Box Office Poison
But you have heard of me
Playing The Game
"I'm not a Blockbuster boy, I never wanted to be," Johnny Depp says. "I just don't want to look back in 30 or 40 or 50 years and have my grandkids say, "You did a lot of stupid s***, Granddad. What an idiot you were, smiling for the cameras and playing the game."
Instead of aiming at box office hits, Johnny Depp has chosen to make films that interest himself, where he can explore new sides of acting each time. He has confessed that commercial success scares him more than commercial failure. "I take my career as a game. I fear boredom and repetitiveness. I haven't the cult of my personality, as an actor I am an instrument at the movie's service. A couple of million dollars more don't change your life, don't make you happier and don't make you see things clearer." The Hollywood studio executives who count success in dollars used to call him box offic poison - until the year 2003 and "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl". A film that made him the Blockbuster Boy of the year.
Some say that he dissolves himself completely in his characters, but it seems more like he puts a Johnny Depp in each of them. "With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying."
But, isn't acting always lying? The actor is posing as someone else than he himself. "I just always hated the idea of a serious actor," he says. "I always despised that. It's an awful idea, it's an oxymoron like Republican Party or airplane food. Serious actor: What, a serious guy who lies? Who cares? Who gives a shit? The job is to observe - not imitate, but observe and understand, and then relate that message."
Peter Hedges, who was the man behind the screenplay of "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" has it nicely summed up: "He has almost a burning desire to make ugly choices. He comes with a physical beauty that's just astonishing, and at the same time he has no interest in being that. Essentially, he'll do anything to distort those great looks of his," says Hedges. "He's a character actor trapped inside a leading man's body." He hides his looks and exposes his soul.
He has been described as the most versatile and talented actor of our age, one who manages to insert a very personal twist in every character he plays. Sometimes this personal twist has been so original that it has scared the 'suits'. When the Disney top men saw Johnny as Captain Jack Sparrow for the first time, the were extremely worried. "Who is this strange character? Why is he wearing heavy make up? Why those golden teeth? What is that on his chin? " Says Johnny, "At a certain point, I said: trust me or replace me." And they decided to trust him.
Beautiful Losers
His characters are not mainstream heroes. A hero is just a hero, and the traditional leading man has limited choices to build up an interesting character. Or wear lots of odd make-up which he is fond of. "I like extreme characters and I love losers and damaged people, because they are far more sensitive."
Where did the swaggering Captain with gold teeth come from? How are the characters born? As he said, his job is to observe. Take a dog's innocent, trusting eyes, an adolescent growing up unsure of himself and his body, a black goth with straitjacket and a spiky hairdo and you get Edward Scissorhands. Put a famous rock-star, a cartoon figure and Johnny Depp in a sauna, and out comes Captain Jack. He is constantly asked what he based his characters on because reporters and interviewers know that they are going to get interesting answers.
Prosthetic Noses
In one interview he told about the character of Willy Wonka: "I wore less make-up than I wanted to, I promise you. I thought I could wear a long prosthetic nose. But as soon as Tim and I got together, one of the first things he said to me was, "You're not going to wear a prosthetic nose, right?"He tried to get the prosthetic nose for Captain Jack too, but director Gore Verbinski resolutely managed to save us from a pirate who's nose keeps falling off.
Willy Wonka and Captain Jack aren't the only characters that Johnny wanted to play with a prosthetic nose. Earlier, he had tried to get his loved fake nose on Ichabod Crane of Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow" based on Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". He was thrilled when he read the book: "When I read the script and thought back at the book, I really wanted to play the character the it was described - with a prolonged nose and big ears. I rang everyone of the crew and told them : 'We have to get the best make-up people, and prosthetics makers. Get a long nose and giant ears, and we can prolong my fingers as well.' After I said that to them, there was a long silence on the other end of the line. The bosses from Paramount weren't very enthusiastic about the way I wanted to play the part. Probably because they already found it bad enough that they had casted Johnny Depp."
One can only speculate how thrilled he was when Lawrence Dunmore cast him as the syphilis-raked debaucher Lord Rochester in 'The Libertine'...