Gary Oldman has offered a short explanation for why he turned down the eponymous lead in Tim Burton’s cult classic Edward Scissorhands.
The 67-year-old Harry Potter star had been in consideration to play the unfinished human android — a part that would ultimately go on to make Johnny Depp a star.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Oldman reflected: “Well, that’s going back a few years. It would have been in the late ’80s. I was on Tim Burton’s list for the role of Edward Scissorhands. It was a small list.”
“My agent thought I had a really good chance of getting it. They said to me, ‘Read the script.’ They sent the script over, and I basically said, ‘I don’t get it.’”
To Burton’s credit, the British actor noted that at that point in time, the now-revered director hadn’t yet established himself as the visionary gothic filmmaker audiences know today.
“I read this quirky, strange little script, and I didn’t get it,” Oldman said. “The Avon lady and the kid with the scissor hands. It just didn’t register with me. I said to the agent, ‘I just don’t understand this. It’s not my cup of tea.’
“So I did not meet Tim Burton,” he said. “Then Scissorhands came out and I went to the cinema to watch it. With that opening shot — all those brightly colored houses, and then the camera pans up to the castle-like thing on the hill — within two minutes I went, ‘I get it!’”
Released in 1990, Edward Scissorhands starred Depp as an artificial human whose creator dies before he’s fully assembled, leaving him with scissors for hands. It also featured Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, and Alan Arkin.
Depp previously revealed that Tom Cruise nearly landed the role.
The critically acclaimed fantasy-romance marked Burton’s fourth feature film, and his first of many collaborations with Depp.
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The 62-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean actor, who in recent years has been working to rebuild his image after his infamous 2022 defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, has starred in a total of eight Burton films.
Following his breakout role in Edward Scissorhands, Depp went on to lead the director’s Ed Wood (1990), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Corpse Bride (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Alice in Wonderland (2010), and Dark Shadows (2012).
As to whether fans can expect to see Depp in another future project of his, Burton told Indiewire last December: “Well, I’m sure there will be.
“I never feel like, ‘Oh, I’m going to use this and that actor,’” the director explained. “It usually has to be based on the project I’m working on.”
