'Miss Peregrine' is the right kind of peculiar for Tim Burton
The script featured a girl with a maw of sharp teeth in the back of her head, a boy with bees living in him, an invisible kid and a headmistress who could turn into a falcon.
Sounds totally like a Tim Burton movie, right? British actress Ella Purnell recalls thinking so, even before she knew he’d be her director for the fantasy adventure Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (in theaters Friday). "I was like, 'They read my mind!' "
Burton laughs at his star's admission. “I take it as a compliment, even though it freaks me out a little bit. Fantasy, reality, putting people in a peculiar category — I get it, I’ve been there. I’m still there!”
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Based on Ransom Riggs’ young adult book, Miss Peregrine stars Asa Butterfield as a boy named Jake who, inspired by his late grandfather (Terence Stamp), journeys to a Welsh island and finds an orphanage of children with strange abilities constantly reliving the same September day from 1943. The time loop comes courtesy of Miss Peregrine (Eva Green), an enigmatic woman with the mission of keeping her extraordinary charges safe from horrifying creatures.
The kids all have their peculiarities — from flaming appendages to movie-projecting eyes — though Butterfield says they’re not very useful. “To even call them powers is a bit of an overstatement. But it helps tell the story that these guys are outcasts and segregated from society, and because of that, they all band together.”
Burton fell for Riggs’ novel because it was “like a weird children’s bedtime horror story,” says the 58-year-old filmmaker. “I used to love that kind of stuff: ‘Then the monster came through the window and ate all the children’s eyes.’ Even just saying it makes me laugh.”
For Purnell, it felt right in line with Burton’s filmography, which includes such iconic films as Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas. “There’s always a theme of someone either really, really weird or someone very, very ordinary who’s in an alien situation with wacky characters,” says the actress, who plays Emma Bloom, a girl as light as air (and who wears weighted shoes to keep from floating away).
Riggs, 37, has been a fan of Burton’s work since he was a teenager nurturing the seeds of what would become Miss Peregrine.
“For a 12-year-old with a hyperactive imagination who liked to dream of dreary gothic castles, suburban Florida felt a little stifling,” Riggs says. “I feel like Tim had a similar experience growing up in sunny Burbank, Calif. It’s not like people threw rocks at my head but I always felt different.”
Read an excerpt from Ransom Riggs' 'Tales of the Peculiar'
Nowadays, "peculiar” has become more normal, and Burton thinks it’s one of the reasons for the superhero-movie boom. “That’s what I liked about Batman: He was just a weird personality with some issues.”
Recent YA film adaptations have tended to be along the lines of dystopian epics and “chosen one” characters such as those in The Hunger Games, yet Burton likes that Jake is just a lost kid who finds a new family in a band of misfits.
“He’s not this action hero who’s going to save the world,” Burton says. “He’s peculiar and he’s got to deal with weird things in his life. There you go. I can completely relate.”