Johnny Depp was surprised when he was asked to be godfather to director pal Tim Burton’s son – because the quirky moviemaker couldn’t bring himself to do it himself.

Instead, Burton asked his wife Helena Bonham Carter to put the idea to the actor.

Depp was working alongside Burton on the set of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory when he received a message to call Bonham Carter urgently.

And the actor, who quickly agreed to be four-year-old Billy’s godfather, was puzzled that Burton hadn’t asked him personally.

He explains, “This is Tim Burton in a nutshell – we were doing Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and I was on the set… One of my pals comes up and says, ‘Helena just called. When you get a moment, she’d like you to give her a call back.’ So I go back to the trailer, call Helena, and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on?… Is everything all right?’ And she says, ‘Everything’s fine. But, well, you know how Tim is. He wants to know if you’d be… he’d like for you to be Billy’s godfather.’

“I say, ‘But I was just with Tim. I was with him three minutes ago. I had to leave him to walk back to the trailer to call you.’ So she called me to ask because Tim just couldn’t. That was his way of asking. I went back to the set and said, `Thank you.’ I told him that I was honored. It doesn’t get heavier than saying, `I’d like you to be the godfather of my son.’ But he’s not ever going to put himself into a corny kind of situation with a pal. He’s like, `Good, yeah, yeah.’ Boom. `Let’s get back into the work.’”

Bonham Carter gave birth to her second child with Burton on Saturday, a girl whose name is currently unknown.

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Helena Bonham Carter and her director beau Tim Burton have welcomed their second child, PEOPLE has learned exclusively.

The infant, born in London late Saturday, joins big brother Billy, who is 4.

“They are absolutely delighted they have a daughter,” the actress’s rep, Karon Maskill, tells PEOPLE. “It’s a lovely Christmas present for the family.”

Bonham Carter, 41, and Burton, 49, have had a busy time of late. Both were nominated for Golden Globe awards for Sweeney Todd – she for best actress, he for best director. In fact, they got that news while at the doctor’s office.

“We were talking about inducing, and Tim got a call from his assistant,” Bonham Carter told PEOPLE before the birth. “I do look like a globe, so it’s kind of funny. I am very round.”

She also joked that it was probably hard on the baby while in utero to listen to Mom learning how to sing for her role in the musical. “Maybe the baby’s going to come out with his hands on his ears. ‘Shut up!’ ” she laughed.

She added that the anticipation of meeting the new baby was intense. “I just can’t wait,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine we can make anything other than Billy.”

The couple revealed the pregnancy exclusively to PEOPLE in August.

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DON’T tell Helena Bonham Carter what to do with her pregnancy. Carter, who’s eight months expecting with Tim Burton’s baby, told blackbookmag.com, “People – particularly men – saying with surprise, ‘You’re still drinking caffeine?’ as if I’m performing a criminal act on my unborn as I tuck into my treasured one-a-day cup of tea/coffee. Yeah. You try nine months of gestation and self-abnegation before you start censoring my diet. Your mother was probably on vodka, and do you have three heads?”