Frid then did something extraordinary. He stood up, slowly, leaning on a silver-knobbed cane. He walked to the edge of the set—the grand staircase, the fake cobwebs, the wind machine—and he simply was Barnabas.
Burton, peering through his viewfinder, grunted. He didn’t say it, but everyone thought it: Depp’s Barnabas had the suffering, but not the shadow . Not the sad, fragile, otherworldly poetry that made the original a phenomenon. jonathan frid cameo dark shadows movie
Burton immediately rewrote the scene.
The old man looked up, and a small, knowing smile touched his lips. “Is it? I’ve always found Collinwood’s doors open to me.” Frid then did something extraordinary
Frid didn’t stand to greet anyone. He didn’t need to. He just watched the playback of the last take on a nearby monitor. Depp sidled over, his Barnabas makeup looking suddenly like a costume next to the real thing. Burton, peering through his viewfinder, grunted
But if you know, you know. When the disco ball catches his eye for a split second, you can see a glimmer of something ancient and sad, and for that one frame, the movie stops being a parody and becomes a requiem.
He didn’t bare his teeth. He didn’t speak. He just looked up the stairs, as if hearing a ghost. His face crumpled, not with rage, but with a century of missed birthdays, of love turned to dust, of the one song he could never forget. For five seconds, he was the most heartbreaking creature in the world. Then he blinked, and he was just a sweet, frail old man again.