March 15, 2025
Johnny Depp remembers the earlier media attention he received as a young actor.
The award-winning actor, 61, appeared in the second episode of a four-part untitled documentary series about the director, 66, where Depp got candid about the discomfort he felt with his celebrity status that he earned earlier on in his career.
The conversation shifted to the matter as archival footage of Burton played, showing the director describe Depp as "very much not" the sex symbol he was portrayed as in the media.
"I was completely freaked out by [fame]," Depp recalled in the documentary. "Paparazzi would take pictures of me. People would whisper and point their finger and stuff. I felt like sort of this raw nerve on display."
Depp also looked back at the first time he met the Edward Scissorhands director to discuss the movie.
"What I noticed the first time we met was he wasn't saying very many words," Depp said. "[Burton] would begin a sentence and I would go 'Oh yeah,' and then we would talk about Boris Karloff or something. We related on a lot of levels."
"After about three-and-a-half hours of a really great yak with the guy, I still thought, 'No chance, man. No chance,'" Depp recalled of vying for the Edward Scissorhands role.
After the movie's success, the pair went on to collaborate on several other hits like 1994's Ed Wood, 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and 2007's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street among others.