From Tom Hanks to Michael Jackson: the actors almost cast as Edward Scissorhands
It was a role tailor-made for Johnny Depp, and Tim Burton was of a similar belief from the very beginning, but the road to casting him in Edward Scissorhands was a long, winding, and often arduous one.
Even though he’d appeared in Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, Oliver Stone’s Platoon, and smash hit small screen sensation 21 Jump Street, Depp was still something of an unknown and unproven quality as it applied to cinema, which made the studio reluctant to hire him.
In the end, Edward Scissorhands wouldn’t only kick off his long and famous creative partnership with Burton, but it would land him the first major awards season recognition of his career when he was nominated for ‘Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy’ at the Golden Globes for what was only his fifth theatrically-released credit of any kind.
To get to that point, though, 20th Century Fox threw a number of established stars in the filmmaker’s direction, but none of them were deemed suitable for the part. Burton was strongarmed into meeting Tom Cruise for the title character, but in addition to requesting a happier ending to the story, the actor couldn’t wrap his head around the suspension of disbelief.
As writer Caroline Thompson explained to Insider, Cruise “asked how Edward went to the bathroom” when he sat down with Burton, which outlined how he was all wrong for the part. “If you start asking those questions, the whole thing falls apart,” she suggested. “You can’t ask questions like that. If you ask questions like that, you’re fucked. You’ve missed the metaphor. You’ve missed the point.”
Gary Oldman was sent the script, branded it “ridiculous,” and didn’t get it at all, while Thompson recalls being at “a party somewhere where Robert Downey was feted as Edward.” Tom Hanks turned it down in favour of The Bonfire of the Vanities, William Hurt was another name floated, as was rubber-faced comedian Jim Carrey, with the screenwriter admitting “John Cusack was the actor I proposed.”
Even Michael Jackson had his eyes on it, and while he’d have been a perfect fit for a pale-faced weirdo on paper, the interest was strictly one-sided. “I imagine he pursued Tim,” Thompson said. “Tim didn’t pursue him.” Eventually, Depp – who was always a front-runner in Burton’s head despite the director having never seen 21 Jump Street – got the nod in what turned out to be the pitch-perfect casting.
It’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing Edward, and while several of the potential contenders may well have made a decent fist of it, it wouldn’t have been the same. Depp is Edward, Edward is Depp, and Burton reaped the rewards of their budding creativity for decades to come.
