In the early ’90s, the ‘Top Gun’ star met Tim Burton for the role of ‘Edward Scissorhands,’ but the interview didn’t go as planned.
In 1990, the fantastic tale Edward Scissorhands, still today considered one of its director’s best films, marked the meeting between Tim Burton and his favorite actor: Johnny Depp.
However, this very first collaboration between the two men (which also extended through 7 other feature films) could not have taken place. Indeed, Depp, then at the very beginning of his career, was far from being the only candidate considered to embody the young hero endowed with scissors instead of hands.
Although Burton had set his sights on him from the start, other names – such as those of Tom Hanks or Robert Downey Jr. – had also been circulating. As for the directors of the studio, they had asked the filmmaker to meet a certain Tom Cruise, already known for Top Gun and Rain Man (among other successes).
But as screenwriter Caroline Thompson told Dazed in December 2015, Tom Cruise was not very cooperative and very convinced during their interview:
“[Il] wanted to know how Edward was going to the bathroom. He was asking the kind of questions that can’t be asked for a character like him.”she said.
Paramount Pictures
“Part of the delicacy of the story was that it didn’t answer questions like, ‘How does he go to the bathroom? How has he survived without eating all these years?’ Tom Cruise was reluctant to participate in the film without having the answer to these questions.”
Cruise having also requested that the end of the film (too melancholic and dramatic for his taste, according to Screenrant) be modified, Tim Burton therefore decided to stay on his first choice and hire Johnny Depp.
(Re)discover the hidden details of “Edward Scissorhands”…