Actor Lily-Rose Depp says she felt traumatized and upset after watching her father Johnny Depp’s 1990 fantasy movie Edward Scissorhands. In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK, the actor said she was three years old when she was allowed to watch the Tim Burton-directed film, which featured her father as Edward, an artificial humanoid who has scissor blades instead of hands. The movie also starred Winona Ryder.
Lily said it wasn’t the appearance of her father’s character that made her upset but the way everyone treated him in the movie.
“I was traumatised by it. Not because I thought he was scary, but because everyone was being so mean to him and I got really upset,” said the 25-year-old actor.
“I remember being petrified by that, which is weird, because I don’t have many memories from when I was that young. It’s a difficult childhood memory,” she added.
Lily currently stars in Robert Eggers’ gothic horror film Nosferatu, adapted from German director F W Murnau’s 1922 silent horror film that was loosely based on Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel “Dracula”.
The film is touted as a Gothic tale of obsession between Ellen Hutter (Lily), a young woman in 19th-century Germany and the ancient Transylvanian vampire Nosferatu (Bill Skarsgard) who stalks her, bringing untold horror with him.
Lily drew a comparison between the character of Edward from Burton’s film and Nosferatu.
“Edward’s the good guy and Nosferatu’s kind of the bad guy, but there’s a part of me that feels a little bit of empathy for Nosferatu. I mean, am I sick for feeling that way,” she added.
She also admitted being interested in darker genres.
“As an actor, you hope that your role will be as meaty as can be, so you have as much to dive into as possible. Because nothing is straightforwardly dark, it’s the most complicated stuff,” she said.
Nosferatu also stars Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney and Willem Dafoe. The movie will be released in India on January 10.
