“Tim Burton’s 3D promotional trailer for Walt Disney Pictures’ Alice in Wonderland has been the talk of Comic-Con,” says Reuters, “thanks in part to the surprise cameo appearance of Johnny Depp at a panel on Thursday.” Reuters interviewed Tim Burton about his work on Alice and his long-time collaboration with Johnny Depp. Here’s a bit of that exchange:

Q: Can you explain your vision for Alice in Wonderland?

Tim Burton: No, because I still have a lot to do. (laughs)

Q: What did you take from Lewis Carroll’s source material?

Tim Burton: It’s based on all of Lewis Carroll’s material, including the “Jabberwocky Poem.” Past Alice films were always just a girl wandering around passively with a lot of weird characters. We tried to weave it into a story that has emotion to it and makes sense.

Q: What does Johnny Depp bring to the Mad Hatter?

Tim Burton: He likes dressing up. I think with the Alice in Wonderland characters, they’ve often been portrayed as just crazy without much subtext, and I think he tried to bring something, an underlying human quality to the craziness. He tried to understand it a bit more . [. . .] We try to give each character their own particular craziness. And he’s good at sort of exploring that, I guess because he’s crazy. I don’t know.

Q: What is your relationship like with Depp?

Tim Burton: We seem to get along well and I’ve worked with him many times. It’s always exciting to see what he brings to something. And it’s fun to work with him because it’s like it’s always something different and new and it’s just fun to see. That always is exciting to me.

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the story. You can read the Reuters interview on the News & Views forum in the “All Things Alice” thread, or CLICK HERE. –Part-Time Poet