As an adolescent misfit, Hadley Freeman fell in love with the warped movie worlds of Tim Burton. What happened when she met Danny DeVito, Colin Farrell and her idol himself?

When I was an oversensitive, confusedly furious and faintly morbid teenager in the 90s, there was one film director who seemed to know my soul better than anyone. And that director was, of course, Tim Burton. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure was the first of his films I saw, after being taken by a friend’s mother, who mistakenly thought it would be a typical kids’ movie as opposed to one of the more slyly subversive takes on modern US life. I was far too young to appreciate all the jokes, but there was something about the colours, the hyperrealism and the Danny Elfman music that intrigued me. It was like being kissed for the first time: you don’t really get what’s happening, but you’d definitely like to investigate further.

By the time Burton’s great late-80s and 90s films came along – Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns and Ed Wood (surely one of the greatest movie runs of any modern director), I was primed to fall headlong in love. It is hard to think of another clutch of films that capture in a more heartfelt way what it feels like to see yourself as a freakish outsider. As I entered a rocky puberty, followed by disastrous teenage years, these movies were like my internal soundtrack, each one investigating the subject more deeply as my own hormonal misery deepened.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The trailer for Tim Burton’s Dumbo.

Something else was kicking in for me, too. I was starting to see how Burton’s movies linked together visually: the model towns, the holes in the roofs, the black-and-white stripes. Even the characters – Jack Nicholson’s Joker is recognisably an evolution of Michael Keaton’s Beetlejuice. And I loved seeing Keaton move from Beetlejuice to Batman, playing the weirdo in both. Burton was then considered something of an anomaly in Hollywood, the opposite to your usual director. But the truth is, he taught me how to watch movies.

Looking back at the few photos I allowed to be taken of me during my teenage years, I noticed that the fictional character I most closely resembled was Allison, the self-consciously weird outsider played by Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club. But as I entered my 15th year – by then refusing to brush my hair and finding myself riddled with, among other things, OCDs that made me fearful of touching anything, and left my hands cracked and bleeding from compulsive overwashing – the one I related to most deeply was Edward Scissorhands. When I read in what was then one of my most treasured books, Faber’s Burton on Burton, that when Burton was younger he was so unhappy he used to hide in the closet, pull at his wisdom teeth and bleed all over his office, I knew for sure I had found a kindred soul.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Johnny Depp as Edward Scissorhands: the embodiment of teenage unhappiness.

It’s not so much that Burton was my childlike thing I put away as an adult, but there did come a point when we outgrew one another. I stuck with him up to Sleepy Hollow because, even if I didn’t love Johnny Depp as much as I did Michael Keaton, I still got such a kick out of seeing Burton’s signature in every frame and because I thought (and still think) that making visually bland movies is analogous to writing only in cliche. You are disrespecting your audience by serving up such thoughtless, personality-free fare. Burton taught me that.

But with Sleepy Hollow, it began to feel like what had once made Burton feel distinctive was calcifying into a cliche itself. Then he entered what we Burton fans call the dark ages – Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – and we clung to promises that his next film would be “a return to form”, the way Woody Allen fans once did.

Recently, he has returned to form, although, for me, seeing movies such as Dark Shadows and Big Eyes is a bit like meeting up with your teenage boyfriend: you’re glad things have worked out for them, but you feel a little wistful for the lost youthful magic; something that has much to do with you as it does with them. But Burton’s earlier films still touch a tender part of my heart. When Batman Returns came out in 1992, it was widely deemed a bit of a disappointment compared with the original film, largely, I think, because people felt there were too many characters (ie two villains), a complaint that seems adorably quaint now that we are in the era of endless X-Men spin-offs. But when I watch it now, I find it thrilling to see Burton allied with such obviously kindred spirits, namely Keaton and Danny DeVito, who so effectively embodied his vision that they changed their own images for ever.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Costume designer Colleen Atwood on the Dumbo set. Photograph: Jay Maidment/Disney

And Burton obviously loved both of them, working with DeVito two more times, in Mars Attacks! and Big Fish. So, although I wasn’t wildly overexcited when I heard that Burton was directing Dumbo (another Disney remake – just what the world needs), my inner teenager melted a little when I heard that DeVito and Keaton would be working with him. And when I was then asked if I would like to spend a day on the set watching Burton directing it, my inner teenager became my desperately overexcited outer adult, and I was on the next bus to Pinewood studios, in the incongruously uncinematic setting of Slough.

If Burton was ever going to direct a straightforward children’s movie, then Dumbo – the story of a freakish outsider – is clearly a more natural fit for him than, say, Cinderella. And judging from the storyboards I am shown backstage, this one seems sweeter and more geared to children than his Alice in Wonderland was: the sets are all in very un-Burtonesque warm and cheerful colours. There is even a happy parade of pink elephants, a last-minute reference to the 1941 cartoon.

“When you work with Tim, you always pay homage to Tim. But with this movie, I didn’t put in any of the expected touches, not even a black-and-white stripe,” says Colleen Atwood, the film’s costume designer, and regular Burton collaborator.

It’s not fair to have complained in one breath about Burton repeating himself and in the next to whinge that a movie doesn’t look sufficiently Burtonesque, so I force myself not to miss the old gothic monochrome too much. And the sets and costumes do look undeniably beautiful, or as Colin Farrell puts it more succinctly when he walks in and does a double-take at all the costumes on their rails: “Oh, fuck!”

I just feel like I’m part of the palette – Tim is an artist Danny DeVito

Farrell plays Holt, Dumbo’s handler, and he proves himself to be a fully paid-up member of the Burton fanclub when he immediately, and somewhat randomly, starts talking about images of Burton’s childhood you can find online: “Have you seen that one of him from when he was 10 or so, and he’s wearing a Halloween costume that is straight out of The Nightmare Before Christmas? It’s such a touching testament to how those images in childhood bed into you, and he gets that …”

When I ask if Burton reminds him of anyone else he has worked with, Farrell instantly names Yorgos Lanthimos, with whom he worked on The Lobster and The Killing of the Sacred Deer: “With Yorgos, the work almost destroys him. I don’t even know if he sleeps during the shoot. And Tim is emotionally, physically and intellectually invested in every detail. After all this time, he still cares about … EVERYTHING. One of the things that surprised me is how much actual set there is here. You know, I was talking to someone from the [live action] Lion King and, I’m sure it will look beautiful, but there’s nothing on set [because it’s all CGI]. It’s just a fucking cameraman and some green screen. But we have a whole big top here!”

At this point, something more vaudevillian than Burtonesque happens (or maybe it’s just the revenge of the Lion King): Farrell’s wooden chair breaks underneath him. Farrell braces his elbows on the table as it breaks, so he doesn’t fall on the floor, but rather stays in a seated position above a vanished chair. “20th Century Fox better pay for this,” he grins, utterly unflustered. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a movie star.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Costumes and props on the set. Photograph: Leah Gallo/Disney

DeVito, still in costume as the circus ringmaster, comes into the dressing room. Some actors look disappointingly different off-screen, but he looks even more DeVitoesque in person, wearing a top hat about twice as tall as he is.

“Where’s the Guardian? I love the Guardian! You like my hat? Hahaha!” he cackles. “Right, which one’s the trick chair? You’re not gonna get me like you got Colin!”

This is DeVito and Burton’s third film together – fourth if you count Burton’s cameo as a corpse in DeVito’s movie Hoffa, which DeVito very much does: “Wasn’t that cool? There’s Tim!”

Is Burton the director he has worked with the most? “Mmm I think so. Well, except Ingmar Bergman. Ha!”

In Burton’s films, DeVito invariably plays a top-hatted impresario. Why does he think Burton associates him so closely with top hats? “Ha! I don’t know. I just feel like I’m part of the palette – Kandinsky’s world, because Tim is an artist.”

So no worry about repeating himself? “Oh God, no. And it’s really fun that Michael [Keaton]’s here, too, because, unlike in Batman Returns, this time he’s the bad guy and I’m the good one, so that’s progression. Ha! Also, I get a naked scene in this. Did you know that? I’m in the bathtub. In Big Fish, you got to see my tush, so when Tim said: ‘Danny, there’s a naked scene in Dumbo …’ I was like: ‘Sign me up!’ Anyway, gotta go. I’ll keep reading the Guardian! Ha!”

DeVito has to film the last scene in the movie, and I follow him out on to an enormous stage set, mocked up to look like the most lavish fantasy circus of any child’s dream, replete with a marching band and acrobats. There are 350 brightly costumed extras, half as many as in other circus scenes. DeVito jokes around with them, keeping spirits up during the boring technical adjustments. The whole tent is a rainbow of sepia-tinted colours, except for one small square black tent in the middle which is, inevitably, where Burton is based. He pops out of the tent, all in black, a beetle among fireflies, and pats DeVito on the shoulder. “You just start when you’re ready,” he says exploiting the kind of mutual trust that can only come from a 25-year working relationship.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Danny DeVito as Max Medici in Dumbo. Photograph: Jay Maidment/Disney

But DeVito keeps fluffing his short line, promising the circus audience “advancements” instead of “amazements”.

Burton laughs: “Never mind! Action!”

DeVito continues to garble the line. At last, he gets it. “I vote for that one! That was the best take yet!” he crows.

“What are you doing here? Star Wars is just across the road, you know, ha-ha!” Burton says, suddenly appearing next to me, unexpectedly tall and even more unexpectedly cheerful. “I can’t really talk about the movie because I don’t know if it’s a comedy or drama yet. I never do. I’ll let you know when I’m done,” he says, slipping back into his tent.

Burton has to go back to work and I have to go home. I no longer need Burton, or any film director, to understand my soul, but as I sit on the bus looking out the window at the landmarks of Slough, I think about how I got to spend the day, watching Burton direct DeVito, 25 years after I fell in love with Batman Returns. As Farrell said, the images from our childhood bed in for ever, and Burton’s movies will always be among those bedded-in images for me. I suspect he’d hate being told that, but I know he’d understand.

Dumbo is released on 29 March