Johnny Depp: A Man Apart

"Working with Tim is always great. But I'll tell you something--on Sleepy Hollow, I was 100 percent convinced that I was gonna get fired within the first three weeks. I thought there was no way they were going to let me play the character that way. Tim's been very supportive of my stratospheric leaps at times, these kind of weird things I do, but I didn't think the studio would go for it. Luckily, Scott Rudin was there."

"Yeah, your take on Ichabod Crane--as a forensic scientist with a weak stomach--was certainly different."

"You know what it is with me?" asks Depp, leaning closer. "I'm going to tell you the truth--I never read stage direction when I read a script. I only read the dialogue. That's all that matters to me. I don't give a shit where the writer wants me to stand or any of that other stuff. I need a film to be a very collaborative process. When we start to shoot a movie, I need everyone to want to hear my input. I think it works better that way. And with Tim, he feels the same, so I never have a problem with him. Well, I wouldn't say never, but hardly."

"What about Lasse Hallstrom?"

"You know, I never saw Gilbert Grape."

"Get outta here."

"No, really. I was 30 when I made that film. And it was a hard year, although now I'm thinking that they're all hard in some way. It was a rough, rough period for me, personally and emotionally. And when Lasse came to me with the idea of doing Chocolat, I was very surprised. We had a good experience on Gilbert Grape but it was also difficult. I was surprised that he'd want to go through something with me again, thinking that I was some kind of moody, brooding, horrible shithead."

"Are you moody?"

Depp nods. "Yeah, I am. Sometimes I think it's necessary for actors. But I was so happy to work with him again, to redeem myself perhaps, because he's a very magical guy. And I wanted to work with Juliette [Binoche]."

"When I interviewed Juliette, she had just won the Oscar for The English Patient..."

"Oh, she won for that?" asks Depp. "I never saw The English Patient, but I saw The Lovers on the Bridge, which I just loved."

"She told me that one of the greatest things was that when she won and was in L.A. for three weeks afterwards, she felt like the Queen of the World. Then she went back to Paris, and nobody mentioned it to her again! Didn't you win a Cesar [a French Oscar] recently?"

Depp makes a sound somewhere between a moan and a sigh. "That was a weird little deal. I was really taken aback by that. It was like the kind of thing you get just before you die, like a lifetime achievement award. I mean, I felt like maybe there's somebody somewhere who knows something that I don't, like they give me this award, and then tomorrow, wham, it's over. But I was really touched, because I'm not big on awards. I mean, I get the concept of awards, but the whole competitive nature of that kind of thing is too bizarre. And this felt like I was supposed to accept my award and then have a stroke and be gone."

"You've gotten a couple of Golden Globe nominations, though," I point out. "For Edward Scissorhands, Benny & Joon and Ed Wood."

"Yeah, now those are a bunch of people who know how to have fun. The Hollywood Foreign Press, I just love them. It's like being on someone's porch, like a weird family reunion, and they're all fighting and bickering. It's so real and crazy. They have a real sense of humor."

"And you get to drink at the Golden Globes, too, right?"

"Yes, you can drink, and I think the first time I went you could actually smoke there, too. It was heaven."

"Have you ever wanted to play a regular guy?" I have to ask.

Depp thinks this over for a long, long time. "You mean like, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl again?" he finally asks.

I nod.

"There are other people who are out there doing it, and they're doing it well. Why should I? I don't know that I'd be particularly good at it. I'd be probably bored to tears if I had to do that kind of stuff. I'd just go crazy."

"Let's talk about your new films."

"What are they?" asks Depp, as if he is honestly curious about what movies he might have made.

"From Hell," I begin.

Now Depp's animated again. "The Hughes brothers, what a trip they are. Did you see American Pimp? My God! From Hell is based on a Jack the Ripper comic, and the script is amazing. Shooting it was a lot of fun, although we were in Prague, which was very lonely for me. I play an inspector on the Jack the Ripper case. The Hughes brothers are incredible because they know everything--they study so hard and they know every angle, every theory. Anything those guys do, I'd do with them again."

Depp lights a cigarette. "What else do I have coming out?"

"Blow," I remind him.

"Ah, this is a wild one. Ted Demme directed, and he's hilarious."

"Yeah, The Ref's up there in my top 10."

It's hard to tell from Depp's reaction whether he's ever seen it. "He was great to work with because he was really open to any idea; you could just do anything you wanted to try. It's a true story about this guy who was basically the first gringo to get involved with Pablo Escobar and the Colombian cartels. Ray Liotta plays my dad, Rachel Griffiths plays my mom, and Penelope Cruz plays my girlfriend. This guy, he brought cocaine en masse to the United States, and saturated the marketplace with cocaine. He made between $300 and $600 million. And he got busted and now the money's gone."

"Ah, a little morality play."

Depp actually looks hurt. "I hope not," he says earnestly.

"What about Before Night Falls, which came out last year?" I ask.

"That was Julian Schnabel's movie. I've known him on and off over the years. He's a great guy. Kind of odd, because he's always talking about his work and about himself, but he's really charming and funny and smart, and that was a nice surprise. He called me up and asked me if I'd play this character Bon Bon, a transvestite. And I don't mean just a little bra under your T-shirt. This guy was like Sophia Loren."

"Do you have a lot more sympathy for women now?"

"Honey," says Depp with a grin, "after I did Ed Wood I had newfound sympathy. Bras and girdles and what do you call them--garter belts?--and hose. You can't breathe, man. That's work. And then you gotta go out and walk in it. And try to be graceful. Men have no idea."

"How about The Man Who Cried?"

"Sally Potter, who did Orlando, directed and she is a really interesting, sharp, bright, deeply caring woman. The story is about when the Nazis started moving into Paris, and what the Jews and the Gypsies had to go through during the occupation. I play a Gypsy, and man, did those guys get fucked. Nobody ever talks about it, so I thought it was a great opportunity to get that information out there a little more. The Gypsy thing was a strange parallel to the Native Americans in the mid-1800s, that sort of reign of terror, like Andrew Jackson and those dickheads. The Gypsies, they've been hated for thousands of years. They were accused of being the only people who would build the nails that put Christ on the cross. I mean, the stories run so deep. Hitler didn't even want to put them in the work camps--he specifically said that they should be killed. But [Nazi doctor Josef] Mengele wanted the Gypsies to experiment on. He tried to change the color of their eyes."

Depp is literally rocking in his chair, he's so upset. A little more coffee and a few more cigarettes, though, and he's back to his normal, abnormal self. But by that time, I have to leave.

When I get up to go, Depp comes over and gives me a kiss, and then puts his hand out to shake. As I put my palm in his, he slips me his Zippo.

"No," I protest, "you really don't have to do that."

Depp beams. "If I had to," he says, "I wouldn't."

Ain't that the truth?

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Martha Frankel interviewed Goran Visnjic for the February issue of Movieline.

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