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The Sexiest Man Alive

by Lisa Russell
People Magazine
December 1, 2003

He refuses to play up his leading man looks, but that’s only partly why Johnny Depp is this year’s choice.

THE SEXIEST MAN ALIVE . . . Johnny Depp

Hollywood’s quirky charmer balances stardom with the family that gave him ‘a reason to learn, a reason to breathe, a reason to care.’

There he was in Disneyland last summer, strolling through the park with his girlfriend and their two children. They were any family: the 4-year-old girl with her face buried in a cloud of cotton candy, the 20-month-old boy asleep in a stroller. But onlookers who caught a glimpse of the drop-dead features beneath the slouchy hat and dark glasses probably did a double take. The family guy was Johnny Depp, out introducing his kids to Pirates of the Caribbean, the theme-park ride that inspired the year’s biggest non-animated blockbuster and catapulted his art-house career into the bright, shiny mainstream. After spending a lifetime rebelling against the Man, Depp has been tamed, at 40, by the Mouse.

Say hello to the new Johnny Depp, this year’s Sexiest Man Alive. Once infamous for his brooding eccentricities, he has mellowed. Prior to parenthood, “I just wasted a whole bunch of time,” he declared recently. And because he arrived at his new, happy place without selling out, without becoming slick or packaged or politically correct, he is a hero to his fans and an idol to his young costars. “Lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely,” says Keira Knightley, his castmate in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. “He’s very cool. He’s a gorgeous guy. Eye candy.”

Settled in a medieval-style house in L.A. and a second home on the French Riviera with his girlfriend of five years, French actress and pop singer Vanessa Paradis, 30, and a little Lily-Rose and Jack, Depp remains a man of contradictions. “He’s a real trash-food guy, he likes Big Macs—but he also knows a good bottle of wine,” says his longtime friend, director Jim Jarmusch, who adds that this A-list movie star “gravitates to outsiders and people that are down-and-out.” And of course, Depp is famous for being the best-looking actor to hide under layers of hats and blankets in his private life and behind oddball characters in his films.

But he is finally coming to terms with his own charisma—the kind of rocket-force magnetism that once inspired someone to approach Columbia Pictures exec Amy Pascal and confess, “All I want to be is Johnny Depp’s pants.” Depp “is more comfortable about being a leading man,” says Lasse Hallstrom, who directed him in 1993’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and 2000’s Chocolat. Pirates costar Orlando Bloom concurs: “You get the feeling Johnny has been through the sausage machine of Hollywood and come out the other side still standing.”

Hardly news to the many who have long considered the sloe-eyed iconoclast the hottest thing to never quite catch commercial fire. “He’s a little dangerous, he has a secret, he has great warmth—all those things you can see in his eyes,” says Hallstrom. “That’s the key to his appeal.”

“He’s always been a bit of a rebel and done whatever he wants to. That’s very sexy.” notes Christina Ricci, who found out while making 1999’s Sleepy Hollow. “I’m sure he’s even going to be sexy as Willy Wonka.” Tim Burton, slated to direct that remake next year, calls Depp “a mixture of everything, which is what life is all about what’s important and what isn’t.”

He didn’t always have that awareness. His life at times seemed destined to end as badly as that of his buddy River Phoenix, whom Depp watched die of a drug overdose outside the Viper Room, the L.A. club he still co-owns. “I was doing a pretty good job of destroying myself,” Depp told Details. “It was just ignorance.”

Enter Paradis, already a pop star in her native France when she met Depp in 1994. When they reconnected four years later, Depp never looked back. Daughter Lily-Rose arrived in 1999, son Jack in 2002. Their births, he said, “gave me everything. A reason to live. A reason to not be a dumbass. A reason to learn, a reason to breathe, a reason to care.”

They are also the reason he rarely ventures far from his family life, which he is living very much on his own terms. When in France, he frequently ventures into the village of Plan de la Tour for a late-afternoon glass of wine or a game of petanque with the locals. As for Man Ray, the nightspot he co-owns in Paris, “I haven’t seen him in here in six months,” says partner Thierry Klemeniuk. “Vanessa and the kids are his reality now.”

But Ward Cleaver, thankfully, he is not. Sure, he plays Barbies with Lily-Rose and races Hot Wheels with Jack, but 12 tattoos (most recently his daughter’s name above his heart and his son’s on his forearm) and a endless supply of cigarettes (hand-rolled with Bali Shag tobacco) ensure that the mystique endures. “Life’s pretty good, and why wouldn’t it be?” Depp said recently, “I’m a pirate after all.”


Heeeere’s Johnny! Unhappy at his heartthrob status after playing an undercover cop on FOX’s 21 Jump Street, Depp devoted his career to playing weirdos, from 1990’s Edward Scissorhands to this year’s raffish Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates.

Deconstructing Depp—The bits and pieces add up to a true original. Around his neck Depp wears a tiger tooth, a polished stone, a Che Guevara charm and an Egyptian amulet. He sports two silver skulls and a gold Cherokee head that reflects his mom’s heritage. The leather cuff is modeled after the one he wore in Platoon. The plastic chain was made by Lily-Rose. Depp’s a repeater, and he favors well-worn clothes. For a recent premiere, he wore a vintage pinstripe suit and spectator shoes.

An American Boy . . . ‘I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it. I have benefited greatly from the freedom that exists in my country and for this I am eternally grateful’—From a statement issued by Depp in September after a German magazine printed controversial comments he had made about the U.S.

His True Love . . . Last winter Vanessa Paradis professed her lover for her significant other in a tribute in French Elle called “Johnny Depp, My Lover.” Here’s how she described their relationship: “All that I dreamed of, wanted, need. Our story is love and friendship united. I have the impression that no one could love the way we love . . . For us the important thing is our family, our couple, and our children, and when we talk about work, it’s not too much and never during a romantic dinner.”

Women of His Past Passion? That’s an understatement. The heat was on with these former flames. Sherilyn Fenn ’84 to ’88—Depp had her name inscribed on his helmet in Platoon. Jennifer Grey ’88 to ’89—The pair got engaged only two months after meeting. Winona Ryder ’89 to ’93—She inspired his famous “Winona Forever” tattoo. Kate Moss ’94 to ’98—He memorably trashed a New York City hotel room after a fight.



-- donated by DeepinDepp





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