Johnny Depp and Tim Burton talk about working together

ACCORDING to Tim Burton, there once was a time when he would have to convince studios to let him cast Johnny Depp as the star of a musical.

‘‘We're now at the point where they'll give him the lead role in a musical and they don't even know if he can sing,'' Burton says.

‘‘Nothing gets more surreal than that. It's fantastic.''

It's no surprise Burton uses Depp's stardom as yet another punchline.

Their byplay is never-ending.

The two have been trading off each other, both professionally and privately, for years now and it's been nothing but a joy for both.

Depp plays the title character, Sweeney Todd, in Burton's film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's hit Broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Despite the challenge of bringing a musical to the screen, neither saw any reason to lighten the mood or tone down the bizarre humour.

‘‘I think Tim only asked me to sing so he could get a good laugh,'' Depp says.

‘‘I was so scared that all it was going to be was me going up there to sing and him just losing it. Him just cackling.''

‘‘I nearly lost it,'' Burton says to Depp, ‘‘when you weren't singing, when you were pretending to be normal. There was one flashback where he was supposed to be a normal guy and I couldn't even be on the set.''

It was a scene in which Depp is pre-Sweeney Todd, simply a happily married barber with a new baby, all before his life is destroyed.

‘‘He just cracked,'' Depp says.

‘‘I had to leave the set. I couldn't even watch it,'' Burton says.

‘‘He was crying,'' Depp continues.

‘‘I almost had a heart attack. Because we did that near the end, after we'd been through everything else.

‘‘With that weird little yamaka wig. So you know,'' -- Burton is still laughing -- ‘‘it was very strange.''

This latest project has taken Depp and Burton's relationship into an uncharted phase -- the stage musical brought to screen.

Based on Sondheim's brilliant play, it's a huge gamble for any number of reasons.

Neither Depp nor any of his co-stars -- Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Sacha Baren Cohen and Timothy Spall -- are classically trained singers.

Also, Sondheim's scores are notoriously difficult, yet Depp reveals a remarkable voice and receives fine support from his co-stars.

Whether a real Sweeney Todd actually existed in 19th-century London is still debated, but he has long been the stuff of legend, the story mushrooming after Sondheim gave it the musical treatment in the 1970s.

Though the legend had Sweeney Todd slitting the throats of those he shaved, Sondheim introduced the evil judge who sent Todd to Australia because he secretly coveted the barber's wife, which has become the fully finished version.

The mayhem then ensues when Todd returns, with a healthy helping of blood on his mind.

‘‘It's a story about revenge and how revenge eats itself up,'' Sondheim says.

Depp, typically, leaves all other versions of Todd dead in the water.

‘‘I thought it might be a good opportunity to find a new Sweeney, a different Sweeney. Almost like in a punk rock, contemporary way,'' he says.

The success of the movie is the innate relationship between Depp and Burton, partners in a crime spree that began with Edward Scissorhands and has trekked through Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

IT'S a friendship that clicked the moment the pair met in a Los Angeles coffee shop in the late 1980s, where they discovered a shared liking for the absurd.

‘‘This kind of fascination with understanding the absurdity of what was perfectly acceptable in the 1970s . . . for example macrame owls and resin grapes,'' Depp says.

‘‘Fake fruit. No one thought twice about that.''

Such is their trust that Burton has only to call to get Depp for a role.

‘‘Anything he asks me to do, I jump at the opportunity,'' Depp says.

‘‘Except a ballet,'' Burton says.

‘‘No, I actually would. I would try,'' Depp argues.

Depp is asked if he will sing again in the future.

‘‘Never again,'' he says.

‘‘He'll be on the West End, tomorrow evening,'' Burton says, once again laughing hysterically.

‘‘I'll never do it again, not for anyone,'' Depp says, starts to laugh himself now.

‘‘You're going to get all these musicals,'' Burton says.

‘‘Not for anyone,'' Depp says, the Burton laugh track starting to get to him. ‘‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat,'' he says, in fits himself by now.

Then Burton breaks into song: ‘‘Jesus Christ, superstar . . .''

Depp: ‘‘Oh boy.''

*heraldsun*