I recently revisited Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, and came away completely understanding why it remains one of the best movies of the ‘90. The gothic fairy tale helped define the auteur director’s movie career while also further launching Johnny Depp into superstardom. In a recent interview, Oscar winner Gary Oldman addressed the fact that he was on Burton’s short list for the dialogue-lite role, but that he'd turned it down because he simply “didn’t get” the script.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Oldman admitted that he was given the script in the late ’80s, before Tim Burton was fully established as a tonal visionary. Even if Beetlejuice and Batman were both already out at the time, those distinct stories still wouldn't have provided Oldman a blueprint to understanding Edward Scissorhands on the page. As he tells it:
