JohnnyDepp-Zone.com

Congratulations to Colleen Atwood and Penny Rose; both artists were honored by their peers with nominations for the Costume Designers Guild Awards this year. The guild recognizes three categories of costume design: contemporary film, period film, and fantasy film. Colleen Atwood is nominated in the “period film” category for her costumes for SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET. The other nominees in the category are Jacqueline Durran for ATONEMENT, Alexandra Byrne for ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE, the late Marit Allen for LA VIE EN ROSE, and Arianne Phillips for 3:10 TO YUMA.

Penny Rose is nominated in the “fantasy film” category for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END; other nominees in the category include Mona May for ENCHANTED, Ruth Myers for THE GOLDEN COMPASS, Jany Temime for HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, and Michael Wilkinson for 300.

Winners will be announced at the Costume Designers Guild Awards ceremony on February 19, 2008 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

The Zone thanks Johnny Fanatic for posting the news; you can read a full list of nominees here: http://tinyurl.com/2yuqcc –Part-Time Poet

The January 19th issue of RADIO TIMES features Johnny Depp on the cover and Andrew Duncan’s interview with Johnny Depp and Tim Burton inside. Duncan sees Johnny and Tim as “an odd couple, shackled by luck, integrity, and similar dysfunctional upbringings [. . .] . They echo each other’s vulnerabilities and both remain popular without compromising their subversive and eclectic enthusiasms,” he writes. Duncan doesn’t have much to say about SWEENEY TODD–he writes like a man who has yet to see the film–but he does elicit some fresh comments on non-SWEENEY subjects. For example, Duncan draws Tim Burton into a discussion of fatherhood:

“Johnny had children before us and it was interesting to see the subtle changes in him,” says Burton of his son Billy’s godfather. “It’s not as if he turned into ‘father knows best,’ but I could see the joy it brings to a person. It makes you more sensitive. I’ve often read that artists spend their life trying to get back to the simplicity of childhood. You see the world fresh again through your children’s eyes, and it’s quite beautiful.”

With Johnny Depp, Duncan focuses on music, suggesting that since Johnny’s “first love was guitar playing . . . he’s really a failed musician.” Johnny agrees with that diagnosis. “And I might be a failed actor, too,” Johnny adds. “Who knows? I’m still a musician. The joy of falling in love with a musical instrument is that it will never go away and you won’t stop playing.” As a musician, is he happy with his singing in SWEENEY TODD? Replies Johnny, “I’m happy it’s done.”

The Zone thanks Gilbert’s Girl and In-too-Depp for sharing the news with us; you can read more of Andrew Duncan’s interview on the News & Views forum. –Part-Time Poet

The January 15th issue of TIME OUT LONDON pays tribute to SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET with a diverting audiowalk that “takes you inside Sweeney’s London featuring music, audio clips and interviews from Tim Burton’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s award-wining musical.” They locate Mr. Todd’s shop at 186 Fleet Street, next to St. Dunstan’s Church. To download the audiowalk, visit their website here: http://www.timeout.com/london/ Also featured in the January 15th issue is Trevor Johnston’s interview with SWEENEY TODD director Tim Burton, pictured at left with Johnny Depp at the Paris premiere of the film. Here are a few excerpts from that interview:

Time Out: It’s a seriously grim, blood-soaked story: presumably the challenge was for it not to turn silly when the characters start singing?

Tim Burton: Most musicals are camp by their very nature but the difference here was the melodrama of it, that sense of really extreme obsessive behaviour which made it feel to me much more like a silent movie with music. The material has a strong horror-movie vein to it. Johnny Depp and I were always talking in terms of old horror-movie actors like Lon Chaney and Peter Lorre. But then you get on set and you have to fit that in with a show which is about the belting-to-the-gallery type of Broadway singing. I think in the end it actually helped that we had non-professional singers. Johnny really made it his own; he keeps that extreme emotional element and still sounds like him.

Time Out: Although there are cuts, Sondheim’s well served here, since you can hear all the words for a change . . . .

Tim Burton: And you can see the actors’ eyes, which was the most important thing for me. When you look at Peter Lorre, for instance, it’s all in the eyes, and Johnny’s the same here. He looks at the camera and you see pain and anguish and anger all at once.

The Zone thanks Emma for breaking the TIME OUT story and posting the interview; you can read it in its entirety on the Porch message board or here: http://tinyurl.com/ypvcpl Thanks also to Bonnie and AnaMaria for the photo of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp from the Paris premiere; you can see a larger version here: http://tinyurl.com/ysckmw –Part-Time Poet