The
Johnny Depp Zone
Interview
Archive
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Johnny
Be Good
by
Will Lawrence
Photograph by Jerome De Perlinghi
Empire Magazine
November 2004
He
be very, very good. EMPIRE
has always loved Johnny Depp, but as he
searches for childhood innocence in this month’s Finding
Neverland, we
discover his new-found popularity is eclipsed only by his immeasurable
cool . .
.
Hollywood kingpin Harvey Weinstein looks around the table.
To his left are a
pair of publicists, their
shirts as crisp as their smiles. Opposite
is Johnny Depp, looking cooler than a penguins’ picnic, clad
in ripped blue
jeans, any number of pendants, and a white shirt so crisp it
could have
been
ironed by a publicist.
To
Weinstein's right sits EMPIRE,
dressed in a battered blue T-shirt emblazoned with a Porn Star logo. 
We
are,
putting it mildly, uncrispy. As
Weinstein surveys the disparity of sartorial sophistication before him
(and EMPIRE wonders whether
some sort of
shirt might have been in order), he suddenly turns the table's
attention to its
least distinguished guest. “Tell
them
what you told me earlier,” he says, giving EMPIRE
a gentle nudge with his elbow. Reluctant
to refuse a request from the head of
Miramax Films, we clear our throat and unravel a rather thin yarn . . .
When
Miramax’s most recent movie, Finding Neverland,
was previewed, a large
portion of the assembled press was male. Even
so, with Depp, Kate Winslet and a gaggle
of children led by the feisty Freddie Highmore wringing every drop of
emotion
out of a highly charged script, many of the boys in the audience, well,
they
cried like girls. And
with the male
psyche rarely acquiescing to public outbursts of sensitivity, by the
time the
lights had come up, most of those boys had donned their sunglasses.
Direct glances were,
subsequently, kept to a
minimum, and those without shades all seemed to develop some kind of
irritation
around the eyes that required immediate attention . . .
“That's
wonderful,” booms Weinstein as the story fizzles out. “I
cried
too.” The
two publicists, perfect paradigms of
professional charm and courtesy, also smile (whether they are being
polite or
are genuinely amused by our first-base social commentary, we are
genuinely
grateful), adding that they too were deeply moved by the movie. Johnny
Depp, however,
peeping out from behind
blue-tinted shades, has a different verdict.
“That's
cool,” he says softly, gesturing to EMPIRE’s
T-shirt. “Porn
Star. I like that.”
It
is noon
on a September day in Venice when EMPIRE discovers
that Johnny Depp likes our
T-shirt. Maybe he
wasn't listening to
the over-ebullient effusions about his performance as PETER PAN author
J. M.
Barrie (we could hardly blame him), or perhaps he sensed EMPIRE's
embarrassment at relating so
incredibly feeble a tale to such august Hollywood
alumni and tactfully changed focus. Whatever,
his off-kilter response has only reinforced our prejudice: Johnny Depp
is the coolest
actor in the world.
As
Weinstein and the publicists melt away, talk first turns to Porn Star. EMPIRE wishes it were a job
description rather than a fashion label; 
Depp
wishes he had some coffee
and
calls over a waiter.
“That's
very clever,” he beams as the waiter places a cup of coffee
in between EMPIRE's two tape
recorders. (The
coffee delivery was impeccable, but we're unsure why it's so clever.)
“Having two of
them,” he continues, prodding a
digit at the nearest Dictaphone. (Oh, right, yes, a back-up machine,
that is
quite clever.) “But
you know what that means?
Soon it'll be four, then five,” his voice quickens,
“then six, until you're
surrounded by these things. You'll
have
them strapped to your chest . . .” He
does an impression of a man infested with small tape machines. It seems
pretty good; we may
have witnessed,
in the fine form of Johnny Depp, an acting first. It
not, we've certainly witnessed the world's
First Actor on very fine form. In
Venice
to promote Finding
Neverland, Depp is tackling his PR duties with all the
youthful verve and
sprightliness of J.M. Barrie himself.
Playing
the Scottish playwright in Finding Neverland,
an
adaptation of Allan Knee's stage play The
Man Who Was Peter Pan (itself an imaginary series of meetings
and
conversations between Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies kids, the
inspiration for
the Lost Boys), 
Depp
is immersed in Barrie's ceaseless search for the
virtue
and wonder of childhood innocence, forever reaching beyond the dour
constraints
of everyday existence. Barrie
is indeed the real Peter Pan, The Boy
Who Would Not Grow Up. And who better to step into those enchanted
shoes . . .
“Of
course,” smiles Depp, “the notion is beautiful; the
idea of staying a boy or a
child forever. But I think you really can. I've
known plenty of people in their later
years that were like little kids, had the energy of little children,
the
curiosity and fascination. I
think we
can keep that. It's
important we keep
that.” This
fascination with a playful
purity of heart has been the guiding light throughout Depp's career,
drawing
him towards characters that, while masquerading as the macabre, lurking
behind
masks, make-up, bald spots and scissorhands, are invariably defined by
their
innocence.
“That's
true,” he says quietly, dropping a pinch of Bali Shag into a
chocolate
cigarette paper. “Innocence
and purity
are definitely themes that I've plodded about in over the years.
They're themes I'm
fascinated with, because
for me, growing up in America
in the '50s and just into the '60s, there was still some kind of
innocence. There
was hope. People equate the day Kennedy
was assassinated with the end of innocence and transition to this very
strange
and very dark . . .” His
voice trails
off as he lights his cigarette.
“I'm
interested in innocence and purity because they're things we don't
really have
in the world anymore,” he continues. “With
Neverland, well, when I was a kid, I
had all the same fascination with Peter Pan as other kids. The first
thing I saw was
the Disney animated
feature, which I loved. But
I didn't
love it in the way I loved Tod Browning's Dracula,
or Frankenstein. 
That's
the stuff
that killed me. But
later in life,
reading the book and the play and doing research on J.M. Barrie, it
went to
another level. He
was a very complicated
figure with a very dark past.”
Complicated
figures dominate Depp's rather dark cellulloid CV, with almost all of
his
fragile, tender-hearted protagonists sheathed in a morbid, mysterious
or just
plain screwball veneer. Look
at Wade
“Cry-Baby” Walker, Bill Blake, Edward D. Wood, Jr.,
Constable Ichabod Crane or
Raoul Duke . . . With
J.M. Barrie,
however, the character's murkier depths bubble away beneath the
surface,
disguised by the film's joyful celebration of his rampant imagination.
Director Marc Forster
interweaves Barrie's
life with that
of the Llewelyn Davies family, with the sole purpose of creating the
tapestry
on which Pan was brought to life. And
while he hints at the whirlwind of gossip whipped up by the
playwright's
relationship with Winslet's Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, his friendship with
the
boys is presented as nothing but pure. In
the cynical 20th century, however, it was regarded with pure suspicion.
Today, the film
could feature in the case for
Michael Jackson's defence.
“Yeah,
maybe,” Depp chuckles. “But with Barrie,
a lot of the criticism is unjust; it goes back to what Marlon Brando
used to
say: ‘Were you there? No, you weren't.’ Those kids were
interviewed
later in life and
said in no uncertain terms that there was no molestation, no
fiddle-faddle; Barrie
was just a great
man. He loved those
kids and they loved
him. That's what it boils down to.”
“We
all change, except a little something is us which is no larger
than a mote in the eye, and that, like it, dances in front of us,
beguiling us
all our days."
As
EMPIRE first arrives at
Venice's
opulent Hotel Cipriani to wait for Johnny Depp, we flick through
Barrie's
To The Five, a dedication to the
Llewelyn Davies family that prefaces our edition of Pan,
congratulating ourselves on the discovery of the above
passage. 
EMPIRE will no doubt be able to see
the mote in Depp's eye (we've
yet to discover that he's wearing shades, blue-tinted or otherwise),
that
suggestion of the jocular japer who's accompanied Depp throughout his
career,
trying to get him fired from his first big TV gig, on 21
Jump Street, and still alive years later, parading around the
set of Once Upon a
Time In Mexico in a false moustache, occasionally barking at
dogs. Oh yes, the impish innocent is always fizzing away . . .
“Hi,
my
name's Harvey Weinstein.” EMPIRE's
reverie is broken by a surprise, sizeable and very welcome visitor.
“Neverland's
screening last night,” he says as he crushes our fragile
fingers in his
vice-like grasp, “it didn't finish until 2am (prompting
Weinstein to state
publicly that the Venice Film Festival organizer might soon be swimming
in the
lagoon wearing concrete shoes). But
Johnny was talking to every kid he could, and did it with his back to
the
cameras. He doesn't care if the press is there. And
I'm not just saying that because Johnny's
my friend.” Weinstein
then names someone
who is not his friend. His
point,
however, is clear: Johnny Depp does what he does for personal reasons.
“Johnny
can smell bullshit ten miles away,” he notes. “The same
guys who years ago were saying he's
box office poison, now
they're kissing his butt.”
The
41-year-old rock-movie-star has long played on the heartstrings of the
world's
waifs and strays--he is the patron saint of the lost and lonely,
cinema's very
own St. Jude--yet now everybody loves Johnny Depp. The
butt-kissers adore him
because of Captain
Jack Sparrow, that dandified guide to box office gold, but really they
owe
their adulation to J.M. Barrie (who might yet prove Depp's guide to Oscar gold). For
without Barrie, Sparrow may not have been
so riotously rambunctious, the most quixotic quipster to hit pirate
land since
a certain Captain Hook. 
Finding
Neverland was shot before Pirates of the Caribbean,
its release
delayed so it wouldn't clash with P.J. Hogan's disappointing 2003
interpretation of Pan . . .
“In
coming off Neverland and going into Pirates,”
explains Depp, “well,
there was a controlled quality to Barrie,
so stepping out of those shoes and into the boots of Jack Sparrow was
like
being shot out of a cannon. It
was very
freeing, and that had an impact on how I approached Jack. Also, it was
a happy time
for me--having two
kiddies gives me endless amounts of pure joy. I
was genuinely moved by the success of Pirates.”
And,
presumably, by the Oscar buzz around Neverland? “Sure, I
find it
touching, honestly, but
awards are not as important to me as when I meet a ten-year-old kid who
says,
‘I love Captain Jack Sparrow.’ They
were
really affected by this character and took something away with
them--that kid
will have the memory in his head for a long time. That's real magic for
me.”
And
that magic is set to continue, with Depp again taking flight as the
sozzled
Sparrow in the Pirates sequel, due in 2006. “Jack's
well-established,” he continues, “so
now it's a case of showing more of where he came from, and there are a
couple
of things that might be fun to do, but I'm not going to tell you what
they
are.” He
laughs, his eyes twinkling
behind his sunglasses. “Maybe
I can get
it like last time, when a few of the Disney executives were less than
happy
with what was going on. Their
unhappiness
with what I was doing first time round just fuelled me. It made me feel
good:
‘If they don't like it,
it must be good.’”
As
a perennial picador, that motto lies close to Depp’s heart,
and it
crystallizes the philosophy propounded by his next on-screen
incarnation, the
syphilis-ridden John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, in John
Malkovich's pet
project The Libertine, which opens shortly after Neverland.
As
the film begins,
the world's most popular
actor makes the following entrance: “Allow me to be frank at
the commencement.
You will not like me.”
“That
opening monologue is like a challenge,” beams Depp. “Wilmot
is
misunderstood in British
literature, written off as a debauched psychotic, guzzling spirits and
dry-humping the universe. Actually,
he
was hypersensitive, a man who at the time of the Restoration was
medicating
himself, trying to divorce himself from his emotions. But more than
anything,
he had no tolerance for bullshit. He
was
able to tell King Charles II, ‘Fuck you, you're an
asshole.’ He
medicated himself to death; dead of drink
and syphilis by the time he was 32. I
loved him.” With
Depp wearing the Earl's
puffed blouses and heavy insouciance so wryly, well, balls to
Wilmot’s
challenge: we’re sure to like him. And,
as a misunderstood man with no tolerance for bullshit, Depp was sure to
like
him, too.
Listening
to Depp enthuse about exploring Wilmot’s mangled
reputation--and for scaring
the upper echelons of Mickey's magic castle--EMPIRE
fancies that just perhaps it has found that mote in his
eye, that bright spark still gleaming even during the most contented
time of
his life.
Johnny
Depp wipes something from his eye and asks for a little
water
in his coffee. His
neck is
festooned with necklaces and amulets. A
chain carrying a replica of Che Guevara's iconic visage nestles next to
a
pendant engraved with the name of his daughter, Lily-Rose (his son's
name,
Jack, is tattooed on his right arm), while above them both is a charm
of
Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu god of wisdom and success. It is, EMPIRE
notes, an appropriate image.
“I'm
interested in all religion,” he counters. “When
I grew up my uncle was a Baptist
minister, a ‘Hallelujah
praise God’ guy.
I was exposed to
that and didn't quite
buy into it. Not so
much the belief in
something, more my uncle; it was like he went into character to become
the
preacher, and even as a kid I thought, ‘There's something
funny here.’ 
We
over-complicate things, if you get down to
the real base needs of a human being. We
don't wake up every morning and go, ‘Thank God, another
day.’ Yet every time we
take in a breath, it's a gift.”
Living
with girlfriend Vanessa Paradis, and their two children, breathing the
rarefied
air of southern France, has gifted Depp the opportunity to settle and
ponder
the more important elements of his life (the pendants round his neck
seem to represent
them all), and he emanates a quiet satisfaction. After
a vagabond’s upbringing, being dragged
from town to town for his first 16 years, followed by an uneasy
existence under
the glare of the Hollywood
spotlight, he
finally feels at home.
A
typical day for Depp, a rock ‘n’ roll
representation of Gallic gentry, might
involve a spot of reading, a little painting, a glass of wine with the
locals
and an evening with his family; a very restrained lifestyle, yet one
that is
starting to inform his work. Where
once
Depp’s motivation for a part was primarily the director
(Roman Polanski's The
Ninth Gate, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, to
name two) or a script that
yearns after innocence (take your pick), now he has other concerns.
“It's
not like I’m going after any particular audience,”
he says, “but Finding Neverland
was great because
it was much more accessible to
my kids than, say, Fear and Loathing. And the same
with Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory--I want my children to see Daddy's
work.”
With
Daddy
currently working alongside the master of the magical, Tim Burton, on a
non-musical version of Roald Dahl's great classic, due in cinemas next
year,
they won't be disappointed. “Tim's
version
stays truer to the book,” he smiles. “It's
darker.”
As
with
the likes of Dead Man, Ed Wood
and even Pirates, Depp
tucked into The Chocolate Factory without even
sampling the basic ingredients,
like a script (an idea from Tim Burton is always a golden ticket). 
Yet,
with Freddie Highmore--Neverland's
chief Lost Boy, Peter Llewelyn Davies--bringing his unique, almost
ethereal
qualities to the character of Charlie, the film promises to be rich in
charm
and mystery, another of Burton's
shape-shifting dances amid light and dark, with Depp’s wily
Wonka drifting in
and out of the shadows.
“In
The
Chocolate Factory, Freddie brings a real sense of the
otherworldly,” says
Depp. “He's a pure being, and that same innocence comes
through in Neverland.
What I love about
him is he's much more
interested in playing football. He
figures he’ll act for a few years and then go and play
football.” Depp
smiles. “Freddie
really doesn't think in terms of the
long haul; that's impressive, I can empathize with that.”
A
41-year-old empathizing with a 12-year-old? Like
James Barrie, Johnny Depp, happy and at
ease, really is The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up.
Hollywood's
Favourite Rock
Star
A
few career highlights in the rock 'n' roll life of Mr. Johnny Depp
By
Will Lawrence
The
Kids
(1979)
By 16, Depp was playing with The Kids, who opened for the likes of the
B-52s
and Iggy Pop. While
they mainly played
covers, Depp describes their own material as “U2 mixed with
the Sex Pistols.”
Rock
City
Angels
(1990)
After finishing Platoon and before
joining TV show
Tom
Petty
(1991)
Depp starred alongside Faye Dunaway in southern rocker Tom Petty's Into the Great Wide
Open video. Note: It doesn't sound like the Sex Pistols mixed
with anything.
Shane
MacGowan
(1994)
The Irish rover invited Depp to play guitar on stage when he appeared
on
British TV.
P
(1995)
Depp's four-piece, with him on guitar, released a disc in '95. Red Hot
Chili
Peppers' Flea was on bass and the Pistols' Steve Jones shared guitar
duties.
Oasis
(1997)
Depp played slide guitar on Oasis' Be
Here Now album, on Fade In-Out.
The Warchild version of Fade Away
on
the Help album (September 1995) had
Noel Gallagher on vocals and Depp on guitar.
Once
Upon a Time In Mexico
(2003)
He wrote his own theme for Agent Sands. OST Track 9!
Ozzy wants Depp to play him in an upcoming biopic. He's done a soft Scottish brogue for Neverland - is a bollocksed Brummie next?