Johnny Depp is praising longtime collaborator Tim Burton.
The actor, 62, recalled how the filmmaker, 67, made accommodations for him to continue filming “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” in 2007 despite his daughter’s illness.
At the time, Lily-Rose Depp was 7 years old and had developed a form of kidney failure.
“Tim made huge sacrifices on Sweeney,” Depp recounted in the new four-part docuseries “Tim Burton: Life in the Line.”
In the third episode, the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star said he considers Burton “a part of my family.”
The director worked with Depp in “Edward Scissorhands” in 1990, “Ed Wood” in 1994, 1999’s “Sleepy Hollow,” and 2005’s “Corpse Bride” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
The producer, who shares Lily-Rose, 26, and son Jack, 23, with ex Vanessa Paradis, explained that his daughter’s “kidneys were shutting down.”
“She had contracted E. coli. They put her on dialysis, and I had to call Tim and basically say, ‘Hey man, I’m going to have to drop out of Sweeney. I’m sorry, but I can’t work until my baby’s better,’ ” Depp continued in the doc. “And [Burton] went ‘No. Don’t even talk like that, man. Whatever we have to do, we’ll do. She’s going to be fine. We’ll make it work.’ ”
The Golden Globe winner said that he and Paradis, 52, “lived in that hospital for a good three, three and-a-half weeks.”
“Tim, of course, being Tim, came by the day after I called and brought flowers, the great uncle and godfather that he is,” Deep added. “Pretty special, very lucky.”
Derek Frey, a producer on the film, recalled that “Sweeney Todd” “shut down for a couple of weeks” while Depp was with his family.
“We’re exploring some dark themes in that film, really tough stuff, and here’s a character who is introspective and fighting demons and drawn to spill blood and seeking vengeance,” Frey, 52, explained.
“And then [Depp is] going through this really dark, heavy real thing going on in his personal life. So that definitely, at least for a time, shaded a little bit of the production. My assessment is that there’s points in that movie where you’re seeing real emotion come through, like he’s channeling what he’s going through personally.”
Lily-Rose ended up recovering and following in her dad’s footsteps.
In January, the “Nosferatu” star touched on working on supernatural films just like her father.
“I guess you could say so,” she told Harper’s Bazaar of her interest. “We’re very different actors, but of course you’re the product of your environment, and it’s a world I’ve always been very interested in.”
“I’m interested in the darker underbelly of things. 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,” Lily-Rose continued. “The most exciting thing is getting to explore parts of myself.”
“You get to hide behind all these beautiful artifices, the costumes, the story, but the place I’m drawing from is deeply personal,” the “Idol” alum added.
During the interview, Lily-Rose also revealed that she watched her dad’s movies as a child, but one in particular has stuck with her for years — the hit classic “Edward Scissorhands.”
“I was traumatized by it,” she confessed. “Not because I thought he was scary, but because everyone was being so mean to him and I got really upset.”
Speaking about her upbringing in a 2023 interview, the actress also credited her parents with doing their best to ensure she and her brother had a “normal” childhood.
“Obviously, still not totally normal, but a sense of normalcy at least, and a sense of childhood and freedom and play and everything,” she expressed at the time.
