Lily-Rose Depp has said she was traumatised from watching her father, Johnny Depp, star in Tim Burton’s gothic fantasy film Edward Scissorhands when she was a child.
The 25-year-old actor and model, who is the daughter of actors Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, has been reflecting on her father’s work in fantasy films as she has her own turn in the horror genre, starring in Robert Eggers’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, titled Nosferatu.
Lily-Rose stars as Ellen Hutter, a hysteric target of Bill Skarsgård’s vampire Count Orlok in the forthcoming film, which has been dubbed by The Independent as the “one of the most profoundly frightening horror films in years”.
Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar for its February issue, Lily-Rose said that she and her father share an interest the supernatural genre, but her early introduction to it was not pleasant.
Lily-Rose said she was “traumatised” aged three when she saw her father play the titular character in Edward Scissorhands, who is a synthetic man with scissors for hands who is accused of a crime he did not commit.
“I was traumatised by it,” she told the magazine. “Not because I thought he was scary, but because everyone was being so mean to him and I got really upset.”
The actor previously starred in HBO’s The Idol portraying an up-and-coming music star who falls in with a charismatic cult leader (played by pop singer Abel Tesfaye/The Weeknd). The series was torn apart by critics , with many singling out the show’s writing and Tesfaye’s performance. It was subsequently cancelled by HBO after one season.
Depp made her acting debut in 2014, with a minor role in the horror comedy film Tusk, but Nosferatu will mark her first time starring in a full-blown horror blockbuster.
Speaking about her experience filming the Dracula movie, she said it was “intimidating, daunting and an incredible privilege” to be on the set, alongside co-stars Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin and Willem Dafoe.
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Discussing the film, she said: “It’s not just scary, it’s gross, it’s revolting. It’s palpably effective. It’s the most technical set I’ve ever been on. It was almost like going to film school.”
The actor added that she is drawn to darker, meatier roles going forward.
“I’m interested in the darker underbelly of things,” she told the magazine. “As an actor, you hope that your role will be as meaty as can be, so you have as much to dive into as possible. The most exciting thing is getting to explore parts of myself. You get to hide behind all these beautiful artifices, the costumes, the story, but the place I’m drawing from is deeply personal.”
The February issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK is on sale from 3 January.
