VARIOUS: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, director Tim Burton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Moretz and Eva Green walk the purple carpet for the European premiere of 'Dark Shadows' in London

Record ID: 220822

  • Title: VARIOUS: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, director Tim Burton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Moretz and Eva Green walk the purple carpet for the European premiere of 'Dark Shadows' in London
  • Date: 11th May 2012
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) EVA GREEN, ON WORKING WITH DEPP, SAYING: "Johnny is very down-to-earth, very normal, has a great sense of humour. He's a gentleman. He makes you feel comfortable, that's very, very important."
  • Embargoed: 26th May 2012 13:00
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  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Reuters ID: LVA1GP1C97FWB9LONGVAZMRRLNJC
  • Story Text: Johnny Depp and co-star Eva Green have a technically-challenging love scene in new film "Dark Shadows", based on the U.S. television series, which includes being strapped together in harnesses and wires, of which Depp said was "surreal", at the European premiere of the movie in London on Wednesday (May 9).
    The full cast including Helena Bonham Carter, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Moretz, Jonny Lee Miller and newcomer Bella Heathcote were on hand to walk the purple carpet.
    "The love scene, let's call it, between myself and Eva was infinitely more surreal shooting it than it came out on the big screen because we were in harnesses and strapped together by harnesses and flying all over the place. It was pretty, pretty surreal," Depp told Reuters Television.
    Green, dressed in a blue velvet Tom Ford dress, who plays the heartbroken vixen Angelique Bouchard, had accolades for the film's star.
    "Johnny is very down-to-earth, very normal, has a great sense of humour. He's a gentleman. He makes you feel comfortable, that's very, very important," she said.
    Fans from afar as Argentina, Australia and Italy waited, some for up to 13 hours, to get a glimpse of the stars.
    The normally super-cool actor gushed about the original daytime TV soap opera of the same name that sets the theme and characters of the current silver screen version.
    The late Jonathan Frid, who played the original Barnabas Collins, Depp's character in the film, symbolically passed the baton on to the Hollywood A-lister, by sending him a hand-written note.
    "It meant everything to me because it was important to me to have his blessing to take on a role he made famous, not only he made famous but for which he was very, very, very well-known for. I was moved when he sent me the note." Depp said.
    Directed by Tim Burton, Depp plays Barnabas Collins, a rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy of the 18th century, until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard. A witch in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death-turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Nearly two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972, a stranger in an even stranger time. Returning to Collinwood Manor, he finds that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin, and the dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets.
    Burton had praise for 15-year-old rising star Chloe Moretz, who plays moody teenager Carolyn Stoddard. Moretz has six films in the works, including a remake of John Carpenter's "Carrie", based on the Stephen King novel.
    "It's very rare to meet somebody who's got such a strong sense of themselves and what they want to do and do interesting things and I love her. I so her in a couple of films, each one was different. She's a real, real special," he said.
    When asked whether he would use Moretz again in film, Burton said yes but wasn't holding his breath as "She might get too busy for me."
    This is the eighth collaboration with Depp, Burton and Bonham Carter, to which Burton originally scoffed at the idea.
    "Actually to be honest on this one, Tim came to me and said 'You know what? I think we need to take a break because it's maybe getting too boring and predictable for everybody. And you get to work with people like (director of "King's Speech") Tom Hooper and everything' and I said 'Fine, fine I won't take it personally'. And then after about three weeks, he came back and said 'Actually I've got this part and can't think of anybody to play'. And I thought he meant the sexy, witchy, vampy part which is Eva, and he said 'No I can't ask a witch to play a witch', apart from the fact that I'm about 15 years too old. 'No, no, no it's got to be Dr. Hoffman', I thought 'Dr. Hoffman, she's the alcoholic, psychiatrist'. And he said 'Yeah, you're perfect! (The one) Who's got aging problems!' and I said 'Thanks babe'," said Bonham Carter, who plays Dr. Julia Hoffman.
    Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays the family matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, returns to work with Burton again after 20 years. They worked together on "Batman", where Pfeiffer memorably played Catwoman.
    She said she had now crossed off Johnny Depp on her "bucket list" of actors to work with.
    The Oscar-nominated actress admitted that even after being in Hollywood for a long time she still got nervous but Depp made her feel relaxed.
    "He has a way of really putting people at ease, so for other actors that's really nice because you come into it a little bit nervous, you don't know how they're going to be. He's just really generous with you and everyone. And he's funny, he's funny," she said.
    Heathcote, who's next to star with "Sopranos" actor James Gandolfini in "Not Fade Away" had similar praise for Depp: "It was surreal but he was just a really fun guy and I suppose being in the position that he's in, he's really learned how to make people feel really comfortable around him."
    Depp stayed long after the rest of the cast went inside the cinema to sign autographs for fans, some of who were overcome with emotion.
    "Dark Shadows" opens in across Britain on Friday (May 11).
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