Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton once again join forces in order to bring to life the adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s award-winning musical thriller “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”.

Depp stars as an innocent man, unjustly sent to prison, who vows revenge, not only for the cruel punishment he was forced to undergo, but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to reopen his barber shop, Todd becomes the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who “shaves the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard of again.”

But it’s not only the gorgeous Johnny Depp that stars in this fantastic movie: Helena Bonham Carter stars as Mrs. Lovett, Todd’s passionate accomplice who creates diabolical meat pies; Alan Rickman portrays the evil Judge Turpin, who sends Todd to prison; Timothy Spall is Turpin’s wicked associate Beadle Bamford; and don’t forget Sacha Baron Cohen as the rival barber, Signor Adolfo Pirelli.

The funny thing is, is that Depp is scared by the sight of his own blood. The Hollywood star admits to being scared of cutting himself and wary of visiting the doctors because being “prodded and poked” makes him squeamish. At the premiere of Sweeney Todd, Depp said: “There’s a lot of blood-letting in the firm but I like to keep mine inside me thank you very much. I’m not very good with the sight of my own blood.”

Despite using gallons of fake blood during filming, director Tim Burton also admitted to sharing Depp’s fear of bleeding. “I always look away when I draw blood at the doctor’s office. The blood we use is very theatrical. That’s one of the reasons it still feels like a play to me. The realistic edge is off.”

In New York, Burton and Depp sat down to talk about Sweeney Todd with interviewers from moviesonline.com. If only I was old enough to check him out for ourselves ;-)...

Mr Depp Why did you want to do this?
Depp: I was familiar to some degree with the earlier versions of this, this stuff that you know I’d seen the, the video of um Angela Lansbury quite extensively. And I’d seen the more recent production of it and then just thought it might be, you know certainly a great opportunity to, to try to find a, a new Sweeney, a different Sweeney. Just like a little contemporary in the sense of like also the punk rock Sweeney you know.

We already heard that you created a kind of situation of suspense because nobody knew if you can really sing it so and you came round to do late with it. So was it also fun for you to, to let them wait a little bit? How would you describe the process?
Depp: Yeah. I was I think probably more frightened than anyone, [CHUCKLES] except maybe Tim. He really trusted me with it you know and I was very lucky that he allowed me to … cos I didn’t have a process really you know in terms of the singing. I’ve never sang before in my life, so I had to kinda find my way to it. And thought it was important that I, you know, keep it very, very low key and, and so yeah I initially did these demos in my friend’s garage studio cos I didn’t know if I would be able to hit a note. I wanted to make sure I could do it for Tim.

We talked to Helena earlier and she was joking and saying how you made her audition for the role and that you didn’t talk about it for the five weeks and during that period you were auditioning other women for the role. Um can you just talk about that process? [CHUCKLES]
Burton: Sounds very sleazy the way you put it. Yeah well I mean you know it was, I thought it was important that er cos I’d never done anything like this before myself so, er and it’s quite a difficult musical to do. And you know like in the stage thing that was a, you know that was a ha… it’s a hard role, the roles are hard, and I just didn’t want it to seem like I was just giving the job to my girlfriend or anything. So, er I really was probably harder on that for that reason, and I just wanted to make sure that er it was basically she was really, really right for her, which she is, which she was and is. So it just was, yeah I probably was a bit harder on her than, than others, for the reason on just wanting to really make sure it was right.

You know the scene when Sweeney Todd is re-united with his razor in his shop for the first time. That scene reminded us of some part of the Edward Scissorhands. Instead of Scissorhands maybe Razorhand it’s like. But that scene, you know the silhouette or the look or the posture or the face, facial expression, did it have any connection with that movie Edward Scissorhands? Was that any inspiration or?
Burton: Yeah I mean I think for me it’s only the fact that we did that movie and we did this movie. I mean you know we’re not lost on the, sharp instrument angle. But you know the thing about this character which I love that’s different from that is that you know we did that a long time ago and we’re probably much more… I certainly was much more optimistic in, you know, which that character sort of represented and now the Sweeney character is a much more interiorised darker character, which I love.

To see Johnny do both of those things is really amazing for me to see because you know I think this character for me is one of my favourite characters he’s done just because I love the interior brooding quality of the character. And then you put that with him singing and it just created to me a really amazing new thing to me.
Given that the movie is very violent and is a musical do you see this as a challenge at the box office? Is that something that occupies your mind, you know making your money back?
Burton: Well you know it’s always a risk. I remember when I first saw the show in London back when I was still a student. I didn’t know anything about the music and I remember seeing the show and these two ladies, these very proper, British ladies were sitting in front of me and they were kind of chatting throughout the show…
…and then when Joanna came up and the blood started spurting across the stage they both stopped and paused for a minute and, one leaned over and said "Was that really necessary?”
Burton: But in fact it was necessary and I’ve seen other productions of it where you know they’ve tried to be a bit more politically correct and skimp on it and it really lost something, because I mean the show is based in those old, grand cinemas, horror theatre melodramas, where you know they had buckets pouring out over the stage.
So, it just felt like that was true to the spirit of what the show is, it was and is over-the-top It’s more of an emotional release than it is a reality thing in this movie. So the studio they were cool about it, they accepted it, they knew it because they knew what the show was so there wasn’t you know. But you know anything, any movie is a risk, but it’s nice to be able to do something like that where you know it doesn’t fit into either musical or slasher movie category; kind of its own category.

What does having Johnny do for you as a Director that maybe you can’t do with other actors?
Burton: Well I mean he just tries anything. I mean the fact is that he’s not a, a singer, you know he’s musical and that he would try like one of the hardest musicals ever to do. You know that just says it all. You know he’s just willing to go out there and believe me, something I learned is singing especially if you’re not a singer is it’s a very exposing process. Anybody that can do that can basically do anything you know and, for me it’s just an artistic pleasure to see somebody try different things and, and actually achieve it and achieve it beyond your expectations so.
The other thing is he’s great because I love that he isn’t like looking at himself, which is great for me. You know I mean, you don’t have to spend you know, after a take "I’m gonna go look you know and see. Oh that’s not a good” you know. He’s just completely open to like, "Okay. Whatever” you know and "I don’t really care to look at myself or wanna look at myself,” you know. He just does a great job and believe me that’s a huge issue for me to not have that kinda, you know, certain kind of vanity of like looking at yourself and you know stopping. It kinda keeps the process going, keeps it vital and that means a lot to me and I think the crew and everybody else. They get into the spirit of just doing it you know not sitting around and you know analysing everything.

By Rohin Thind and Gurpreet Sihat