"[Charlie And The Chocolate Factory is] a movie about texture. That's what I remember from the original book, the feeling of the description and the textures. It was important for us to have them be real, and not be stuck in a blue room for six months. And a couple of the kids hadn't done movies or anything, so having real sets was really important."

Q. "Do you do anything special to tap into the creative spirit?" A. "You mean like communicating with a shrunken head or using a voodoo doll? I like to get in there and play around, but I have to be careful because I broke a rib on Planet of the Apes. I don't watch where I'm going, so I'm actually lucky to be alive. I get kind of hyper. The cameramen gave me a pedometer because I pace so much. In less than a month, I did 300 miles."

Official website for the movie.

The actress also revealed she has suspected at one point that her long-term partner, Tim Burton, might have suffered by a form of autism. While doing some research for a TV movie, in which she plays the real life mother of four autistic children, she met some kids with Asperger's Syndrome. Carter noticed that Burton also shared the main symptom, which is an above average intelligence but less developed social and communication skills.

Helena Bonham Carter was so touched when she watched a TV documentary about a remarkable mother of seven children - four of them with serious developmental problems - that she agreed to play her in a BBC film. Shooting starts next week on Magnificent Seven, which is inspired by the life of Jacqui Jackson, an extraordinarily determined single mother who employed a variety of weapons - particularly humour - in her fight to raise her family of four sons and three daughters.

A native son of Southern California, Burton was born in Burbank on August 25, 1958. He never really took to suburbia, where he was raised, and instead of joining little league or selling lemonade spent his time drawing, watching old horror movies, and reading the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Winning a scholarship in 1980 to the Disney-created California Institute of the Arts, Burton went to work as an apprentice animator at Disney. It was an aesthetically and financially dead period for Disney animation (megahits like The Little Mermaid were years in the future), and Burton's most vivid memories of his time at the studio were of constant firings, ill-will, indecisiveness, and paranoia. He felt decidedly out of place working on cartoons like The Fox and the Hound, later saying "I was just not Disney material. I could just not draw cute foxes for the life of me."

Timothy William Burton (born August 25, 1958 in Burbank, California) is an eccentric film director known for his off-beat and quirky style. He started his career as a Disney animator, and his films often portray a highly stylized world visually reminiscent of cartoons.

Tim Burton began drawing at an early age, going on to attend the California Institute of the Arts, studying animation after being awarded a fellowship from Disney, for whom he went on to work. Although he found that the mainstream Disney films he worked on (The Fox and the Hound (1981)) were far removed from his own sensibility, Disney let him have the freedom to work on his own personal projects, the six-minute animated black-and-white Gothic Vincent Price tribute Vincent (1982), and the 27-minute live-action Frankenweenie (1984), which was judged unsuitable for children and never released.

Tim Burton may be autistic - according to his long-term partner Helena Bonham Carter. The 'Charlie and the Chocolate' director has some of the symptoms of Asperger's syndrome - a form of autism - because he is highly intelligent but lacks in social skills, according to the actress. "We were watching a documentary about autism and he said that's how he felt as a child. Autistic people have application and dedication. You can say something to Tim when he's working and he doesn't hear you. But that quality also makes him a fantastic father, he has an amazing sense of humour and imagination. He sees things other people don't see" Helena, who has acted in four of her partner's films, recently starred in a TV movie in which she plays the mother of four autistic children.

The most comprehensive and popular website dedicated to the filmmaker Tim Burton. His two most recent films are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the stop-motion feature film Corpse Bride, both starring Johnny Depp. There's no news on his next directorial project yet, but he will be producing the animated film "9", set for release in 2007.

The character of Edward Scissorhands seems to fit the profile of an individual with [Asperger Syndrome]. At the beginning of the film, he is isolated and withdrawn in a highly ornate mansion overlooking a bright pastel-coloured suburban neighbourhood. He works intensely on his lawn sculptures, which are fashioned down to intricate detail. He is taken into the neighbourhood by Peg Boggs, his real social awakening. The transition is confusing, and he has trouble adjusting, yet he desires to be loved and to socialize (his first words to Peg are �don't go,� suggesting a desire for social contact in lieu of isolation). He is admired for his talent as gardener and hairdresser (which his scissor hands make exceptionally easy), and yet his manner is disaffected or sometimes inappropriate (as in the scene where Joyce Monroe unsuccessfully tries to seduce him). He is eventually coerced into breaking into a house, under the suggestion of Kim Boggs. When he is arrested, he is examined by a psychiatrist who says that he will be alright out in the world. After the community turns against him, and he again runs afoul of the law, he returns to the mansion again to live in isolation from the world.