WIEST FINDS IT HARD TO LET GO OF 'EDWARD SCISSORHANDS'

By Tom Green

From USA Today, 12.17.1990, Final Edition

An hour before the gala world premiere of Edward Scissorhands, co-star Dianne Wiest was in her hotel room in tears.

"I didn't know this was going to happen," she said, trying to repair eyeliner. "I was set for this big folderol night and here I am crying. Oh, people are going to think I'm such a wuss!"

Letting go of Edward has engulfed her in melancholy.

"This movie is just different," says Wiest, who won an Oscar in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters. "There is something pure about it." Edward opened nationwide Friday, after a small but stellar opening the previous week.

Wiest, who has made four Allen movies ("I just love him"), was surprised by how attached she became to Tim Burton, the wunderkind director of Edward, whose work she didn't know. She had to run out and see his Batman when she was offered the role of Peg, the sweet Avon lady who mothers the young innocent with the lethal-weapon hands.

"Woody and Tim," she says in admiration. "I say that in the same breath. I haven't felt this strong about a director since Woody. Although I'm very fond of Ron Howard" (who directed her in Parenthood).

Most of her scenes in Edward are with ex-"21 Jump Street" star Johnny Depp, who plays the inventor's creation in Burton's fantasy. She didn't know who he was, either.

"It's embarrassing to admit these things. People said he's a teen idol. I thought, 'Oh, great.' Then I met him ... what a depth of talent. I'd look at him some days and I thought he's like Chaplin. He's got a walk and a sweetness of manner. He's just an angel."

Besides Burton and Depp and Depp's girlfriend, Winona Ryder, who is also in the movie, Wiest has been hanging out a lot with young Hollywood lately. After Edward, she filmed Little Man Tate, which stars Jodie Foster and marks Foster's directorial debut.

In Tate, Wiest, 42, plays a child psychologist who knows nothing about mothering. Lately she has played a lot of mothers, and she likes the shift to a character who is horrible. The character is neurotic, though--Wiest's other specialty.

"Early on I should have done some real sexy ax murderer to break me out of the way I've been typecast. Directors or studios won't take a chance that I might be sexy or I might be very cruel."

A single mother with a 3-year-old daughter, she prefers to do just one movie a year while her child is young. She wants to work with Allen again, but she admits that career-wise, she should be careful.

"I think Woody would be the first one to say it's not good for the career. None of his movies ever make money. And you sort of get typed as one of 'Woody's Girls' and no one wants to use you. But, wow! It's fine work."