Tim Burton on the set of Sweeney Todd Peter Mountain/Courtesy of DreamWorks

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Director Tim Burton is not known for playing it safe, but even by his standards, his latest picture, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, is a daring proposition. The picture adapts a hit Broadway play, true, but the prerequisites of Stephen Sondheim fans are a little different than those of the moviegoing masses, and Burton's Sweeney (starring Burton's friend and frequent collaborator Johnny Depp and Burton's partner Helena Bonham Carter, who recently bore Burton a second child) is both a full-bore musical and a bone-chilling, violent horror movie. Premiere spoke with Burton as he was preparing another leg of his Sweeney promotional tour.

I hear you're off to Japan.
Yeah.

Sweeney is opening there?
Yeah.

How are Japanese audiences...
I have no idea. I'll let you know.

How do they respond to your work generally? Have you had a good time over there?
What's strange is like, The Nightmare Before Christmas is a weird phenomenon over there. And it's always been good. 'Cause you never can tell — but last thing I had, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; that was very good there. It's always interesting.

I wanted to ask you about the point where the first inklings of you doing the film of Sweeney Todd came about. Were you familiar with the musical as a theatrical piece?
I was actually a student when I first saw it. I was in London, I'd never been to Europe before, and I was there by myself. And I didn't know who Stephen Sondheim was or had never really gone to the theater, but I think I saw the poster or something, or I heard something about it. And I just walked in this big old theater and, not knowing anything about it, it just kind of blew me away. I just loved it. In fact, I went three nights in a row just because I just never had quite seen anything like it. So that was like back in 1980; before I even knew what I'd be doing for my life. Then about 10 years ago I kind of got involved with it. It was at Warner Brothers, and I just sort of inquired about it. I think I met Sondheim and stuff. And then I just got kind of sidetracked. But it just always kind of stuck with me. Johnny reminded me of this: About five years ago in France, I was at his house and I gave him recording of the score. Then five years later I kind of asked him if he'd be into doing it. So I always had an interest in it somehow.

Sondheim's always held the movie world kind of at arm's length; at least as it regards his own theatrical work. But on the other hand he did, with Anthony Perkins, write the screenplay for a wonderful mystery, The Last of Sheila. And he did the score for Alain Resnais's Stavisky. He's dipped his toe into movies in interesting, unusual ways. But his theatrical work doesn't get adapted a whole lot.
From what I gather, he's not real fond of musicals. I mean on screen. He obviously likes musicals — that's what he does! But in my talking with him, I've always had the impression that he really just doesn't think most filmed musicals work well. And I think I see his point. But one of the things I love about Sweeney Todd is it just seemed like — I don't know if it's 'cause its roots were based in that kind of old melodrama and a kind of horror movie but — the piece itself seems to relate to movies in a way. He himself said he sort of wrote the score with a Bernard Herrmann score in mind. And it was interesting, when we were recording it, the instrumental sections, without singing — it really sounds like a great Bernard Herrmann movie score. The piece as a whole just seems to lend itself more to a movie experience than his other work. And he was really cool about not wanting it to be just a filmed Broadway play. He knows a lot about movies, especially older movies; he's very knowledgeable about them. And that's why I was grateful that he just kind of let us go do it.