JohnnyDepp-Zone.com

In an interview with Geoff Boucher published in the Los Angeles Times, Tim Burton describes his vision for his new 3-D film version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “The story is obviously a classic with iconic images and ideas and thoughts. But with all the movie versions, well, I’ve just never seen one that really had any impact to me. It’s always just a series of weird events. Every character is strange and she’s just kind of wandering through all of the encounters as just a sort of observer,” Burton explains. “The goal is to try to make it an engaging movie where you get some of the psychology and kind of bring a freshness but also keep the classic nature of Alice. And, you know, getting to do it in 3-D fits the material quite well. So I’m excited about making it a new version but also have the elements that people expect when they think of the material.”

Writing that Johnny Depp “is an inspired choice to play the Mad Hatter,” Boucher asks Burton if it was easy “to persuade Depp to conjure up yet another enigmatic oddball.” (Notice that it is the reporter, and not Tim Burton himself, who uses the word “oddball”–this has been widely misquoted in the media.) Burton replies, “He [Johnny] loves doing that. That’s never a problem. He doesn’t like to be the same way twice. That’s good, it always keeps it fresh and all. And he likes the material we have here and he gets it. It’s nice to have people involved that are fans of the material.”

Boucher also suggests that Johnny Depp–who will also soon play “an Old West hero, a pirate and a vampire”–“approaches his acting choices the same way a gleeful kid rummages through a trunk of dress-up clothes.” A laughing Burton responds, “It’s true. Yeah we have a big dress-up clothes trunk here. We take it with us wherever we go.”

The Zone thanks Theresa for sharing the Tim Burton interview; you can read it on the Porch forum. –Part-Time Poet