Trivia / Edward Scissorhands

• Actor-Inspired Element: O-Lan Jones arranged and played the organ music that Esmerelda plays in the film.
• Channel Hop: The film was initially a Warner Bros. production before they sold it to 20th Century Fox.
• Creator's Favorite Episode:
  • Tim Burton has commented that Edward Scissorhands isn't necessarily his best film, but it's his favorite film out of everything he's done.
  • Danny Elfman similarly called his score for the film his favorite out of all his work.
• Dawson Casting:
  • Anthony Michael Hall was 22 playing the teenage Jim.
  • Winona Ryder was a little better, at only 19.
  • Edward is The Ageless but is meant to be a teenager in appearance. Johnny Depp was in his mid-20s.
• DVD Commentary: Two—one with Burton, the other with Danny Elfman that combines this with an isolated music track.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Johnny Depp lost twenty-five pounds for the role.
  • Winona Ryder was born blonde, but dyes her hair black. She was asked to go blonde again for this film.
• Enforced Method Acting:
  • Being rather frail of health at this point, Vincent Price fainted under the hot studio lights in the scene where he dies. Tim Burton reportedly kept the shot of him on the floor in the final movie.
  • Johnny Depp admitted that two things made him throw up when playing as Edward. First was when he was forced fed food at the BBQ scene and later when Edward is running from the police down the street. The shot of him running and jumping into the bushes to hide was done three times in the middle of a record heatwave while he was in his full-leather costume.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: Tim Burton had originally planned for the film to be a musical, feeling "it seemed big and operatic to me", but later dropped the idea.
• Playing Against Type: Most of the main cast:
  • Johnny Depp was typecast in teen heartthrob roles thanks to 21 Jump Street, something he was not happy about. He took the role of eccentric oddball Edward Scissorhands to break away from that image. Of course now that is essentially his Typecasting.
  • Anthony Michael Hall was famous for his nerd roles, most famously as Brian in The Breakfast Club. Here, he's the Jerk Jock.
  • Winona Ryder was heavily associated with Emo Teen girls in Heathers, Beetlejuice, Mermaids, etc. Kim is a glamorous Girl Next Door.
  • What with Tim Burton finally doing a feature with his idol Vincent Price, you'd expect him to cast Price as a creepy gothic madman. Instead, the Inventor is shown to be a kind and gentle man whose only "crime" was not finishing Edward before his untimely death.
  • Alan Arkin, best known for playing either angry, high-strung, and/or neurotic characters, playing Peg's amiable and clueless husband.
• Role Reprise: Winona Ryder returned to the role of Kim in 2021 for a Super Bowl LV commercial, with Burton's enthusiastic approval.
• Romance on the Set: Averted with Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp, who were already dating when they were cast in the film, having met a year prior at the premiere of Ryder's Great Balls of Fire!.
• Star-Making Role: This is where Johnny Depp's film career really took off.
• Throw It In!: The waterbed scene wasn't originally in the original script.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The film began development at Warner Bros. but they soon sold it afterwards (along with Home Alone) to 20th Century Fox.
  • Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, and Gary Oldman were approached for the role of Edward Scissorhands before Johnny Depp was cast. However, Hanks declined due to scheduling conflicts with The Bonfire of the Vanities, Cruise was turned down due to Creative Differences with Tim Burton (he even constantly asked many questions to Burton about how did the character of Edward actually function), and Oldman turned down the offer due to his confusion at the absurdity of the script.
    • Jim Carrey, John Cusack, William Hurt, Charlie Sheen, Michael Jackson, and Robert Downey Jr. were considered for the titular part as well before the casting of Depp.
  • Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Heather Langenkamp, Elisabeth Shue, Lea Thompson, Molly Ringwald, Alyssa Milano, Jennifer Grey, Julia Roberts, Ally Sheedy, and Uma Thurman read for the role of Kim Boggs before the casting of Winona Ryder. Sara Gilbert was forced to turn it down because the producers of Roseanne refused to release from her contract.
  • Corey Feldman, Wil Wheaton, and Sean Astin were initially offered the part of Jim before Anthony Michael Hall was cast. However, Feldman and Wheaton turned it down due to filming commitments to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) and Star Trek: The Next Generation respectively, while Astin declined due to his reluctance at portraying a villain. Astin would go on to play another character who is a boyfriend to Winona Ryder in Stranger Things.
    • Crispin Glover, Christian Slater, Kiefer Sutherland (who presumably turned it down to avoid typecasting), River Phoenix, and Keith Coogan also screen-tested for the role of Jim before the casting of Hall.
  • Leonard Nimoy was the runner-up for the part of the Inventor before the casting of Vincent Price.
  • Rick Baker was offered to do makeup for the movie before Stan Winston was hired, but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
  • Burton had asked Robert Smith to do the soundtrack and had even sent him the script. Robert was busy recording Disintegration at the time and didn't know who Burton was, so passed up the opportunity, handing Danny Elfman the job.
  • Vincent Price's role was intended to be larger, but the veteran actor was very ill with emphysema and Parkinson's disease, so his scenes were cut to a minimum.
  • Macaulay Culkin was Tim Burton's first choice for the part of Kevin Boggs, but he turned it down due to him playing another character named Kevin in Home Alone.
  • Geena Davis was considered for the part of Peg Boggs after previously working with Burton on Beetlejuice before Dianne Wiest was cast, but she was busy doing Quick Change.
  • Dustin Hoffman was to play Bill Boggs before Alan Arkin got the part, but he was busy doing Dick Tracy instead. The late Roy Scheider and Harry Dean Stanton were also considered.
• Write What You Know: The hill on which Edward's Gothic mansion sits is based on the California Institute of The Arts, Burton's alma mater. The campus for the Institute is on a hill in Valencia, looking down on a clean-cut suburban town.
• Write Who You Know: Caroline Thompson wrote Peg based off her own mother, who used to bring home strangers. She based the women in the neighborhood off people she grew up around.

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