The director Johnny Depp wanted to work with for the rest of his life, but never worked with again
There’s a cruel irony to be found in Johnny Depp outlining his desires to spend the rest of his days repeatedly collaborating with the same director following their first movie together, only to go the rest of his career without ever working with them again.
It’s even crueller when it came on a picture that was released right before Edward Scissorhands, which marked his first time partnering up with Tim Burton, a filmmaker who he actually would make a habit of reuniting with on a regular basis in the decades to come.
Does that mean it’s all Burton’s fault? That might be putting too fine a point on it, but it can’t be completely ruled out. After all, the first time Depp entered the orbit of his soon-to-be creative muse, Edward Scissorhands made him a movie star, earned him a Golden Globe nomination for ‘Best Actor – Musical or Comedy’, and opened the doors to a beautiful personal and professional relationship.
They’d become virtually synonymous with each other throughout Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland, and Dark Shadows, which inadvertently kicked the very auteur he wanted to assume that position originally to the fringes.
Something of a simplification that may be, but it’s interesting nonetheless. If it wasn’t for that pesky Burton, then perhaps Depp would have lived up to his word. Instead, it was a one-and-done teaming that quickly became forgotten when the actor continued his upward trajectory.
Beyond his eight films with Burton, Depp has made five pictures with Gore Verbinski, in addition to two apiece with Terry Gilliam, Rob Marshall, and Lasse Hallström. Clearly, if he gets on with a director, then he’s more than happy to return to them on a future project, which only makes his words ring all the more hollow.
The saddest part of it all – which continues to point the finger of blame at Burton in a roundabout way – is that John Waters’ Cry-Baby released in cinemas a mere eight months before Edward Scissorhands, with the ‘Pope of Trash’ quickly knocked down the pecking order in favour of Depp’s shinier and equally eccentric new toy.
“I had a hilarious time,” he said to Sky Magazine of the production. “I’ve already told John I want to be in all his films for the rest of my life.” How many movies has Waters directed since then? The answer is four, which admittedly isn’t many considering Cry-Baby came out in 1990. However, how many of them have featured Depp as part of the ensemble? The answer is a big fat resounding zero.
Waters was the ideal conduit for Depp to spread his wings following his miserable final years as a teen idol on cop show 21 Jump Street, with the actor admitting the majority of scripts being sent his way were the ones “where you pose and look good with a gun and go out and beat people up.”
In the cult icon he found somebody who wasn’t “your everyday filmmaker,” which is putting it lightly. “The movie makes fun of the sort of image people want to see,” he mused of Cry-Baby. “They always take a young actor and call him a rebel, bad body, and all those idiot terms. Cry-Baby really makes fun of that, and I was more than happy to make fun of myself.”
It should have been the beginning of a beautiful relationship, then, but it turned out to be a strictly one-time deal. Suppose a name of Depp’s magnitude was ready, willing, and able to sign on for every forthcoming Waters flick. Wouldn’t the offbeat auteur – who always tends to face issues trying to secure the requisite funding – welcome him with open arms when his name alone carried so much weight?
Hollywood is a place where talk is often cheap, but Depp was incredibly enthusiastic about becoming a Waters regular before going the next three decades without ever sharing a set with him again.
