Tim Burton is waving, not drowning. The genius behind Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride and the Netflix hit Wednesday has an unusual approach to speaking to the press. He accentuates his remarks with extravagant, octopus-like rotations of his very long arms. He’s also polite, friendly, and as eccentric as one might hope. The director is talking to me by Zoom from what appears to be a small, dark room in his London home. He cuts a reassuringly gothic figure. He is dressed in black, his hair sticks upward (“A comb with legs would have outrun Jesse Owens, given one look at this guy’s locks,” Johnny Depp remarked after first meeting him), and he could still pass for an extra on a Universal horror film from the Thirties.
He has just had to down tools on his new movie, Beetlejuice 2, because of the Hollywood actors’ strike – a frustration given that he was less than two days away from completing shooting on the long-awaited film (which brings back Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder from the 1988 classic horror comedy).
