Scissorhandz star Jordan Kai Burnett: ‘I’ve always called Edward Scissorhands a gay robot’

“I wish I had more wit at this moment,” says Jordan Kai Burnett, pinching their fingers together as if attempting to extract some from the air. “But I did have a full eight-hour rehearsal today.”

Those gruelling hours are being pumped into Scissorhandz, a “radical, raucous” and queer re-telling of Tim Burton’s 1990 gothic cult classic Edward Scissorhands, which starred Johnny Depp in the titular role.

Burnett is trying to explain why, in a world that seems to be falling apart, a glitzy, oddball show like this still matters. “I know that I’m not solving brain cancer. I know that,” they urge. “But what I do is pretty delightful. And if there’s a person who comes to see the show who’s like, ‘oh, I didn’t understand this and now I understand it a little bit more’, that rules.”

Scissorhandz has helped Burnett to understand themself a little better, if nothing else. The actor originated the lead role of Scissorhands in Los Angeles back in 2018, and seven years and numerous iterations later, they remain the only performer to play it, this time in London for its European premiere.

Directed by Bradley Bredeweg (The Fosters, Good Trouble), the show reimagines Scissorhands as a non-binary being who falls for a queer woman, Kim (Lauren Jones). In playing their version of the famed, utensil-limbed character, Burnett discovered they related to them more than they thought. 

“I think there was actually a time a few years ago when I didn’t really have the language for who I was,” they explain to PinkNews via video call from their temporary home in the capital. “And I’ll tell you, understanding that I could be more than one thing, that I could be something that doesn’t fall into a binary that other people have decided about me, putting myself in this show and finding the discovery of language for that… it feels really special.”

Seven years after first playing the role, they firmly credit the show and the queerness that courses through it with helping them come into their own skin. “I want everyone to know how many pronouns I use and how queer I am.” (Burnett goes by both ‘they’ and ‘she’). “You know that feeling? Like, ‘Have you ever been queer? It’s the best!’ It feels like that, and doing the show feels like that.”

Bredeweg’s Scissorhandz features all the main touchpoints from Burton’s whimsical original. The inventor, played by OG Scissorhandz cast member Dionne Gipson, dies before she is able to replace her creation’s razor sharp, steel digits with human fingers. After stumbling upon the orphaned being by chance, Peg (played here by four-time Olivier Award nominee Emma Williams) brings them home, where their artful eccentricities leave the neighbourhood in wonderment. That is until Jim (Richard Carson), the boyfriend of Peg’s daughter Kim, begins a campaign to turn the neighbourhood against Scissorhands, ousting and othering them again.

NSYNC star Lance Bass and RuPaul’s Drag Race judge Michelle Visage – “Oh, the icon,” Burnett says when I mention her name – are the show’s new executive producers. Aside from their support, the addition of pop mega-hits used to illuminate the story (expect Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and Alanis Morrissette), plus the explicit queerness, Burton’s original, Frankenstein-inspired fairytale remains.

Yet for queer fans who have loved Edward Scissorhands now for nearly 35 years, the story has always been a queer allegory; Scissorhandz is merely bringing it out of the shadows.

“I always call Scissorhands a gay robot, which is not the case, but in shorthand I’m like, ‘Gay robot! It’s queer. It is queer!” Burnett says of the film. “It just is, and so deciding to take the extra step and go, ‘Yeah, actually we’re going to retell this story. We’re going to adapt it, and we’re going to tell it through the lens of queer people.’ It’s not that different.”

Burnett was too young when the OG film came out to recall her first time watching it, but the image of Depp in role in promotional materials  – looking somewhat terrifying, with a hint of sadness – has always been with her. “I don’t remember not having seen it, does that make sense?” she asks. Burton’s films, so often celebrating those dubbed “freaks” by the rest of society, were imprinted on her childhood. “I think I always felt understood watching those movies, as I think a lot of us weirdos do.”

There’s an elephant in the room. After the fallout from his messy legal battle with his former wife Amber Head, it wouldn’t be surprising if many queers who once found solace in Depp’s Scissorhands have since lost their love for the film. It’s OK to feel hesitation about embracing the character again, Burnett says, but “we have to honour the thing that we loved, and we have to say, ‘OK. Now we’re gonna do this thing that we wanna do.'”

They add: “Look, if there’s any place where you’re gonna re-learn to love [the film], it’s at our big, queer, musical fantasia.”

Burnett has always been drawn to the camp, queer spectacle of a musical, especially growing up. “I was the theatre kid,” they say emphatically, furrowing their brow. “I have been the theatre kid [since I was] three-years-old in my bathtub, performing Little Mermaid. Other kids were – I don’t know what kids do, playing basketball, I guess – and I was performing the entirety of The Nutcracker in my house to myself… it has always been a part of me.”

They attended Emerson College in their home city of Boston, where musical theatre became their “whole personality”. Impromptu belting of songs from Wicked and Phantom of the Opera was common. “I went to musical theatre school. I hosted a musical theatre radio show. I was the president of the Musical Theatre Society,” they recount. Then they grew up, just a little. “I don’t know, I got my nose pierced and came out and was a little bit more energetically sober.”

After graduating, Burnett left Boston for Los Angeles, “a real left turn, not something that I had ever planned to do”. Doing so has enabled her to “take a bite” of a variety of different roles, in and out of musical theatre. She’s emceed for Channing Tatum’s Magic Mike Live in Las Vegas, worked with Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo on their Romeo & Juliet inspired musical Invincible, and runs comedy show Daisy & Jordan’s Sunday Brunch of Shame with Tony Award-winner, Daisy Eagan. Most recently, she starred as actress and original Saturday Night Live cast member Gilda Radner in Gene & Gilda, a play about her relationship with Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory star, Gene Wilder.

“There’s no two people that are more different maybe than Scissorhands and Gilda Radner, but what a joy to be able to do both and to feel capable of doing both,” Burnett smiles. 

This moment in history feels like a particularly apt time to be bringing Scissorhandz back to life, albeit in the UK, rather than amidst the political tumult erupting in their home country. “It’s a great time to not be in America, I’ll tell you what,” they say with stifled laughter. Days before we speak, and ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, Facebook owner Meta announced it would be changing its hateful conduct policy, making it acceptable for users to call LGBTQ+ users “mentally ill” and “freaks” – the sorts of words that have connected queer people to characters like Scissorhands for years. “It’s grim,” Burnett summarises.

That said, she’s hopeful that queer people will always be able to find resonance and joy within the arts. Just last night, they watched campy comedy Titaníque, which just arrived in the West End from Broadway. “To be in a theatre full of queer people having the time of their lives? We need it. We got to have it,” they say.

“People are the worst, and yet we still get beautiful films and books, and somebody puts up the money to make a musical about Titanic with Celine Dion music, somebody puts up the money to make a queer retelling of a movie that everyone loves. I have to hope. If we all lead with love, it’s like the best we can do. It sounds so cliche, but it’s the best we can do.”

So no, Scissorhandz probably won’t solve brain cancer, and it probably won’t put paid to the tech bros and Trumpians launching a fusillade against the LGBTQ+ community. But it might just make you forget the world’s woes for 90 minutes. For that, we can only be thankful.

Scissorhandz is at London’s Southwark Playhouse from 23 January to 29 March. Tickets are on sale now.