I recently revisited Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, and came away completely understanding why it remains one of the best movies of the ‘90. The gothic fairy tale helped define the auteur director’s movie career while also further launching Johnny Depp into superstardom. In a recent interview, Oscar winner Gary Oldman addressed the fact that he was on Burton’s short list for the dialogue-lite role, but that he’d turned it down because he simply “didn’t get” the script.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Oldman admitted that he was given the script in the late ’80s, before Tim Burton was fully established as a tonal visionary. Even if Beetlejuice and Batman were both already out at the time, those distinct stories still wouldn’t have provided Oldman a blueprint to understanding Edward Scissorhands on the page. As he tells it:
Well, that’s going back a few years. It would have been in the late ’80s. I was on Tim Burton’s list for the role of Edward Scissorhands. It was a small list. My agent thought I had a really good chance of getting it. They said to me, ‘Read the script.’ They sent the script over, and I basically said, ‘I don’t get it.’
Honestly? Fair. It’s hard to imagine something like Edward Scissorhands from just words on a page without hearing Vincent Price’s voice or seeing Winona Ryder in snowglobe mode. There are so many ideas that go into making a movie as iconic as this flick, and not having Burton around to paint a mental picture would have made it challenging indeed.
Oldman explained that without Burton’s later filmography to help contextualize the project, the concept just struck him as confusing and even unappealing. The actor continued:
You have to remember at this point in time you’re not looking at Tim Burton’s whole body of work. I read this quirky, strange little script, and I didn’t get it. The Avon lady and the kid with the scissor hands. It just didn’t register with me. I said to the agent, ‘I just don’t understand this. It’s not my cup of tea.’
That decision meant Oldman never actually met with Burton to discuss the part, which propped the the door open more for Johnny Depp to take on what would become one of his best roles.
Despite his initial disinterest, Oldman wasn’t immune to the finished film’s magic eventually. He confessed:
So I did not meet Tim Burton. Then Scissorhands came out and I went to the cinema to watch it. With that opening shot — all those brightly colored houses, and then the camera pans up to the castle-like thing on the hill — within two minutes I went, ‘I get it!’
It’s a classic “sliding doors” moment in Hollywood history where one actor passes on a role because it seems too odd or risky, only for another to step in and help turn it into a cultural phenomenon. It’s wild to think about where both of their careers would have gone, and what Edward Scissorhands merch would look like with Oldman in the role.
Of course, Oldman’s career didn’t exactly suffer. While he missed out on playing Edward, he went on to build a decades-spanning résumé that includes a ton of great characters. He’s done everything from punk legend Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy to Sirius Black in Harry Potter, Commissioner Gordon in The Dark Knight trilogy (available to stream with an HBO Max subscription), and Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour — a role that finally earned him an Oscar.
Oldman frames the Scissorhands episode as one of many moments where instinct, timing, and perspective shaped his path. As THR’s profile highlights, his willingness to pivot away from typecasting and later embrace quieter, more internalized roles gave him staying power in a business that often chews up actors known for intensity alone.
Gary Oldman’s 2025 movie slate has been quiet, but his series Slow Horses returns for its fifth season on September 24, 2025. Available to anyone with an Apple TV+ subscription.
