Tim Burton talks about his dread of AI as an exhibition of his work opens in London

LONDON (AP) — The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits – all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.

But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.

Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters “really disturbed me.”

“It wasn’t an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling,” Burton told reporters during a preview of “The World of Tim Burton” exhibition at London’s Design Museum. “I looked at those things and I thought, ‘Some of these are pretty good.’ … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside.”

Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because “once you can do it, people will do it.” But he scoffed when asked if he’d use the technology in this work.

“To take over the world?” he laughed.

The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.

“I wasn’t, early on, a very verbal person,” Burton said. “Drawing was a way of expressing myself.”

Decades later, after films including “Edward Scissorhands,” “Batman,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Beetlejuice,” his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.

London is the exhibition’s final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in the British capital, where Burton has lived for a quarter century.

The show includes early drawings and oddities, including a competition-winning “crush litter” sign a teenage Burton designed for Burbank garbage trucks. There’s also a recreation of Burton’s studio, down to the trays of paints and “Curse of Frankenstein” mug full of pencils.

Alongside hundreds of drawings, there are props, puppets, set designs and iconic costumes, including Johnny Depp’s “Edward Scissorhands” talons and the black latex Catwoman costume worn by Michelle Pfeiffer in “Batman.”

“We had very generous access to Tim’s archive in London, stuffed full of thousands of drawings, storyboards from stop-motion films, sketches, character notes, poems,” said exhibition curator Maria McLintock. “And how to synthesize such a wide ranging and meandering career within one exhibition was a fun challenge — but definitely a challenge.”

Seeing it has not been a wholly fun experience for Burton, who said he’s unable to look too closely at the items on display.

“It’s like seeing your dirty laundry put on the walls,” he said. “It’s quite amazing. It’s a bit overwhelming.”

Burton, whose long-awaited horror-comedy sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” opened at the Venice Film Festival in August, is currently filming the second series of Netflix’ Addams Family-themed series “Wednesday.”

These days he is a major Hollywood director whose American gothic style has spawned an adjective – “Burtoneqsue.” But he still feels like an outsider.

“Once you feel that way, it never leaves you,” he said.

“Each film I did was a struggle,” he added, noting that early films like “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” from 1985 and “Beetlejuice” in 1988 received some negative reviews. “It seems like it was a pleasant, fine, easy journey, but each one leaves its emotional scars.”

McLintock said Burton “is a deeply emotional filmmaker."

“I think that’s what drew me to his films as a child,” she said. "He really celebrates the misunderstood outcast, the benevolent monster. So it’s been quite a weird but fun experience spending so much time in his brain and his creative process.

“His films are often called dark,” she added. “I don’t agree with that. And if they are dark, there’s a very much a kind of hope in the darkness. You always want to hang out in the darkness in his films.”

“The World of Tim Burton” opens Friday and runs until April 21, 2025.

Objects and creations are on display at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

A member of staff poses at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

A member of staff poses at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

Objects and creations are on display at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

Objects and creations are on display at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

Objects and creations are on display The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

A person walks at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

A member of staff poses next to a creation part of The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

A member of staff walks through The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

People walk at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

Objects and creations ore on display at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

Objects and creations are on display at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

A member of staff poses at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

A member of staff poses at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

Objects and creations are on display at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

A reproduction of Tim Burton' studio is seen as part of The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

Creations are on display at The World of Tim Burton exhibition at the Design Museum, in London, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. The major exhibition sees Tim Burton's personal archives on display for the first time, featuring 600 items from his nearly fifty years long career. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff is warning that the Republican presidential nominee meets the definition of a fascist and that while in office, Trump suggested that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler “did some good things."

The comments from John Kelly, the retired Marine general who worked for Trump in the White House from 2017 to 2019, came in interviews published Tuesday in The New York Times and The Atlantic. They build on past warnings from former top Trump officials as the election enters its final two weeks.

Kelly has long been critical of Trump and previously accused him of calling veterans killed in combat “suckers” and “losers.” His new warnings emerged as Trump seeks a second term vowing to dramatically expand his use of the military at home and suggesting he would use force to go after Americans he considers “enemies from within.”

“He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,’” Kelly recalled to the Times. Kelly said he would usually quash the conversation by saying “nothing (Hitler) did, you could argue, was good,” but that Trump would occasionally bring up the topic again.

In his interview with the Atlantic, Kelly recalled that when Trump raised the idea of needing “German generals,” Kelly would ask if he meant “Bismarck’s generals,” referring to Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor who oversaw the unification of Germany. “Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals,” Kelly recalled asking Trump. To which the former president responded, “Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.”

Trump’s campaign denied the accounts Tuesday, with campaign spokesman Steven Cheung saying that Kelly had “beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated.”

Polls show the race is tight in swing states, and both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are crisscrossing the country making their final pitches to the sliver of undecided voters. Harris' campaign has spent considerable time reaching out to independent voters, using the support of longtime Republicans such as former Rep. Liz Cheney and comments like Kelly's to urge past Trump voters to reject his candidacy in November.

Harris’ campaign held a call with reporters Tuesday to elevate the voices of retired military officials who highlighted how many of the officials who worked with Trump now oppose his campaign.

“People that know him best are most opposed to him, his presidency,” said retired Army Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson.

Anderson said he wished Kelly would fully back Harris over Trump, something he has yet to do. But retired Army reserve Col. Kevin Carroll, a former senior counselor to Kelly, said Wednesday that the former top Trump official would “rather chew broken glass than vote for Donald Trump.”

Before serving as Trump's chief of staff, Kelly worked as the former president's secretary of homeland security, where he oversaw Trump's attempts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Kelly was also at the forefront of the Trump administration's crackdown in immigration policy that led to the separation of thousands of immigrant parents and their children along the southern border. Those actions made him a villain to many on the left, including Harris.

Kelly "was the architect of the Trump Administration’s cruel child separation policy. Now he will profit off the separation of families. It’s unethical. We are better than this,” Harris wrote in 2019 during her run for president, citing Kelly joining the board of a company operating the largest facility for unaccompanied migrant children.

In his interview with the Times, Kelly also said Trump met the definition of a fascist. After reading the definition aloud, including that fascism was “a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader,” Kelly concluded Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”

Kelly added that Trump often fumed at any attempt to constrain his power, and that “he would love to be” a dictator.

“He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government,” Kelly told the Times. Adding later, “I think he’d love to be just like he was in business — he could tell people to do things and they would do it, and not really bother too much about whether what the legalities were and whatnot.”

Kelly is not the first former top Trump administration official to cast the former president as a threat.

Retired Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Bob Woodward in his recent book “War” that Trump was “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country.” And retired Gen. Jim Mattis, who worked as secretary of defense under Trump, reportedly later told Woodward that he agreed with Milley’s assessment.

Throughout Trump's political rise, the businessman-turned-politician benefited from the support of military veterans.

AP VoteCast found that about 6 in 10 military veterans said they voted for Trump in 2020, as did just over half of those with a veteran in the household. Among voters in this year’s South Carolina Republican primary, AP VoteCast found that close to two-thirds of military veterans and people in veteran households voted for Trump over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump's toughest opponent in the 2024 Republican primary.

Associated Press Writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.

FILE - President Donald Trump listens to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, right, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Oct. 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump walks in to the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 1, 2018. Chief of Staff John Kelly is at right. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, right, leans in to talk with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, June 27, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump talks with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly after he was privately sworn in during a ceremony in the Oval Office in Washington, July 31, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)