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is to deliver something that's fresh each time,
something that's new or at least to attempt that.
The real responsibility is to entertain them,
to try and make 'em laugh.
That's really it.
Johnny Depp
is perhaps one of the most versatile actors
of his day and age in Hollywood
and has carved a legacy for himself
as a serious, well-rounded performer.
- I started out to make a film that everyone will hate,
to go out of your way to see if they'll just hate it.
I've done that before, haven't I?
- His tendency to frequently play
freakishly eccentric outcast,
whose oddities are misunderstood by society
has made him one of the world's best character actors
with iconic roles such as Captain Jack Sparrow
and Willy Wonka.
- With all the characters I've played,
they're still pretty close to the surface.
There's still each and every one relatively accessible.
- From his stranger roles like the Mad Hatter
in Alice in Wonderland to more conventional performances
like John Dillinger in Public Enemies,
Johnny Depp has managed to capture the hearts of millions,
making him a household name.
It's just so much fun to,
well, get away with things that you're not normally allowed
to get away with it.
John is a lot of fun to write
and he also helps out and contributes a lot
to the character.
He knows it so well.
He knows what the character would say.
He embellishes things so effectively.
- He is sensationally professional and talented actor.
- John, he's a legend, he .
- Johnny Depp is Hollywood's chameleon.
- I've just been very lucky over the years.
It's a miracle that people still hire me
after some of the stuff I've gotten away with.
I mean, honestly.
I lay it all down to luck.
There was no way to predict,
prior to Pirates of the Caribbean,
I was labeled,
they literally used to call me box office poison,
which I was kind of okay with.
That didn't bother me at all,
then suddenly Pirates happened.
Suddenly, Tim doesn't have to fight with studios
to get me the gig anymore,
which he had to for many years.
It just happens.
- Initially known as a teen idol
for his tortured pretty boy looks,
Johnny Depp survived the perils
of adolescent heartthrob status to earn a reputation
as a respected adult actor.
Johnny Depp was born on June 9th, 1963
in Owensboro, Kentucky,
the youngest of four children of waitress,
Betty Sue Palmer and civil engineer, John Christopher Depp.
- Johnny, what else can we expect to see you in?
- Well, it's called something else now.
I think it's called Learning to Fly.
It'll be out in September.
- The family moved frequently
during his childhood,
eventually settling in Miramar, Florida in 1970.
His parents divorced in 1978 when he was 15
and his mother later married Robert Palmer,
whom Johnny has called an inspiration.
Johnny was gifted a guitar by his mother
when he was 12 years old and began playing in various bands.
He dropped out of Miramar High School aged 16 in 1979
to become a rock musician.
He attempted to go back to school two weeks later
but the principal told him to follow his dream
of being a musician.
In 1980, he began playing guitar in a band
called The Kids.
After modest local success in Florida,
the band moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of a record deal,
changing their name to Six Gun Method.
In December 1983,
Johnny married makeup artist, Lori Anne Allison
the sister of his band's bassist and singer.
The Kids split up before signing a record deal in 1984
and Johnny subsequently began collaborating
with the band, Rock City Angels.
In the early 1980s, Johnny Depp's then wife,
Lori Anne Allison introduced him to actor, Nicholas Cage
who advised him to pursue an acting career.
His first role was in the horror film,
A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984
in which he played the boyfriend of heroine, Nancy Thompson
and one of Freddy Krueger's victims.
Johnny Depp became a teen idol during the late 1980s
when he starred as an undercover police officer
in a high school operation in the Fox television series,
21 Jump Street, which premiered in 1987.
What are you doing?
This is the way it works.
Stare him down, Hansen.
- Now the homeboy's in your face.
He don't stay here to see if you punk out.
- We can be like this for days, man.
- No, you won't 'cause after you see that you ain't no punk
and that you don't punk out, he's gon' to ask you
where you from.
- He accepted this role
to work with actor, Frederic Forrest who inspired him.
Despite his success,
he felt that the series forced him into the role of product.
He subsequently decided to appear only in films
that he felt were right for him.
After his early acting experiences,
Johnny began to prioritize roles he found more interesting
rather than those he knew would instantly succeed
at the box office.
His first film release in 1990 was Cry-Baby,
a musical comedy set in the 1950s.
Although it was not a huge box office success
upon its release,
over the years, it has gained its status as a cult classic.
1990 also saw the beginning
of Johnny Depp's infamous relationship
and collaborations with Tim Burton.
Their first collaboration saw Johnny
and Edward Scissorhands alongside Winona Ryder.
The film was a commercial and critical success
and began the long association between Johnny Depp
and Tim Burton.
Another of Johnny's memorable roles from the '90s
was in the drama, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
In which he starred alongside another upcoming actor
of the time, Leonardo DiCaprio.
In 1994, Johnny took on his second collaboration
with Tim Burton in Ed Wood, a biographical film
about one of history's most inept film directors.
Johnny has said the film gave him a chance to stretch out
and have some fun with acting again.
Ed Wood received a positive reception
with many critics noting Johnny's performance,
pointing out that he had proved himself
as an established certified actor.
He was nominated for a Golden Globe for this performance.
Johnny Depp's starred alongside Al Pacino
in the 1997 crime drama, Donnie Brasco.
To prepare for this role,
Johnny spent time with the real life Joe Pistone,
on whose memoirs the film was based.
Donnie Brasco was a commercial and critical success
and is considered one of Johnny's finest performances.
- He gave him his trust.
- You gotta get rid of that mustache
and get yourself a pair of pants.
Dress just like me.
- He loved him like a son.
- Nobody can touch you because I represent you.
Keep your nose clean, follow the rules, be a good earner
and maybe one day when they open the books,
you become a wise guy.
I'd die with you, Donnie.
- But he never knew the truth.
- There's a war going on in that mafia family
and that is where Joe is undercover.
Donnie, come here.
- The end of the 1990s
saw Johnny take on further memorable roles in the film,
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as well as another collaboration with Tim Burton
for the period film, Sleepy Hollow.
Critics have described the characters he plays
as iconic loners.
Johnny's ability to embody all of the different characters
he plays makes for a spectacular show on screen,
improves his diversity as an actor.
Johnny Depp began a relationship with French actress
and singer, Vanessa Paradis,
whom he met while filming The Ninth Gate in France in 1998.
- Have you ever seen someone across the room
and had that feeling of true love at first site?
- Yeah, we've been together about 11 years
and we have two children.
What happened?
- I saw her back from about 30 yards away,
I saw her back and her neck
and then turned around suddenly and looked at me.
I was stupefied and then it was over.
- They have two children,
daughter, Lily Rose Melody Depp born in 1999
and son, John Christopher Depp III
known as Jack born in 2002.
He stated that having children
has given him a real foundation,
a real strong place to stand in life.
- I mean, I think I was making choices back then for my kid
so that when I was all dried up and burned out
in this business, that my children
would have something to be proud of
or hopefully be proud of one day.
They can watch it and say their dad did good work
for a little while.
- In 2003, Johnny Depp stepped
into what would become one of his most iconic roles.
Walt Disney Pictures announced a new adventure film,
Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the Black Pearl
and Johnny was playing the now infamous,
Captain Jack Sparrow.
The film was a worldwide success
and Johnny earned widespread acclaim
for his comic performance as Captain Jack,
also receiving a nomination for the Academy Award
for best actor.
Captain Jack was basically...
How I saw the character was a sort of weird combination
between a 18th century rock and roll star,
i.e, Keith Richards and then Pepe Le Pew,
who was a skunk basically.
- The character of Captain Jack Sparrow
is adored by fans who became instantly obsessed
with his comical mannerisms and bizarre personality.
Studio executives had at first been conflicted
about his portrayal of the character
but clearly Captain Jack is very popular with audiences.
Pirates of the Caribbean became iconic
and one of Disney's best loved action and adventure films
with its popularity giving the creators incentive
to begin work on a sequel.
In 2005, Johnny Depp, once again collaborated
with Tim Burton in a new take on a classic story,
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
In true Tim Burton's style,
the film had a slightly dark plot
keeping in theme with his usual creepy style.
Johnny played Willy Wonka,
a very different type of character
to any he had played before.
Once I found him, he was okay.
All the sort of elements combined would get you there
but the trick was finding him
and Tim and I had had talks early on
of what this Wonka might be,
where he might be coming from which were very helpful,
those discussions.
Talking about children's show hosts
like we seen as kids who talk
this bizarre kind of speech pattern, rhythm
that's very melodic and kind of stressful.
"Hello children, how are you today?"
That sort of thing became the foundation for the guy
and then you just started thinking about other things
like game show hosts and stuff like that.
Once I found him,
it was pretty easy to get there every day.
- The way his character was styled
has now become memorable as the look of Willy Wonka,
the one that children will often dress up as.
- One of the more interesting sequences to film
was when Tim locked us in the great glass elevator,
suspended 100 feet in the air,
very hot, children and that kind of thing
and then having to imagine what Fudge Mountain looks like
and the sheep being sheared.
That was a kind of an obtuse experience, but yeah.
- Johnny Depp brings some amazing work
to this role from the voice he puts on
to over the top actions.
His ability to push everything to its absolute limit
makes it such a fun performance to watch.
- Try some of my grass, please have a blink, please do.
It's so delectable and so darn good looking.
You can eat the grass?
Of course you can.
Everything in this room is eatable, even I'm eatable
but that is called cannibalism, my dear children
and it's in fact, frowned upon in most societies.
Now, enjoy.
Go on, shoo!
- The fact that Willy Wonka's backstory
featured quite heavily throughout the film
gave it an unusual twist to the classic children's story.
Getting an idea of where this wacky personality comes from
was certainly interesting.
This film was followed by another Burton collaboration
in 2005, where Johnny voiced the character
of Victor Van Dort in the stop-motion animated film,
Corpse Bride.
2006 saw the long awaited pirates sequel,
Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest.
Audiences couldn't wait to see Johnny reprise the role
of Captain Jack Sparrow
and according to several surveys at the time,
this was the main reason
many people went to see the film in cinemas.
When we did the first one,
we thought we'd put everything we could think of,
a talking parrot and a monkey and skeleton,
sword fighting skeletons
but then we started going
into the the sort of mystical history of the ocean
and we came up with things like Davy Jones and the Kraken
or Kraken or Kraken
depending on who you talk about, the sea creature.
There's more adventure, there's more action.
We had a bigger budget so we got to have more fun.
- The sequel also introduced
Captain Jack's biggest rival,
Davy Jones played by actor, Bill Nighy.
- Oh. - You have a debt to pay.
You've been captain of the Black Pearl for 13 years.
That was our agreement.
- Technically, I was only captain for two years,
then I was viciously mutinied upon.
- Then you're a poor captain but a captain nonetheless.
Have you not introduced yourself all these years
as Captain Jack Sparrow?
- Dead Man's Chest was closely followed
by another sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean, At World's End
in 2007.
Both films were box office successes.
- Well, this one, you get everything explained
to you that was left so infuriatingly hanging last time.
Everything is neatly dovetailed and resolved
and you get to see why David Jones
is actually surprisingly rather decent, tender, loving guy.
No, unfortunately he remains a maniac
but you at least get to see what happened to him
and why he's so angry and intense.
- As the third installment of the franchise
seemed to wrap up some major plot lines,
fans were worried this was the last they'd see
of Captain Jack.
The character that Johnny developed so in-depth,
Captain Jack Sparrow is appreciated worldwide
and Johnny regularly attends charity events
for children's hospitals dressed as the infamous character
to surprise and bring joy to the patients.
In 2007, Johnny Depp took on the rule of murderous barber,
Sweeney Todd for his sixth film with Tim Burton.
Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
was developed from the original 1979 stage musical
and although Johnny was not a fan of the musical genre,
he had grown to like the tail's treatment.
- In the chair, come on, Sweeney's waiting.
I want your .
You sir, two, sir.
Welcome to the grave.
I can guarantee the closest shave you'll ever known.
- May the good Lord smile on you.
- Although he had performed in musical groups,
Johnny was initially unsure that he would be able
to perform the role which required him to sing.
He recorded demos and worked with his old bandmate,
Bruce Witkin to shape his vocals
without a qualified voice coach.
Starring alongside fellow Tim Burton veteran,
Helena Bonham Carter, the film was a huge success
and was praised highly by critics.
Johnny won a Golden Globe for his performance
and was once again nominated for an Academy Award.
Johnny Depp reunited with director, Terry Gilliam
for the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus in 2009,
in which Johnny, Jude Law and Colin Farrell
each played the character initially portrayed
by their friend, Heath Ledger,
who died before the film was completed.
All three actors gave their salaries
to Ledger's daughter, Matilda.
He then started in Michael Mann's, 1930s crime film,
Public Enemies in which he portrayed real life gangster,
John Dillinger.
Dillinger was basically a guy
who was public enemy number one
but with me, myself, I never saw him as an enemy
of the public.
I always saw John Dillinger in a way
as a 1930s version of the Robin Hood.
- What is it exactly you do for a living?
John Dillinger, I rob banks.
- That's a serious thing to say to a girl you just met.
- I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars and you.
What else do you need to know?
- Either way, I think that Johnny's done
some of the most brilliant work that any actor,
in particular Depp and it's the inside is exposed
and I like him playing this kind of a character.
A tough guy, a real man.
It was really probably through Johnny,
and maybe one other persons I won't name
but if they didn't do it,
I don't think I'd have done a movie.
- I am declaring United States of America's
first war on crime.
- Your task would be to get John Dillinger.
Are you up to that task, Agent Purvis?
Absolutely, sir.
- That's your money, mister?
Yes.
- We're here for the bank's money, not yours. Put it away.
- Now the whole country thinks you're a damn hero.
- Robbing banks is getting tougher.
- We're having too good a time today,
we ain't thinking about tomorrow.
Well, you ought to.
- Johnny! - Put some clothes on, miss.
- How long did it take you
to go through a bank?
- About one minute 40 seconds, flat.
Well, here's a man who killed pretty boy .
- The only way that you will leave a jail cell
is when we take you out to execute you.
- It is an interesting time for a film like this
because when you when you look at John Dillinger
back in those days with the public rooting for him,
the public's sticking by him and supporting him at that time
against the banks,
against the government.
In today's day and age,
today's digital sort of whirlwind that where in
because of the amount of cell phones and all that stuff,
he would have been sold out in like a half a second.
That's a kind of an interesting perspective on things.
- Michael Mann was saying that he was looking forward
to getting your way perhaps,
from the more whimsical characters
and getting you to play a tough guy
'cause he said that Johnny Depp is a tough guy.
Was it nice getting your hands a bit dirtier?
- Well, you always try and get your hands
as dirty as possible in any case.
Sure, it was nice to tackle a character like this.
I don't think it's anything I've done before,
which was part of the excitement
and it's nice to fire a lot of Thompson submachine guns
as well.
- The next Depp-Burton collaboration
was Alice in Wonderland in 2010.
- This is your seventh collaboration
with Tim Burton.
Is there anything you will not do for this man?
- No, I would absolutely do anything for the guy
without question.
Wouldn't matter.
- He played the Mad Hatter
alongside other A-list stars,
Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway and Alan Rickman.
- I wanted the Hatter to, something that Tim and I early on
we're talking about, if this guy were actually made
up of different people,
they would be the extreme sides of these people.
I wanted to go extremely kind of dark and yeah,
dangerous with the Scotts accent.
I hope I arrived there.
My kids actually saw the film 'cause I haven't.
I sent them out there in the front lines.
They saw it and loved it, absolutely adored it.
Went crazy, quoting things from it
and just thought it was amazing.
Loved every character
and weren't freaked out by it whatsoever.
- This role, once again
showed Johnny's amazing skills as a character actor
developing the Mad Hatter into a larger than life role.
- It was another one that you felt very strongly
about, how he should look, what his behavior was like,
in the end that he shouldn't be just very simply
throwing a rubber ball into a room and letting them go nuts
and just for laughs and stuff.
I thought that there should be some other side to him,
some degree of damage, some trauma in there.
He's a bit damaged and yeah,
I could more than anything again,
to use the word luck again
because I feel so lucky to have,
well, to get away with it
because each time out of the gate,
there's always somebody that comes around
and says, oh Jesus, what's he doing now?
You kind of just feel, in a weird way
and I don't mean this in a negative way
but you've sort of infiltrated the enemy camp
on some level and you made it through unscathed.
My approach to the character,
it was just the idea of trying to find those places inside
to go from extreme sides of personality.
One minute you're at full capacity rage
and then the next minute,
you've dropped into some kind of horrific tailspin of fear
and then you go to some very, great height of levity.
That was just what I tried to do within scenes
as much as I could find the right moments for him.
- The following year saw the release
of the fourth installment in the Pirates series,
Pirates of the Caribbean, On Stranger Tides,
much to the surprise of fans.
- You could guide an expedition.
You are Jack Sparrow.
- There should be a captain in there somewhere.
With all the characters you play, I mean, at least for me,
with all the characters I've played,
they're still pretty close to the surface.
They're still each and every one relatively accessible.
You're right though.
Some of them, you have to work up to,
and other one's just come a little bit easier
and Captain Jack, certainly having played him now
four times, he arrives pretty quickly.
He arrives a little too quickly
but in fact, he arrives in life a lot,
dropping your kids off at school and he'll just show up.
- Jack Sparrow, this is his invention.
It's his series.
He's made it a success
along with a lot of other talented people behind him
and with him.
It's his to champion and hopefully carry on.
The fountain is the prize.
- Mermaid Waters,
that could be our path.
Steady as she goes.
What's your play, Jack?
- I thought I should give you warning, we're taking the ship.
It's nothing personal.
you just, stay out of it.
- I always leave a cliffhanger at the end
and you think, I've got a funny feeling
we're all gonna be getting back together again
in another year or two.
The crew are amazing.
The set, the attention to detail, the costumes
and the makeup makes our job really easy to do.
- You always feel that responsibility
and you feel grateful for great people like them
to give me an opportunity to be part of it.
I felt very welcome and I enjoyed every minute of it.
- They'll be dangers along the way.
Firstly, mermaids, zombies, Blackbeard,
the pirate all pirates fear.
- If I do not make it to the fountain, neither will you.
- Is that it? - I think so.
It has began, again!
Are we not kingsmen?
How is it we can never meet
without you pointing something at me?
There's the Jack I know.
Fight to the bitter end!
- You know that feeling you get when you're standing
in a high place to suddenly just jump?
I don't have it.
Did everyone see that because I will not be doing it again.
The only responsibility really, I think you have
is to deliver something that's fresh each time,
something that's new or at least to attempt that.
The real responsibility is to entertain them,
to try and make 'em laugh.
That's really it.
Already starting out as a pirate,
you're not on good footing
in terms of making an impression
'cause the pirate that's too good
would probably be thrown out, wouldn't he?
Thrown overboard.
I think our only responsibility,
my only responsibility is just to try
and invent new situations,
new bits and pieces that entertain.
- The film featured new cast members
who hadn't appeared in the earlier films,
creating different storylines.
This installment of the Pirate series
was again, a box office success.
- It's funny how the films have been accepted
and how the characters have been accepted
and you think back when we first started out on Pirates one,
it was very simple.
It's just like any other character,
you just sort of grab bits and pieces
and out comes this kind of weird little stew you've created
and so what I'm saying is,
none of us have done anything really different
other than just kind of create these characters
and then boom, whatever happened happened.
It's the first time I was ever offered the opportunity
to say, hey, there's a couple of more possibilities
or there's a few more bits to mind
in terms of the character
and it's just so much fun to get away with things
that you're not normally allowed to get away with,
to be totally irreverent, to play as absurd as you'd like.
It's a very special opportunity.
- In 2011, Johnny Depp worked
on a new animated film
in which he voiced the title character,
a lizard in Rango.
The film had a worldwide appeal
and showed Johnny could still create magic
from behind a camera
just using his voice to develop a lovable character.
Johnny then returned to Hunter S. Thompson's work
in a film adaptation of the novel, The Rum Diary
which also became the first project undertaken
by his production company, Infinitum Nihil.
He found this novel
and the novel got published 40 years after it was written.
Then asked me to have a go at the screenplay for it,
which I did.
I'm a screenwriter, that's I do.
Then to my amazement, he said, okay, now you can direct it
and I was very resistant to that at first
but, it's pretty cool being pulleyed
by world's number one film star.
No, you're doing it
and phoning up, you're doing it, doing it.
It's his face on screen.
His risk, not mine.
If the film is a complete failure,
it's Johnny on screen, not me.
- It was a book that almost never happened.
Weirdly, it was something that I accidentally located
when I was going through the manuscripts
of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
with Hunter in his war room
and we sat down and started reading the thing,
cross-legged on the floor and Hunter said,
"We should make this into a film."
I said, "Yeah, maybe you should publish it first."
- He is sensationally professional and talented actor
but he's also a great painter and a great musician
and he's got a wonderful library and I'm a bibliomaniac.
I collect the same writers that he does
so there was an immediate symbiosis
between us on that level in that the first time we met,
we sat there all afternoon talking about Verlaine
and so that was all good stuff.
- We worked very hard together to try to get it done
and because it was such a long shot at that time,
the two of us doing some sort unexpected tap dance
to try to get money for the film.
It didn't work very well
and we kept pushing forward and then 2,500 made his exit.
After we'd gotten Bruce on board,
we pushed it through, but I mean,
14 years to get this thing made.
- So there's been a labor of love for you?
- Of course, it was Hunter's last, one of his last dreams
so I had to make it come true, there was no other way.
I mean, obviously there's a little bit more responsibility
in terms of you're playing someone who you knew and loved
but an earlier version where he had not yet found the avenue
for the rage or the voice itself.
- Did it get quite emotional at times?
- Of course, because you're serving your best friend
who's not there with you.
- Great, thank you so much.
Thank you, thanks very much.
- In 2012, Johnny Depp's starred
in his eighth film with Tim Burton, Dark Shadows,
alongside Michelle Pfeiffer
and of course, Helena Bonham Carter.
- I think it's one of Tim's finest yet again.
I mean, he just keeps getting better and better
as a filmmaker and as an artist
but I certainly haven't gotten tired of working with Tim.
I don't think I ever would.
It's always fresh, it's always new, it's always different.
It feels like the first time every time.
- The film was based on the 1960s
Gothic television soap opera of the same name,
which had been one of his favorites as a child.
Well, it was fair
'cause I mean, a lot of people know it.
I mean, there was, there was a group of us
like Johnny or Michelle Pfeiffer and others,
but it wasn't .
Other countries didn't know about it.
We just tried to do what we loved about the show
and not have it be reliant on anybody
knowing what the show was.
- My twist and Tim's twist on the vampire
and certainly the base ingredient was Jonathan Fred.
He was wonderful in the role and there was no way
to escape the sort of beauty that he contributed.
- There was no political context?
No, political context.
You wanna wear a fake nose in you're fucking--
The same year,
Johnny Depp and his 21 Jump Street co-stars,
Peter DeLuise and Holly Robinson
briefly reprised their roles in cameo appearances
in the series 2012 feature film adaptation.
- I mean, look, we know what it's like being an undercover.
Metro Police Jump Street division.
- Come on, you guys are Jump Street?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- That's funny because we were actually Jump Street.
- What? - That's crazy.
- He also announced the split from his wife,
Vanessa Paradis but the pair are close friends.
Johnny Depp's next starring role,
as Tonto in the Lone Ranger was not well received
by the public or the critics.
I had a ball.
Working with Armie was the gas, the guy, he's very funny.
He's very talented.
He's a really good guy and we're like a house on fire
which I think comes through on screen.
Absolutely, yeah.
What do you think audiences can expect
from this take on it 'cause there's a different take on Tonto in particular?
- Well, the interesting thing about this particular,
let's say incarnation of Lone Ranger
is that it's totally different than the first.
It's got this sort of the mainstay kind of elements
but the majority of the story is very different
and puts Tonto in a place where he should have never been
in the first place, which is the sidekick.
Tonto is no longer the sidekick,
he's more of the sort of the lone ranger's spirit leader
if you want or spirit walker.
- The film was a box office bomb
that caused Walt Disney Studios to take a $190 million loss.
In 2012, Johnny was listed as the highest paid actor
in the Guinness book of World Records
for earning a total of $75 million in 2011.
That great amount of money was earned
thanks to his most financially successful films,
Pirates of the Caribbean and Alice in Wonderland
each grossing $3 billion and $1 billion respectively.
In 2015, Johnny took on the lead role in Black Mass,
which earned him his third nomination
for the best actor SAG Award.
It comes everything
once you're able to actually see the character
and we did five or six tests with my makeup artist
to get it to the point
where it was just as perfect as we can get.
Not only the fact that it aids
in bringing that character to life,
it was quite interesting to see the reactions
from some of his former associates.
Some of them were quite freaked out.
Really?
There were extras sometimes
and they would be in the scene
and afterwards, there were a bit freaked out.
- A bit close for comfort. - I think.
It was like seeing Whitey Bulger 30 years ago.
- He plays James Whitey Bulger,
the head of the Winter Hill gang who dealt drugs
and ran an extortion racket on the streets
of inner city Boston in the '80s and early '90s
while simultaneously working as an FBI informant.
- It was a conscious decision to sort of combine
my approach to the character
with Scott Cooper's style of filmmaking.
He's really different.
This is only his third film.
I mean, if you think about it, it's only his third film
and the guy, he's just brilliant.
I've been a fan of his movies, his other two movies.
What's beautiful about him is he has no fear.
He's not afraid to take chances,
he's not afraid to do a very large sort of a scene
in one shot.
That sort of bravery is missing.
We used to have and people like that
who did that.
Something different
in the film industry then.
- Yeah, he's got a radical voice, I think
and I'm really appreciative of him.
Anytime that people take notice of something you've done,
although my process hasn't changed at all.
My process is the same as it has ever been
but of course, it's really nice to hear
that people responded to it.
- Critics praised his role
and said it was exciting to see him back on form.
In the same year,
he also started alongside Gwyneth Paltrow in Mordecai,
an adaptation from the novel series.
Johnny played Lord Charlie Mordecai, an art dealer
and swindler who races to recover a stolen painting
rumored to contain a code that leads to lost gold.
The first time I read it,
I thought it could never ever be a movie, it's too much.
In fact, you realize it's like seven movies in it.
You could make at least five movies from .
I am Lord Charlie Mordecai,
respected by all who know me, slightly.
- Excellent shot, sir! - Man down.
- I am an art dealer, an officianado.
My wife, Joanna, my only true love.
- I thought I'd see how you secret agent men
run the world.
- I'm afraid I shall have to put my foot down, darling.
Sorry?
- With your permission, of course.
- Also in 2015, Johnny married Amber Heard,
his co-star from The Rum Diary.
This relationship would go on to fall apart very publicly
and be the source of grueling court cases.
In 2016, Johnny Depp reprised the role of the Mad Hatter
in Tim Burton's, Alice Through the Looking Glass,
the sequel to Alice in Wonderland.
The film had been a huge success
which warranted a sequel which did just as well.
- It's to be able to get back into that skin,
to be able to explore a little bit more about the character
other layers, essentially.
You see the Hatter at his absolute worst .
- Johnny had also been secretly cast
to play dark wizard, Gellert Grindelwald
in a cameo appearance
in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in 2016,
the first installment of a Fantastic Beasts franchise
which is considered a prequel
to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
His name was not mentioned in the promotional materials
and his cameo was only revealed
at the end of the film.
In 2017, he also reprised his role as Captain Jack Sparrow
in the fifth installment of the Pirate series,
Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Men Tell No Tales.
- In the U. - S, it was less popular with audiences
than the previous installments
but had a good box office return internationally.
Johnny Depp's last film release of 2017
was the Agatha Christie adaptation
of Murder On The Orient Express,
in which he was part of an ensemble cast.
In 2018, Johnny Depp starred in City of Lies
as Russell Poole, an LAPD detective
who attempts to solve the murders of rappers,
Tupac Shakur and the Notorious BIG.
- Bet he didn't have Tupac killed.
- The facts point to something more here.
- If we could prove a connection between cop
and Biggie's murder, it will not only break the LAPD...
It would ruin the city.
- The film was originally set for release
in September, 2018
but was pulled from release schedule one month before.
It was later screened out of competition
at the Noir film festival in Italy
but has not been released elsewhere.
However, there are now rumors of a 2021 release date.
Johnny Depp's last film release of 2018
was Fantastic Beasts, The Crimes of Grindelwald,
the sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them
in which he reprised his role as Grindelwald,
who becomes one of the main focuses of the plot.
Johnny portrayed photographer, W. Eugene Smith
in the independent film drama, Minamata
which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2020
and was released in early 2021
after being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- I've always had a strange fascination
with W. Eugene Smith.
Initially, the photographs of course
but then when I'd read a bit about his life
and what he'd gone through,
what he experienced, what he sacrificed
to capture those moments, to capture those photos.
I was also fascinated by the fact
that he was known as W. Eugene Smith
and I'd heard the story that anywhere he would be,
at times curmudgeonly bad mood
or whatever it was going on in his mind
and they'd say, "What does the W stand for, Eugene,"
and he'd say, "Wonderful, Wonderful Eugene Smith."
Then of course, with the work that he and Eileen did
in Minamata is monumental.
I mean, it was quite a quite a ride for them,
very dangerous, so dedicated.
They did not jump ship
because between the actor and a camera,
there's a strange dance that you do
when scenes aren't particularly blocked out
exactly to where he doesn't know where I'm gonna go,
I don't know where he's gonna go in shots.
There's a kind of beauty in the organic nature of that dance
between actor and operator or the eye,
which has been incredible work.
- The film follows Eugene Smith,
an American photographer who documented the effects
of mercury poisoning
on the citizens of Minamata, Kumamoto, Japan.
- You start to learn, you start to check
and you read about him a little bit.
This is years and years ago,
then you work with photographers.
I worked with Mary Ellen Mark for many years over the years
and she had known him at one of the photo...
- Probably Magnum. - Magnum.
It was Magnum.
You find out these great stories.
There was a side to him that wouldn't care.
He just got, I don't care and he's just moving forward
but there was a side of him, he could be quiet.
He could bite and he could be rough
but the deal with, I think with Eugene Smith,
ultimately what I walked away with,
especially after talking to other photographers
who'd known him and stuff
that he was totally unpredictable, multifaceted,
quite bitter, quite curmudgeonly and prickly
but that was because the heart was in there
and it was too close to the surface.
It was challenging 'cause you owe a great deal
of responsibility to these peoples.
- Prior to his acting career,
Depp was a guitarist and he's later featured on songs
by Oasis, Iggy Pop, Erasmith and more.
He played guitar on the soundtrack of his film, Chocolat
and Once Upon a Time in Mexico
and he's appeared in music videos
for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,
the Lemonheads, Avril Lavigne and Paul McCartney.
as well, Johnny Depp.
- Well, he came in at the end of a song.
We went to LA to do this record.
The whole band was hanging out
and that's where you'd meet somebody like him
and I'd known him from before
and just invited him down the studio.
He's a big fan of Joe's and a bunch of other people too.
- He's a great guitar player, isn't he?
Is he what?
- He's a good--
He's a great guitar player.
- Yeah, you ever seen the movie, Chocolat?
- Yeah, well that's really him playing.
In the movies, they can fake it
and you can tell when you watch him play in that movie,
he's playing and that's the real deal.
Also, he jammed with us at the Hollywood Bowl
in the last gig and the last tour.
He wanted to play on Train Kept It Rolling
and it's on the DVD and it's on the deluxe version.
You can really get a chance to hear him cut loose.
- In 2015, he formed the supergroup,
Hollywood Vampires with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry.
The band also includes Bruce Witkin,
his friend from the 1980s band, The Kids.
- Well, it started out right here.
It started out here.
We did Dark Shadows and I was in the movie with them
and then one night we were gonna go play the 100 Club.
Just my band was gonna go down
and just be a bar band, no theatrics, nothing.
If somebody yells out Brown Sugar, we'll play it.
Back in the USSR, okay.
I said, "Johnny, come down and play with us."
He comes down, brings his amp and he's a good guitar player,
really a good guitar player.
He started out being a guitar player, became an actor
and then we took it another step.
I said, "What if we paid tribute
to all of our dead drunk friends,
all the guys we used to drink with,"
and we had a drinking club called the Hollywood Vampires.
- The band made their live debut
at the Roxy in Los Angeles in September, 2015
and has since done two world tours in 2016 and 2018.
Their second studio album, Rise was released in June, 2019
and consists mostly of original material
including songs written by Johnny.
In 2020, Johnny Depp released a cover
of John Lennon's Isolation with guitarist, Jeff Beck
and stated that they would be releasing more music together
in the future.
I enjoyed the process.
I like making things, I like finding moments,
I like creating moments, I like the idea of chance.
Yeah, I like the process.
- Johnny Depp has made a long successful career
for himself in Hollywood, ultimately becoming
one of the most recognizable names in the industry.
- I mean, he's such a down to earth, easygoing,
really nice human being as well as being gorgeous
to look at.
- According to Johnny himself,
the exciting part is doing the work,
immersing himself in the character
and putting everything into his performance.
Visibility to totally transform into the role he is playing.
Be it a pirate, a man with scissors for hands
or an old time gangster,
Johnny Depp always leaves us visibly awestruck
knowing that no one else could done the role he played.
Johnny Depp is a proud father,
an a claimed actor all on his own terms.
In an industry where most A-list leading men
have chosen to stick to muscled up superheroes,
gun toting action men or love struck romantic leads,
Johnny himself continues to rule all genres
succeeding in each and more.
How many characters can Johnny Depp keep inside himself
and is it safe to do so?
The legacy of Johnny Depp is sure to continue.