Tim Burton Mirrored Wednesday's Xavier More Than You Likely Thought
Tim Burton's artistic style has long been a talking point among his fans and critics, with the word "Burtonesque" even created as a way to describe something that is similar to his dark, exaggerated, and unconventional aesthetic. He is unique in his storytelling, which began differently than other directors: with a passion and obsession with drawing.
In an interview with longtime collaborator Danny Elfman for Roma Cinephilia Magazine, he recalled the moment he decided he would draw the way he wanted, not the way his teachers wanted. "It was at the farmers' market. We went out to draw people. I was sitting there, getting really frustrated trying to draw the way they were telling me to draw. So I just said, 'F*** it,'" he explained. "I truly felt like I had taken a drug and my mind had suddenly expanded. It's never happened to me again quite that same way. From that moment on, I just drew a different way. I didn't draw better, I just drew differently. It freed me up to not really care."
While most people think of Tim Burton as a filmmaker nowadays, his love of drawing and bringing them to life has never gone away, and in many ways, Tim Burton mirrors one "Wednesday" character, Xavier Thorpe (Percy Hynes White).
He made drawings for Ortega to explain what scene would be filmed that day
In a memorable scene of Season 1 of "Wednesday," Xavier Thorpe, the resident artist of "Wednesday's" Nevermore Academy, tries to impress Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) by animating a drawing of a spider. She quickly squashes his hopes — and the spider — with her hand. While Tim Burton may not have telekinesis, just like Xavier, he's an expert at bringing his drawings to life, with his sketches literally becoming scenes in the popular Netflix series. As Ortega told First We Feast, "He draws a lot of his shots, so there are some days where I'd come into work and he would have his own little picture that he drew of me playing the cello or me fencing and say, 'This is what you're shooting.'"
Of course, hardcore Burton fans know that he persuaded Danny Devito to portray Oswald "The Penguin" Cobblepot in "Batman Returns" with a painting he made, so Ortega's story fits in perfectly with the quiet and soft-spoken filmmaker's personality. While others may use words and scripts to get their vision across, drawing and artwork has always been Burton's preferred method. As he told the Museum of Modern Art, "All these kinds of things, whether it's photographs or little writings or sketches, for me are the most important part of any project."