Tim’s crew

POSTED ON 20.10.2022

The cinema is also about loyalty: a closer look at those who have supported Tim Burton in the creation of a unique universe.

Johnny Depp

While looking for an actor to play Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton met with... Tom Cruise. Fortunately, it didn't work out! The next encounter was the right one: Johnny Depp, a survivor from the TV series ‘21 Jump Street’, with the face of an angel and a churning inner turmoil, had found his master. The two observed each other, shy and silent, and then began a rewarding, unstoppable collaboration, with eight films to date; Depp was even the voice of Victor Van Dort in ‘Corpse Bride’. Tim Burton had discovered his alter-ego and cultivated an irresistible naivety and profound strangeness from the actor’s performances. (The only exception to this endearing innocence was the demonic Sweeney Todd).

Dany Elfman

Without this red-headed musician, whom Burton unexpectedly sought out to compose the music for ‘Pee-wee’s Big Adventure’ while Elfman was the lead singer of the band Oingo Bongo, the filmmaker's pictures would not carry the same heady and poetic flavour. These soundtracks are composed of eccentric fanfares, deep brass, dreamlike female choruses and crystalline glockenspiel. Apart from a brief falling out - Howard Shore did the music for ‘Ed Wood’ - the collaboration has been continuous and fruitful; In ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’, Elfman even lent his singing voice to the main character of Jack Skellington.

Vincent Price

He was an undisputed king of horror movies with his trademark voice, notably thanks to Roger Corman's adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe. An idol admired by the young Tim Burton, Price had agreed to narrate the animated short ‘Vincent’ that the apprentice filmmaker shot when he arrived at Disney: the story of a gothic kid who longs to become a hero of nightmares. Later, Burton would cast Price as the inventor of Edward Scissorhands and begin a documentary in the form of a conversation, interrupted by the actor's death in 1993. There is much of the relationship between Burton and Price in the unbreakable friendship between Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi in the 1994 film.

Tim Burton, Vincent Price et Johnny Depp sur le tournage d'Edward aux mains d'argent, 1990 © DR

Rick Heinrichs

A man behind the scenes. They met at Disney, where Rick Heinrichs was one of the few to spot the talent of his young overwrought colleague. Above all, he knew how to take Burton's drawings and bring them to life in 3D, which was particularly striking for ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’, directed under Burton's supervision by Henry Selick, the third member of the Disney team at the time. Heinrichs went on to become the filmmaker’s resident art director, winning an Oscar for the set decoration of ‘Sleepy Hollow’, and worked on Burton’s more recent films, ‘Big Eyes’ and ‘Dumbo’. Making the filmmaker's vivid imagination tangible is his job and he does it well.

Michael Keaton

Tim Burton admits that he had never seen the actor before someone had suggested him for ‘Beetlejuice’. In any case, "Michael is crazy, he's a bundle of energy, and he's got really big eyes. I love people's eyes, and he's definitely got a pair... wild," said the future director of... ‘Big Eyes’. Keaton excelled in ‘Beetlejuice’, greatly improvising. Then, surprisingly, Burton offered Keaton the much more introspective role of Batman, which he played twice, portraying a character as if possessed by a double life that terrorised him. Tim Burton would call him back years later to play the megalomaniac entrepreneur in ‘Dumbo’, where Keaton gave a delightful performance.

Helena Bonham Carter

Tim Burton met the English actress on the set of ‘Planet of the Apes’, the beginning of a productive cinematic collaboration and a no less fulfilling life together, since they led to seven films and two children. Helena Bonham Carter had somewhat hidden an eccentricity behind her appearance as a distinguished heiress (she is the great-granddaughter of a British prime minister) that was fully expressed under the filmmaker's direction. Her performance in ‘Sweeney Todd’ as Mrs. Lovett, who cooks delicious meat pies from…  the victims of the vengeful barber, will not soon be forgotten.

Helena Bonham Carter ((Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, 2007) © DR

Aurélien Ferenczi