The word he says most often is I'm an outsider, I've always been a different. To say it is an artist who has built almost all of his films on this: Tim Burton, the director of EDWARD HANDS OF SCISSORS and DUMBO who will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award tonight at the Rome Film Festival.
What is Tim Burton, director of CORPSE BRIDE, afraid of? "I'm afraid - he says with conviction - to stay here to answer questions, I didn't sleep for this last night".
But from today's meeting many considerations by the American director even if expressed in little more than monosyllables.
Making a sequel to Dumbo (his latest film dating back to 2019)? "Never. Disney in that case made me feel like I was Dumbo, I had a nervous breakdown after that experience."
And still on Disney, obviously little loved by him, he comes back to talk about it when he talks about his experience as a boy as a designer: "The Disney animation of the Eighties was really horrible - he says - I remember those dark days in which I worked on it. they were then extremely talented people, all badly used who then, not surprisingly, created the Pixar world. Besides, I wasn't very good at drawing, they said my fox looked like it had been run over by a car ".
Dressed in black, and it could not have been otherwise, Burton also jokes about the Oscar he never got: "I don't know why I never had it - he immediately says -, but on the other hand I had a Golden Globe". And then he adds laughing: "No that's not true. I didn't even get that one, just a nomination."
For the American director, screenwriter, film producer, writer, animator and cartoonist, today is the turn of his first TV series: WEDNESDAY ADDAMS which is shooting in the castles of Romania.
If asked about 'inclusion' he immediately replies: "I have always considered myself different out of the box and over the years I have never changed my perspective, but one thing is certain being a comedian today must not be easy at all. You can't say nothing because if not you risk big ".
Of course he would still have his fetish-actor Johnny Depp put out by Hollywood for private reasons to work: "I don't live in Hollywood anymore, I left many years ago. He is still a friend and I care a lot about him."
Which is the character of your family you feel closest to? "Surely Edward, I feel a bit like him, just an ousider, different from the others. I've always daydreamed.
Sometimes to find inspiration or I go to a bar for a drink or I start looking at the sky, or the trees, trying to see something I had never seen before. "
One final consideration, Burton beats Tarantino: two to zero. And this as far as the reception of the public is concerned. It is a record of assault of boys and girls ready to do anything for his autograph who, before the close encounter, even dedicated a long standing ovation to him.
The father of gothic and horror cinema has an advantage also in terms of the delivery of the lifetime achievement award.
If Dario Argento had given it to Tarantino, Burton received three Oscars such as Gabriella Pescucci, Francesca Lo Schiavo and Dante Ferretti.