says that she and Burton have different decors and different Sky Plus systems, but the main TV room is in one bit, and Billy is in another. 'I'm surprised when people find it weird, to be honest,' says Bonham Carter, looking perplexed. 'It's not even that separate, really - it just looks like a quite big, strange house. And there's a sense of choice about things - you see each other when you want to.'
One thing is evident, however much she adored playing Mrs Lovett: Bonham Carter is relishing her maternal role more. Rather touchingly, she has described motherhood as 'the ultimate creativity', and said she'd love to do it again and again. As she says to me: 'I'd really like six of them!'
Does Bonham Carter feel that having her children in her late thirties makes them all the more precious? 'Yes,' she says. 'Because you really want them by then, don't you? You've made the decision. You don't resent the time, or any loss of freedom. You're just so very happy to have them around.'
Her life is, Bonham Carter says, just before she hands me back my tape recorder, pretty much exactly as she always wanted it to be. Does she feel fortunate that things have fallen into place for her? 'Oh yes,' she says. 'I feel very lucky.' Before Burton, Bonham Carter had a few long-term relationships (most notably with Hamlet co-star Kenneth Branagh) but they broke down before marriage and children. Was she getting anxious that she wasn't going to become a mother? 'When I was 35, I definitely had that feeling of, Oh my God, I'm never going to meet someone.'
Now that she is a mother, what does Bonham Carter wish for her children? 'Obviously to give them a great sense of security. Tell them that whatever they do is wonderful!' Bonham Carter peals with laughter. 'Because it is, it is. You're so enchanted by them. Before you're a mother you'll never know how much in love you'll be.'
As we prepare to leave, I ask Bonham Carter if Burton was equally as excited to become a parent. 'Totally. He's very childlike anyway. He's never let go of his inner child. Or his outer child!' How about her? Bonham Carter shifts in her chair: 'It does make you grow up, doesn't it?' she says. 'But it makes you grow down, too. It brings back the child in you.'
In a way, it seems, it takes Bonham Carter back to her own childhood, and what first attracted her to acting: 'It's taken way too seriously - it's all just dress-up and make-believe.' Does she think there should always be an element of play in acting? 'Oh yes. That and transforming. You know - getting away as far away from yourself as possible.' But why would she need to get 'far away' from herself? 'Because,' smiles Bonham Carter, 'that's what makes me feel liberated.'
· Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is out on 25 January
Mrs. Lovett's All Natural Ingredients
January 5, 2008
As goes a favorite Christmas week tradition at our house, I was in charge of picking the movies we’d traipse off to the mall to see while everyone else was doing frantic last-minute shopping. “Sweeney Todd is first on the list,” I told my husband. Who could blame him for raising an eyebrow? Tim Burton’s adaptation of the bloodiest musical in the history of American theater is unquestionably an odd choice in a season synonymous with sugarplums, mistletoe and joyous conviviality.
The easy answer, of course, is that - despite being several decades older than the targeted demographic – I’ve become a full fledged Deppster. (Why else would I have a life-size cutout of Captain Jack Sparrow in my home office?) When I first heard that he’d been signed to play the villainous Demon Barber of Fleet Street, however, I had my doubts. Having enjoyed the privilege of seeing Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury in the Broadway version, it was a stretch to picture my favorite rum-soaked pirate maniacally slashing his way into a Dickensian urban legend. That and the fact that much was said about him not even being a singer.
A quirky musical of this ilk, though, places a higher premium on actors who can carry a passable tune as opposed to operatic personalities who don’t know the first thing about how to deliver lines of dialogue. When one adds to the mix the casting of Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman – neither of whom are known for their lyrical talents – some intriguing fare unfolds that turns out to be bloody entertaining.
For those unfamiliar with the premise of mayhem run amok in early 19th century London, the notion of a grief-stricken barber bent on revenge first appeared in a penny dreadful under the title The String of Pearls: A Romance. Its author, Thomas Peckett Prest, had a fondness for spinning snippets of various gruesome crimes reported in the newspaper and padding the plots out with macabre details of his own. While historians dismiss the existence of a real life persona named Sweeney Todd, there’s no question but that the urban squalor, corruption, poverty and vocational bleakness of the era prompted many a desperate soul to take matters into his or her own hands. Couple this with the perceived expendability of the human soul and you have a table that is well set for the likes of the barber and his enterprising landlady to slice and dice their way to fortune and popularity.
When the movie opens, Benjamin Barker (soon to be known as Sweeney Todd) is returning to the city of his ruination with only one goal on his mind – to kill the judge who sent him to prison on a phony charge, raped his wife, and abducted his baby girl, Johanna. Fifteen years as a convict in Australia has not imbued Barker with a congenial attitude toward his fellow man. Yet even his glowering demeanor is not enough to scare off his fellow shipmate and rescuer, Anthony Hope. As his last name implies, Anthony is optimistic that they can become fast friends. In a perfect world, Anthony would even welcome him as a father-in-law, for the first young woman he manages to lay eyes on as he wanders the city is none other than Sweeney’s daughter, the evil Judge Turpin’s hostage ward.
Romance might also be in the cards for Sweeney, though he is loathe to play the hand that his slatternly but wistfully sincere landlady, Mrs. Lovett, is eager to offer him. Here’s a woman who probably coveted her upstairs neighbor even when he was happily married. That he’s now a brooding widower looking for a place to hang out a shingle is a tasty invitation she can’t refuse. Patience is on her side, she rationalizes, artfully omitting the one pesky little detail that would change the entire equation; specifically, Mrs. Barker didn’t exactly die when she drank poison.
Moviegoers who might shy away from a flick that’s all about slitting throats of unwitting victims can take heart in the almost cartoonish nature of the blood spurts. The here-we-go-again nature of death-by-razor holds few surprises after the first one (Sacha Baron Cohen as Todd’s evil rival) and the humorous underscore of some of the songs tempers the much-touted gore level. Cinematically, it’s quintessential Burton genius that the only splashes of bright color against an otherwise black and grey backdrop are (10 whenever Sweeney dispatches another victim and (2) when we’re witnessing Sweeney’s happier past or Mrs. Lovett’s loopy expectations of a copasetic future by the sea with her dispassionate partner in crime.
The script faithfully follows the stage version to the letter, and the songs themselves are well executed by Depp and Bonham Carter. Depp’s dark eyes speak volumes of Sweeney’s tortured psyche and violent fervor to exact justice in an unjust world. This is a character who doesn’t live his life in half-steps and the feline agility with which Depp moves from one scene to the next conveys the dangerous energy and lethal power that lies coiled just beneath the surface. An unabashed whimsicality ensues when he and Bonham Carter observe the outside world’s pedestrian foot traffic as clueless sandwich boards for potential entrees.
Bonham Carter – quite a departure from the matronly Mrs. Lovett portrayed by Lansbury – is both seductive and sleazy at the same time. She is, by every definition, a survivor in bitterly hard times. Her disenchantment about being the owner of the worst meat pie shop in London, however, hasn’t jaded her into thinking that life and true love have passed her by. One can’t help but believe that a good scrubbing and a better wardrobe would make her turn heads on any English street. What’s most intriguing about her, however, is that her innate confidence belies her exterior trappings and is what compels her to easily envision a marriage to Sweeney and motherhood to her adoring young apprentice, Tobias. When her shop suddenly becomes the equivalent of a trendy bistro (owing to its new secret ingredients), she and Sweeney are elevated to anti-heroes, cultish protagonists who almost seem good in comparison to Sweeney’s arch enemy, Turpin, and his slimy henchman, Beadle Bamford.
As villains go, it’s hard to beat the likes of Rickman. Even when he goes into “high thug” mode, he delivers his threats with such wonderful diction and smarmy charisma that one can’t help but smile. When questioned whether he believes a young felon is deserving of death by hanging, Turpin shrugs it off with the comment that the lad is obviously guilty of something. When his pretty ward rejects him and announces that she’s going to run off with the besotted Anthony, his reaction is to pack her off to the nearest asylum until she learns to appreciate him. To cross a man of Turpin’s character is not advised. Nor is it advised to seek a shave from a certain barber with a vendetta.
At the end of the day, how thin is the line between Turpin’s casual indifference to the law and Sweeney’s resolve to make all men pay for the heinous crime of one of them? The film advances the supposition that a bit of Sweeney and Turpin exists in us all; it is the external factors and temptations that determine whether we will ultimately find redemption in the end. In the final frames, a remorseful and anguished Sweeney offers his own neck up to justice but, in doing so, provides the devil with yet another soul.
It’s a juicy film that clicks on all levels and one that is not soon forgotten.
It has been rumored by multiple sources that HBC's new daughter's name is Indiana Rose Burton I wonder if the Rose has any relation to Johnny Depp's Daughter Lily-Rose? Anyways, I like it, it's very pretty.
Johnny Depp received his third Academy Award nomination for best actor for his role as the title character in Tim Burton’s gothic musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” though no nods went to the film, its director or co-star Helena Bonham-Carter.
Forecasts that this season’s race to Oscar nominations has been one of the most unpredictable in recent years proved true on Tuesday with several notable films left out of the run for 2007’s best movie, including musical “Sweeney Todd.” That film, based on the stage play of the same name, had been picked as one of this year’s favorites last fall, but in recent weeks Oscar watchers had seen it fall off the pace. But the film’s star, “Johnny Depp” did earn a nomination for best actor.
Read the rest at the Link!
Actress Helena Bonham Carter thinks her Sweeney Todd co-star Johnny Depp has an “incredibly sexy” singing voice.
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