Tim Burton on whether had any fear of casting Johnny Depp without initially hearing him sing:

"I strangely didn’t. I had absolutely no idea if he could sing. He said, 'I thought I could do it.' I strangely had absolutely no fear of that whatsoever. I worry about a lot of things, but I strangely did not fear it at all. When I got beyond that I was - he exceeded my expectations. I was very lucky I didn’t go through any angst of that at all."

Johnny Depp on preparing for the role of Sweeney Todd:

"Like I told Tim, I didn’t know if I could sing. Likewise, I didn’t know it. I feel, because of my background in music, I could hit a note or two. I didn’t know if I could sustain a note or pull it off. I said to him, 'I think I can do it. Let me go off and try some stuff.' So I went off to a buddy’s studio, like a garage studio, and started to record the songs to see if I could get off the initial fear of that type of exposure. Did that and sent it to Tim and he felt we were going to be okay. Started to get more confident, and then the idea of me standing in front of a guy at a piano singing scales, it just seemed to me wrong. It doesn’t matter if you know how to sing, just sing. So, you know, that’s what I did. [Stephen] Sondheim was probably weeping."

Depp and Burton on whether they're into karaoke:

Depp: We actually have to come up with a karaoke. You might but - Karaoke, you know, I’ve always been frightened. It scares the hell out of me.

Burton: If you’re not a singer, it’s pretty scary unless you’re drunk or something.

Depp: And I’ve never been that drunk. I’ve been drunk but never that drunk.

Burton and Depp on whether Sweeney Todd is the darkest place they've gone:

Burton: Our final descent into darkness? But it’s funny, a little bit, isn’t it? When you’re going down the abyss of depression, it’s nice to have a sense of humor about it. This was one of my favorite characters that he’s done. We’ve talked a long time about old horror movie actors, Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, it felt like this was an opportunity to kind of--we watched The Return of Dr. X, the only horror film Humphrey Bogart ever made. It was quite exciting to see, and the idea of Johnny playing one of those characters was exciting. We never saw it as dark, it was more exhilarating and fun. And having music on the set was exhilarating.

Depp: It was challenging, too. There had been a lot of Sweenys over the years. Tim and I sat down talked about what this guy was going to look like. We knew that it was a pretty special opportunity, once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing; horror slash musical.

Burton: The Sound of Music with blood.

Depp and Burton on whether they view Sweeney Todd as insane:

Depp: He’s probably ended up in an unpleasant place, but the process was probably organic since he started out as a victim and then became obsessed with revenge.

Burton: We always saw him as emotional. That’s what Johnny brought to it. When Peter Lorre looked at you, you just see all sorts of things that are going through the guy’s head, both positive and negative. But even for a monster there is a humanity that comes through. It’s very interiorized, which was very interesting to try and do. That was the goal to mix all things together.

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp Cut Into Sweeney Todd Page 2