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The
Gypsy
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Describing the experience
of working
with
Johnny Depp, Terry Gilliam, who directed Johnny in 1998’s Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas, told an
interviewer: “You don’t
want to work with anyone else once you’ve worked with
somebody as good as
that.” Elaborating, Gilliam added, “It’s
hard to put your finger on why he’s so
extraordinary [. . .] . But technically he’s astonishing,
he’s absolutely
brilliant, with the kind of technique you’d only get if
you’d spent 10 years at
RADA—and it’s all self-taught.”
The
years 1998-2000, during which Johnny Depp worked principally in Europe
and saw
seven films released, showcase his amazing versatility. Johnny is
all-but-unrecognizable in Gilliam’s Fear
and Loathing, as he channels Gonzo journalist Hunter S.
Thompson into his
portrayal of Thompson’s alter ego, Raoul Duke. Preparing for
the role, Johnny
moved into Thompson’s Colorado home to study his subject and
instead, says
Gilliam, “stole his soul;” the two Kentuckians were
to remain fast friends
until the Good Doctor’s death in 2005.
1999’s
Sleepy Hollow, a masterful blend of
the comic and the macabre, reunited Johnny with director Tim Burton.
Johnny’s
interpretation of sleuth Ichabod Crane fused the mind of Sherlock
Holmes with
the wide-eyed timidity of a pubescent girl. The result was box-office
magic:
the first $100-million blockbuster of Johnny’s career. Other
films of this
period brought their own pleasures: in The
Astronaut’s Wife (1999), Johnny displayed charming
chemistry with future
Oscar-winner Charlize Theron; his next role, as unscrupulous book
dealer Dean
Corso in the occult thriller The Ninth
Gate (1999), afforded him the opportunity to work with
legendary director
Roman Polanski. In Julian Schnabel’s Before
Night Falls (2000), Johnny portrayed both the ruthless
interrogator Lt.
Victor and the flirtatious transvestite Bon Bon, while as the
persecuted gypsy
Cesar in Sally Potter’s tragic The
Man
Who Cried (2000), Johnny worked with a brilliant ensemble
that included
Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, and three-time co-star Christina Ricci
(who also
appears in Fear and Loathing and as
Ichabod’s love interest, Katrina Van Tassel, in Sleepy
Hollow).
For
Chocolat (2000), Lasse
Hallstrom’s
delightful fantasy of French village life in the late 1950s, Johnny
accepted a
rare romantic role as the footloose Roux and lit up the screen opposite
a
radiant Juliette Binoche. This critical and fan favorite received 5
Oscar
nominations, including Best Picture, and 3 Screen Actors Guild award
nominations, including one for Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a
Motion
Picture—Johnny’s first SAG nomination.
But
acclaim for his work and screen success, however pleasant, were not,
according
to Johnny, the most significant developments in his life at this time:
the real
landmarks had nothing to do with movies. They were personal. While
filming The Ninth Gate in Paris in
1998, he fell
in love with the stunning French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis.
They
welcomed their daughter Lily-Rose Melody on May 27, 1999, and Johnny
found
himself blissfully transformed by love and fatherhood.
“I’m a walking cliché,”
he told David Eimer about his metamorphosis into doting dad.
“It’s a miracle,
it’s given me life, it’s given me clarity. I love
waking up and seeing that
little smile.”
--Part-Time
Poet
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