WORLD NEWS INFORMATION CENTER: Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz find that doing 'Big Eyes' is a real work of art

Monday, 22 December 2014

Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz find that doing 'Big Eyes' is a real work of art

Movie's stars, along with director Tim Burton, are given original paintings by film's subject, Margaret Keane

BY MARIANNE GARVEY, BRIAN NIEMIETZ AND OLI COLEMAN

Wednesday, December 17, 2014, 2:00 AM

From left, Tim Burton, Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz attend a screening of ‘Big Eyes’ in New York.

As Hollywood is buzzing that Amy Adams got paid less than her male co-stars in “American Hustle,” Confidenti@l is told she got a nice little bonus from her latest film.
Her co-star in “Big Eyes,” the story of artist Margaret Keane, told us that each lead actor and director Tim Burton were given their choice of Keane’s paintings as a gift from the artist.
Christoph Waltz said Keane “let us into the gallery that shows and sells her paintings and said to Amy, Tim and myself, ‘Choose whichever one you want.’ It was one of the most generous and loving gestures I’ve ever experienced,” said Oscar winner Waltz at the movie’s premiere Monday night
In fact, the “Django Unchained” actor was so touched that he wouldn’t even tell us what the painting looks like.
“I can’t say,” he said, adding, “I tell you why. Because it was such a personal and thoughtful and very specifically meant gesture and gift, that I would feel guilty disclosing what it is because, if you forgive me, it would infringe on the intimacy of that exchange.”
Paintings by Keane, who divorced the husband who took credit for her work, are for sale at up to $15,000 each online.
Speaking of surprising windfalls, composer Danny Elfman, a longtime Burton collaborator, told us that he got one of his own after recording “The Simpsons” theme tune in 1989.
“I get paid something every time it plays,” he told us at the Fiji Water and Lexus-sponsored event, “but I get paid more for the fact I sang three syllables on it which I didn’t think about at the time, but it ended up being three very profitable syllables.”
The musician, who has worked on 16 movies with Burton, said because “Simpsons” is aired on Fox, “the royalty isn’t very high, but having sung “The Simpsons,” that ended up paying steadily for 25 years. It was an accident. I didn’t even intend to do it. I didn’t think about it.”
“That was a good move,” said Elfman. “It’s kept me and my family in health insurance for a quarter of century. For that alone.”
Meanwhile, on the subject of gold in the form of an Oscar, Burton told us he won’t be on tenterhooks the morning the nominations are announced, looking for his third nod.
“Oh yes,” he joked. “I’m up at four o’clock in the morning with a cup of hot chocolate.”