Trivia / Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

• Ability over Appearance:
  • Audra McDonald, a Black actress, has played the Beggar Woman in multiple high-profile concert versions in which Lucy, her younger self, is still described as being a pale blonde, and in which Johanna, played by white actresses, is still described as looking almost exactly like her. While this creates a few logical issues, the general reception has been simply that if you can get Audra, you get Audra.
  • Korean-American actress Ruthie Ann Miles played the same role in the 2023 Broadway revival, with the descriptions of her younger self as a blonde still intact.
• Approval of God: The 2007 movie is one of the only film adaptations of Stephen Sondheim's musicals to have his approval.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Johnny Depp was sold on the idea of doing a musical about a serial killer.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: "Not While I'm Around" is written in a more pop-influenced style than the rest of the show, and managed to spin off a couple of pop recordings.
• Cast Incest: In the 1982 TV production, George Hearn (Sweeney) and Betsy Joslyn (Johanna) were married at the time.
• The Cast Showoff: Beadle Bamford is usually expected to actually play the harmonium. This actually became the novelty of the 2005 revival, where the cast was reduced to only the ten players who doubled as both the stagehands and the orchestra, each playing their own instrument.
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Stephen Sondheim agreed to let Tim Burton direct the film on the condition that he have casting approval. Burton would only agree to direct with Johnny Depp in the lead, and though Sondheim feared Depp's vocals would be too "rock oriented", he approved Depp after a vocal audition. To approve the casting of Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, and to combat any rumors of nepotism (as Carter and Burton were romantically involved at the time), she sent Sondheim no less than twelve audition tapes of her singing. Very impressed with her vocals, Sondheim immediately approved her.
• Creator-Preferred Adaptation: In his book Finishing the Hat, Stephen Sondheim states the 2007 film is the only adaptation of one of his works for the screen that he approves of. ^note  This was published before West Side Story (2021) was released, which he also approved of.
• Cut Song:
  • The Judge's "Johanna" was cut from the original production because it held up the plot (and is incredibly creepy) but appears on the original cast album and was eventually reinstated. The tooth-pulling part of "The Contest" is also often cut, and "Parlour Songs" is sometimes heavily abbreviated.
  • Several songs from the Broadway musical were excised from the film: "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" (and its many reprises), "Ah, Miss," "Johanna" (Judge Turpin's version), "Kiss Me," "Parlour Songs," "City on Fire," and "Epilogue." All ensemble/choral singing was also eliminated, most notably from "God, That's Good," in which the title of the song is now never even sung. Many other songs remaining in the film have been shortened. The only songs to remain intact are "Epiphany," "Pretty Women," "Johanna" (Anthony's solo), "The Worst Pies in London," "Wait" and "My Friends." "Johanna" (featuring Sweeney, Anthony, and the Beggar Woman) is a quartet featuring all three in addition to Johanna herself in the original musical. The song "My Friends" is not sung in its entirety either, with one line being added and the last line being edited, from "At last, my right arm is complete again" to "At last, my arm is complete again." ^note it was more specific in the original Broadway run due to Len Cariou and George Hearn both being lefties.
• Dawson Casting:
  • A lesser example — Jayne Wisener was 19 when she played the 16-year-old Johanna.
  • The script for the play refers to Todd as being in his forties. When George Hearn reprised the role for "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert", he was 67.
  • Mrs. Lovett is also described as being in her forties in the play script. Angela Lansbury was 54 when she created the role.
  • Tobias is described in the script as an adolescent. Most actors who play him onstage are in their 20s or 30s. Averted in the movie with 13-year-old Ed Sanders, though.
• Fake Brit: In the movie, Sweeney is played by an American, Johnny Depp.
• Filmed Stage Production:
  • The first national tour was taped in Los Angeles in 1981. It aired on The Entertainment Channel the next year and was then released on VHS and DVD.
  • BBC broadcasted the Royal National Theatre revival production in July 1994, the Opera North production in March 1998, and the Royal Opera House production in 2003.
  • A concert version of the show was filmed in San Francisco in 2001 and aired on PBS before getting a video and DVD release.
• Hide Your Pregnancy: Helena Bonham Carter was pregnant during the production of the film, resulting in magical size-changing breasts over the course of the movie.
• Non-Singing Voice: Averted. Every single actor in the film version does their own singing, despite several of them having never sung in a production before. It doesn't show, either. Helena Bonham Carter was required to do a vocal audition for the role - to her own husband, per Sondheim's request.
• Original Cast Precedent: Most versions of the musical, including the film, will have Judge Turpin and Beadle Bamford as Lean and Mean and a Fat Bastard respectively; in addition to the visual contrast, the first actors to play them — Edmund Lyhdeck and Jack Eric Williams — had those builds.
• Orphaned Reference:
  • Most productions cut out the tooth-pulling part of "The Contest", but neglect to write out Pirelli singing "To shave-a the face/to pull-a the 'toot'." The movie, which also cuts the tooth-pulling, adjusts the lyrics accordingly.
  • In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment during "The Judge's Return," Turpin sings "Johanna, Johanna..." to the melody of "Johanna (Mea Culpa)," a song that was cut during previews of the original production and remains cut in most subsequent productions.
• Promoted Fanboy: Tim Burton saw the original West End production just as his show business career was starting, and had Stephen Sondheim's blessing as early as the mid-80s to make the movie version.
• Saved from Development Hell: The film had been in development for over twenty-five years before it finally got made. At that point in time, hundreds of actors had either been considered or attached to the project to play Sweeney Todd: Warren Beatty, Tim Curry, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Steve Martin, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Robert Redford and many more.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Timothy Spall was urged to audition by his daughter, who wanted him to work with Johnny Depp.
  I really wanted this one – I knew Tim was directing and that Johnny Depp was going to be in it. My daughter, my youngest daughter, really wanted me to do it for that reason – Johnny Depp was in it. [She came on set to meet Depp] and he was really delightful to her, she had a great time. Then, I took her to the junket – and [Depp] greeted her like an old pal when he saw her. I've got plenty of brownie points at the moment.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original script of the movie initially kept the opening and the reprising ballad intact with a chorus of ghosts singing. Christopher Lee and Anthony Head were among those playing the ghosts. However, Johnny Depp's daughter fell ill during shooting, so he took time off to be with her, which tightened up the shooting schedule, and the ghosts had to be axed. There is a YouTube video of Lee recording his song out there somewhere.
  • While one probably has nothing to do with the other, Tim Burton had always anticipated cutting the ballad, as well as other songs, to make the film feel less like a filmed stage show and more like a movie.
  • Annette Bening, Toni Collette, Nicole Kidman, Cyndi Lauper, Bernadette Peters, Imelda Staunton, Meryl Streep, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emma Thompson, and Kate Winslet were all considered for Mrs. Lovett.
  • Anne Hathaway was almost cast as Johanna, but Burton wanted a complete unknown for the role and settled on Jayne Wisener.
  • Sam Mendes was originally attached to direct with Russell Crowe in the title role.
  • When working for Warner Bros. on Superman Lives, Kevin Smith was interested in directing the film when told the studios had the rights, but then admitted he was more interested in seeing Burton's version when told they were hoping for Burton to direct.
• Word of God:
  • Sondheim said that, despite Judge Turpin being a horrible person who does terrible things, it's actually Mrs. Lovett who is the musical's true villain, largely because she's entirely self-serving to a sociopathic degree. At the very least, Turpin realizes that what he's done to Lucy is wicked, and that his feelings for Johanna are wrong; he also genuinely believes that any form of sexual feeling is evil, so he has something of a Freudian Excuse. Mrs. Lovett doesn't have any of that baggage or self-awareness, and is thus more reprehensible.
  • Sondheim also confirmed in an interview that he didn't mean for "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" to send a God Is Evil message. "He served a dark and vengeful god" is just a metaphorical line, and the use of the Dies Irae melody just represents death.

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