'Edward Scissorhands': Here's how Tom Cruise lost the role

Johnny Depp shared how he got his role Edward ScissorhandsWhile Tom Cruise was competing for filming with director Tim Burton.

The 61-year-old actor, who played the lead role in the 1990 film, revealed that he was not the first choice for the role. Tom Cruise “was about to play Edward Scissorhands – true story,” he said in a new Tim Burton documentary.

In this documentary, the film's famous screenwriter, Carolyn Thompson, tells how Tom Cruise missed his chance to play the role after he met Tim Burton and asked him a question.

“During her interview with Tim, he asked him how Edward went to the bathroom,” she says. If you start asking these kind of questions, everything will fall apart. You can't ask that kind of question. If you ask this kind of question, you are wrong. You've missed the metaphor, you've missed the point. »

On the other hand, when Johnny Depp saw the script, the actor immediately felt the power of the role. “It penetrated everything, everything, everything solid and got to the core of who I was,” he said. The writing was wonderful. The character was great. What I suppose attracted me emotionally was that Edward was me. This is exactly what I should do. »

However, Johnny Depp almost did not attend the first meeting with Tim Burton because he heard that Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and Michael Jackson were also chosen for the role. He admitted thinking, “He'll never cast me when everyone in Hollywood wants the role,” and asked his agent to cancel the meeting, to which she replied, “You're absolutely crazy?” »

“It was weird because there's always this bastard in your head that says, 'Come on, man. You're a TV actor.' “Because at that time, it was almost one or the other,” recalls the man who began introducing himself in the TV series 21 Jump Street.

Johnny Depp eventually got the role, and the film grossed $86 million at the box office.