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A documentary on Tim Burton’s life and career sees many of his collaborators detail their connections with the director, but filmmaker Tara Wood says Burton’s former partner Helena Bonham Carter needed convincing to participate.
“It took a long time to convince Helena to join us. That took a lot of trust. I had to convince her that it wasn’t an exposé,” Wood, whose four-part documentary Tim Burton: Life in the Line is streaming now, tells PEOPLE.
The documentary filmmaker said she did not set out to “ask [Carter] questions about the relationship” with Burton, 67, whom Carter, 59, was in a relationship with between 2001 and 2014.
“This is definitely about process and art, so once she felt comfortable she finally said yes. But that definitely took a long time,” Wood says. “And the first thing she said when she walked in was, ‘So we’re going to have a chat about my ex, eh?’ ”
“So she was great, and she was very open when she sat down and very kind about Tim and the relationship,” she adds. “They all come back to the art and how brilliant Tim is.”
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As Carter and others recall in the four-part docuseries, she and Burton first met when the director recruited her to play the lead chimpanzee character in Burton’s 2001 Planet of the Apes adaptation.
As Carter and Burton grew romantically involved and started a family — they share son Billy, 22, and daughter Nell, 17 — they made several movies together, including Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows.
While speaking with PEOPLE, Wood reflected on a moment in the documentary where Carter remarked that Burton “drew me into existence,” in reference to Burton’s lifelong tendency to illustrating character designs for his movies himself.
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“Tim kind of drew his world into existence. Slowly, his world came to life. That’s actually why I called it Life in the Line,” Wood says. “I feel like that’s really true to him.”
Tim Burton: Life in the Line is available to purchase directly at the documentary’s website.
