Johnny Depp: The Playboy Interviews (50 Years of the Playboy Interview) (6 page)

Depp:
There was this vicious woman, a teacher. If you weren’t in her little handpicked clique, you were ridiculed and picked on. She was brutal and unjust. One day she told me to do something, I can’t remember what. Her tone was nasty. She got very loud in my face in front of the rest of the class and tried to embarrass me. I saw what she was doing, that she was trying to ridicule me. I turned around and walked away. As I did, I dropped my drawers and mooned her.

Playboy:
How did she react?

Depp:
She went out of her mind. Then of course I was brought before the dean and suspended for a couple of weeks. At that time it was coming anyway. I knew my days were numbered.

Playboy:
What in school interested you?

Depp:
I was more interested in music than anything else. Music was like life. I had found a reason to live. I was 12 when my mom bought me a $25 electric guitar. I had an uncle who was a preacher, and his family had a gospel singing group. He played guitar in church, and I used to watch him. I became obsessed with the guitar. I locked myself in my bedroom for the better part of a year and taught myself chords. I’d try to learn things off records.

Playboy:
Which records?

Depp:
I was very lucky to have my brother, who is 10 years older than me and a real smart guy. He turned me on to Van Morrison and Bob Dylan. I remember listening to the soundtracks to
A Clockwork Orange
and
Last Tango in Paris
. I loved Aerosmith, Kiss and Alice Cooper, and when I was older, the Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Ramones.

Playboy:
Why didn’t your music career pan out?

Depp:
At a certain point I realized that, in terms of a job, maybe I didn’t have the passion for it.

Playboy:
What effect did your parents’ divorce have on you?

Depp:
I was 15, I think. It had been coming for quite a long time. I’m surprised they lasted that long, bless their hearts. I think they tried to keep it together for the kids, and then they couldn’t anymore.

Playboy:
How were they as parents?

Depp:
They were good parents. They raised four kids. I was the youngest. They stuck it out for us all those years. But we lived in a small house, and nobody argued in a whisper. We were exposed to their violent outbursts against each other. That stuff sticks.

Playboy:
What led you to acting?

Depp:
Opportunity. I never really had an interest in it in the beginning. Nicolas Cage—we had some mutual friends—introduced me to his agent. She sent me to a casting director, and I auditioned for the first
Nightmare on Elm Street
. I got the job. I was stupefied. They paid me all that money for a week. It was luck, an accident. I did it purely to pay the rent. I was literally filling out job applications at the time, any kind of job. Nic Cage said, “You should try being an actor. Maybe you are one and don’t know it.” I began acting, and I thought, Well, this is an interesting road; maybe I should keep traveling on it. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, so I started to read everything I could about acting—Stanislavsky, Uta Hagen, Michael Chekhov. I started soaking it up.

Playboy:
Then you landed a starring role on
21 Jump Street
. How do you look back on that experience?

Depp:
It did great things for me, and I’m thankful for the experience. It was a great education, but it was very frustrating. I felt like I was filling up space between commercials.

Playboy:
Yet it was very successful and launched your career.

Depp:
Yeah. I’d been evicted from an apartment and had moved into a friend’s place. I was scrambling to pay the rent, waiting for residual checks from other things that I’d done to pay the bills. I went from that to making a bunch of money. I went from anonymity to going to a restaurant and having people point at me. It was a shock. But what really bothered me was that I could see the machine. I could see the wheels turning. I could see where it was all going, and it scared the shit out of me.

Playboy:
Where was it going?

Depp:
Fox was creating the Fox network, using
21 Jump Street
to build it. They were shoving my face out there, selling me as this product. It made me crazy. I thought, After this you’ll be in a sitcom. You’ll be on a lunch box and then a thermos and a notebook. And in two years you’ll be ridiculous. It paid good money and was a good gig, but I wanted something else.

Playboy:
What did you do to change your career?

Depp:
I waited and waited and waited to do a movie, because I wanted to do the right one. I wanted to go as far away from the series as I could. The first film I did after
Jump Street
was
Cry-Baby
with John Waters. That was a great experience. After that I did another season of the series, and then I did
Edward Scissorhands
. During that movie I got the phone call saying I was out of the show. I felt like, Ah, possibilities. I was freed up. I swore to myself that I would never again compromise to the degree that I had. I swore that I wouldn’t just follow the commercial road. I wouldn’t do what was expected of me or what was necessary to maintain whatever it is—a popular or financially rewarding career. I promised myself that I wouldn’t do that.

Playboy:
Has the success of
Pirates
changed that attitude?

Depp:
Years ago I said to myself, I’ll never do television again. No way. Nothing in the world could get me to do it. And then somewhere in the back of my mind I’m thinking that it might be cool someday to do a television series, just to be in one spot for a while. You never know what’s going to happen. One minute you’re doing one thing and people are interested, and the next minute they’re not interested. It’s just an odd game. I mean, I may want to do dinner theater. Maybe it’s not so bad. I’ve always said I might end up being forced to do McDonald’s openings dressed as Edward Scissorhands. You never know.

Playboy:
You’ve turned down roles later played by people such as Brad Pitt, including a part in
Thelma & Louise
. Was that a mistake?

Depp:
I don’t regret any of the things I didn’t do, and I certainly don’t regret any of the things I did do, down to the dumbest. Everything happened the way it should happen, even ridiculous things that I did in the beginning. I don’t regret any of it.

Playboy:
You’ve starred with some impressive actors, including Al Pacino and Marlon Brando. What did you learn from them?

Depp:
I watched them like a hawk. I sponged as much of an education as I could. Ultimately it solidified what I already knew from being a musician: Do what’s right for you. Whether you’re a musician, an actor, a painter or a writer, there’s some degree of compromise in what you do, but don’t compromise unless you think it’s right. Stick to your guns, no matter what. Don’t let them step on your toes, man.

Playboy:
And then there was Traci Lords in
Cry-Baby
. Is the former porn star a method actor?

Depp:
I remember meeting her. I could sense she was a little bit protective of herself, wary of people. She was a little closed off in the beginning, but soon she was incredibly sweet and really professional. Kind of adorable. I loved her, man. I love her to this day.

Playboy:
These days how do you choose which movies to do?

Depp:
I can tell in the first 10, 15 or 20 pages of a script, sometimes in the first three pages. I can tell if it’s something that’s going to be right. I start getting images in my head, then I start writing things down.

Playboy:
What are you looking for?

Depp:
I just want something different. I want to be surprised. I want something that doesn’t feel formulaic or beaten to death. For
Secret Window
, I read the script, and I loved it. The ending is great. I didn’t see it coming. It’s based on a Stephen King novella. It’s extremely well written. Even the screen direction is entertaining: “Looks left, looks right, walks to the fridge, grabs a Cheeto and splits.” The story has a great twist.

Playboy:
Is it true that you based your
Pirates of the Caribbean
character, Captain Jack, on Keith Richards?

Depp:
And Pepe Le Pew.

Playboy:
The cartoon?

Depp:
Yeah. When I was a kid Pepe was one of those great Saturday morning cartoons. Pepe is a French skunk who hops along, the most happy-go-lucky guy in the world. As he’s hopping along, people are falling over from the stink, but he never notices. I always thought, What an amazing way to go through life.

Playboy:
And why Keith Richards?

Depp:
When I decided to do the movie I started thinking about pirates of the 17th and 18th centuries. It came to me that the modern-day equivalent is a rock-and-roll star.

Playboy:
How are they like pirates?

Depp:
They live dangerously. They’re wild and capable of anything, just like pirates. And once I made that connection, I thought, Who is the ultimate rock-and-roll star? Keith Richards.

Playboy:
Do you know Richards?

Depp:
I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with him over the years, and yes, I have gotten to know him. And he is kind of a pirate. For the movie, I didn’t want to do an imitation of Keith, but I wanted to take the spirit of Keith, the beautiful, laid-back confidence.

Playboy:
Since when do pirates wear all the makeup your character wears?

Depp:
Actually, for a while Keith did. Bob Dylan did too in the 1970s. He went through a period when he wore dark kohl eyeliner. I looked into the kohl thing. It comes from the nomad tribes in the desert in Africa. It’s protection for the eyes from the sun. Football players use it for that today. And I took other stuff from Keith, too—things dangling in his hair, the beads.

Playboy:
Richards isn’t your only influence. Apparently you based Ichabod Crane in
Sleepy Hollow
on Angela Lansbury, and Ed Wood on Ronald Reagan. They seem a strange sampling of choices.

Depp:
Well, Angela Lansbury is an amazing actress. I thought of Ichabod Crane as a very nervous, ultrasensitive prepubescent girl. That’s where Angela Lansbury came in. I thought of some of the work she’s done over the years, especially in
Death on the Nile
. I also based Ichabod a bit on Roddy McDowall, who was a very good friend.

Playboy:
And President Reagan?

Depp:
Ed Wood was based on Reagan, yes, but also on the Tin Man in
The Wizard of Oz
. And Casey Kasem. It was a weird little soup of those three.

Playboy:
Why those three?

Depp:
I remember watching Reagan make speeches. He had this kind of innocence and a naive, blind optimism—“Everything’s going to be fine.” You’re like, “Well, it’s not! It’s not going to be fine.” Jack Haley’s performance as the Tin Man in
The Wizard of Oz
is one of the strangest I’ve ever seen. Watch that film and think about a grown man giving that performance. It’s really astounding.

Playboy:
What about Casey Kasem?

Depp:
[
Doing a Kasem impression
] What I always liked about Casey was that he had a delivery that was so upbeat.

Playboy:
Are you the only actor who uses such weird inspirations?

Depp:
I don’t know. Something happens to me when I’m reading a screenplay. I get these flashes, these quick images.

Playboy:
You received some unfavorable press last year during the war in Iraq. You said that America is like a dumb puppy that can bite and hurt you. Were you surprised by the reaction?

Depp:
I would never be disrespectful to my country, to the people, especially the kids who are over there serving in the armed forces. My uncle was wounded in Vietnam, paralyzed from the neck down. I would never say those things the way they claim I said them.

Playboy:
What exactly did you say?

Depp:
I essentially said the United States is a very young country compared with Europe. We’re still growing. That’s it. I wouldn’t say anything anti-American. I’m an American, and I love my country.

Playboy:
What’s your view of President Bush?

Depp:
What can I say? He’s somebody’s kid. He’s somebody’s father. God bless him. Good luck. You know what I mean? I don’t agree with his politics, and I’m not going to pretend to, but I don’t agree with a lot of people’s politics.

Playboy:
You’ve had other public troubles, including the time you trashed a hotel room with Kate Moss. What happened?

Depp:
Very simply, I had a bad day. I’d been chased by paparazzi and was feeling a little bit like Novelty Boy. Obviously something wasn’t working in my life. For a few years I wasn’t angry but just sort of frustrated and upset because I didn’t know what it was all about.

Playboy:
What do you mean?

Depp:
I didn’t know what it was all for. When they said, “Come on, do this movie. You can make tons of money,” it just pissed me off. Fuck that. What does that mean? That’s not what it’s about. So it built up, and I lost it. It was the culmination of many things, a bad spark, and I went off. I did what I felt was necessary. Thank God it wasn’t a human being but a hotel room that I took it out on. It was a weird incident. There was a hotel security guard who was really kind of pissy and arrogant. I wanted to pop him. But I knew that if I did, it would obviously be a horse of a different color—lawsuits and God knows what else.

Playboy:
What happened exactly?

Depp:
I did my business, and they came up to the room. By that point I had cooled down. I said, “I’ll of course pay for any damages. I apologize.” That wasn’t enough. The guy got snooty and shitty. The next thing you know, the police were at the door. As dumb as the incident was, I don’t have any regrets about it. I don’t think it merited the amount of press it got, and I certainly don’t think that I needed to go to the Tombs in New York City in handcuffs. I was in three different jails that night. But it was all part of my education, you know?

Playboy:
You had another run-in with the police, in London, this time directly related to a clash with paparazzi.