Headline : Jamie Campbell Bower Stars in “Sweeney Todd.”
By : Whitney Spaner
Jamie Campbell Bower on his turn in Sweeney Todd ” I grow up with Johnny Depp and Tim’s Films.”
“He’s such a dick for being so cool,” says Jamie Campbell Bower of his Sweeney Todd co-star Johnny Depp, “he’s just the coolest guy ever.”
Not many people would argue Depp’s coolness factor, but Bower’s own coolness barometer is nothing to sniff at. More straight-up gorgeous than handsome, the 19-year-old British actor has the tall, thin build of a model and full Angelina Jolie-like lips. Add to that: He’s in a band, grew up listening to Bob Marley and he credits the Libertines as the main influence for his personal style.
But good looks and coolness aside, Bower readily admits sweating out his first musical rehearsal for his role as Anthony, the young lover of Sweeney Todd’s daughter Johanna in the Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical turned Tim Burton-directed film.
“[Sondheim] was there. It was horrifying,” says Bower. “I mean, he’s a really nice guy – really, really cool, and obviously he knows his shit — but having him there I was just so nervous.”
Last performed on Broadway in 2006, the dark and otherworldly Sweeney Todd spins the tale of a murderous barber who slits the freshly shaven throats of his customers and gives their remains to his partner in crime, Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter in the film), who subsequently puts them in tasty meat pies. It is, of course, the perfect premise for a Burton-Depp collaboration and a lucky opportunity for Bower.
“I grew up with Johnny and Tim’s films — like Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow — when I was first realizing that I really liked films and understood what a good film was,” Bower says.
The born-and-raised Londoner hopes that with Sweeney, as well as his work in Guy Ritchie’s upcoming RocknRolla, he might possibly avoid going back to Bedales, the prestigious boarding school that counts Simon Hammerstein, Poppy de Villeneuve and Sophie Dahl among its alumni. Besides,
Bower says he’s never been much for academics anyway. “That’s not to say that I was a badass, because I wasn’t.” Badass or not, he looks the part.