"Everyone Was Being So Mean": Lily-Rose Depp Shared Why She Found Her Father's '90s Classic So "Traumatizing" As A Kid

Lily-Rose Depp has quite a complicated relationship with Edward Scissorhands and movies about pale-faced gothic enigmas living in creepy houses.

Lily-Rose stars in Robert Eggers's 2024 remake of the 1922 silent film Nosferatu alongside Bill Skarsgård and Nicholas Hoult.

The movie, which Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula inspired, tells the story of an estate agent (played by Nicholas) and his wife (played by Lily-Rose) and their fateful encounters with the malevolent Count Orlok (played by Bill).

Aidan Monaghan / © Focus Features / courtesy Everett Collection, / ©Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection

Almost 35 years earlier, Lily-Rose's father, Johnny Depp, starred in a film with odd similarities to Nosferatu, although it was a much more lighthearted gothic film.

Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands told the story of an Avon salesperson (played by Dianne Wiest) and her daughter (played by Winona Ryder) and their tragic encounter with the mysteriously artificial, ageless man (played by Johnny).

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While promoting Nosferatu in an interview with Harper's Bazaar UK, Lily-Rose revealed that her parents, Johnny and Vanessa Paradis, allowed her to watch the '90s classic when she was only 3 years old and how she found the movie "distressing," as described by the publication.

"I was traumatized by it," Lily-Rose said to Harper's Bazaar UK. "Not because I thought he was scary, but because everyone was being so mean to him and I got really upset."

In the 1990 film, Edward is eventually chased out by the suburban town that once welcomed him in, and it's this sad ending that Lily-Rose finds hard to reconcile with.

"I remember being petrified by that, which is weird because I don't have many memories from when I was that young," she said. "It's a difficult childhood memory."

The Idol star related her empathy for Edward's fate to how she feels about the title character of Nosferatu. "Edward's the good guy, and Nosferatu's kind of the bad guy, but there's a part of me that feels a little bit of empathy for Nosferatu," she added. "I mean, am I sick for feeling that way?"

Perhaps Nosferatu is the beginning of Lily-Rose continuing the tradition of her dad's affinity for unapologetically gothic films.

Although Edward Scissorhands was his first, Lily-Rose's dad has acted in several Tim Burton films with gothic themes, including Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Dark Shadows.

Paramount / Courtesy Everett Collection, Dreamworks / ©DreamWorks/Courtesy Everett Collection

It should be noted that Johnny's body of work has recently been overshadowed by ongoing legal troubles, including losing a 2020 libel case against the Sun calling him a "wife beater," during which the High Court ruled that their reporting of 12 out of the 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence against Amber Heard did occur.

If you're interested, here's a trailer for Nosferatu:

Nosferatu was released in theaters on Dec. 25.