This is the first time that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp worked together. They became good friends while making the film.
Dianne Wiest was the first to sign on. "Dianne, in particular, was wonderful", Tim Burton said. "She was the first actress to read the script, supported it completely and, because she is so respected, once she had given it her stamp of approval, others soon got interested".
The idea for the movie was inspired by a drawing Tim Burton had done when he was a teenager. The drawing depicted a thin, solemn man with long, sharp blades for fingers. "Since I liked to draw since I was younger, oftentimes images would come up, and they'd stay with you, and you'd keep drawing them. This was a character I sketched a while back," he says. He explains the character represented him as he was in his teenage years and how the film represents much of his time growing up. He likened growing up in Suburbia to a Frankenstein movie with the suburbanites acting as the angry villagers. Burton also stated that he was often alone and had trouble retaining friendships. "I get the feeling people just got this urge to want to leave me alone for some reason, I don't know exactly why."
The entire story is meant to be seen through Edward's eyes, which is why the neighborhood looks so "fantastical."
Vincent Price's role was intended to be larger, but the veteran actor was very ill with emphysema and Parkinson's disease, so his scenes were cut to a minimum. This was his last cinema film role.
Nick Carter: The little blond boy on the Slip 'N Slide, at the beginning of the film, is the Nick Carter singer. Though uncredited in the film, Carter himself has confirmed this in several interviews.
Tim Burton: [Le Magicien d'Oz (1939)] The Inventor starts building Edward by taking a faceless metal mannequin and attaching a heart-shaped object to its chest, suggestive of the Tin Man.