by Johnny Depp
Playboy: What drawers?
Depp: Family things. Childhood things. Fear and abandonment. Rage. You just feel stupid having this be a part of your job, and it fucks with you in bad ways. When you’re really flopping around in there [bitter laugh], you feel like an idiot for doing it. For going through it. It can make you miserable for three or four months. But you do it. You feel like an idiot, but you do it because it’s your fucking job.
Playboy: You’re talking about What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, a movie that struck close to home. Gilbert, your character, was trapped in a working-class family, but he had infinite longings.
Depp: That’s one I haven’t seen, Gilbert Grape.
Playboy: You still don’t want to?
Depp: No, no. That mixed-up family and him being responsible, those issues clung to me. Making that movie was a bad time. I was as deep in the soup as I could be.
Playboy: According to the tabloids you were hurting because of your breakup with Winona Ryder.
Depp: That wasn’t really it. That’s what was written, but we hadn’t broken up yet, we were still up and down. It had more to do with me, with the difficulty of being inside my skin. I was doing what I could to numb that feeling, doing some in-depth poisoning.
Playboy: What were your poisons?
Depp: Pretty much anything I could ingest. And I was soused, drinking heavily, really doing myself in. When it gets constant, when you’re going to sleep drunk, waking up and starting to drink again, that stuff will try to kill you.
Playboy: Did you think your vices would actually kill you?
Depp: At one point I was living on coffee and cigarettes, no food, no sleep. I was sitting around with some pals when my heart started running at 200 beats a minute. That’s scary. You’re mentally trying to slow down your heart, but you can’t. It’s like being on a plane when the bottom drops out—you drop a couple thousand feet and one second turns into eternity. You really do get all those family pictures in your head. And you feel so totally fucking alone. I was thinking of my grandfather on my mom’s side, a great man I worshiped. His heart just exploded one day. When my heart started racing I hoped it was an anxiety attack, but when it went on for 45 minutes I knew it wasn’t anxiety, it was all the shit I’d done to my body. My friends got me to the hospital, where I got a shot—boom, a shot that basically stops your heart for a second. I could feel myself curling up, going fetal. Then it was over. I got to go home. Now, there’s an experience that’ll scare you into shape.
Playboy: Did you swear off drugs and alcohol?
Depp: Well, I’m a little thick so it took a while. I eventually curbed my drinking. A few beers or a couple glasses of wine, that’s not abuse.
Playboy: Is drug use always harmful?
Depp: It depends on the drug and the person. Some kids escape into sports. Some people go to the movies. Some escape with drugs. There’s one school of thought that drugs are recreational; there’s another school of thought that they can be therapeutic, a way to deal with problems. I think they’re usually a crutch, a way to avoid problems. I have never known a junkie who got away, never seen one that heroin didn’t get. But it always depends on the drug, doesn’t it? Reefer, obviously, is fine. I have never seen a guy smoke a joint and get so stoned he had to beat the shit out of someone.
Playboy: What about sex crimes? What did you think when you heard about Hugh Grant’s misdemeanor near Sunset Boulevard?
Depp: I felt bad for the guy and terrible for Elizabeth Hurley, for their global embarrassment. But I could see how it happened, too. To be honest, what he was busted for—isn’t that what most men want? Whether it’s with your wife, your girlfriend or any female, don’t we think of that? Ninety-seven percent of men around the world probably do, or want to do, the same thing. But they don’t get caught, or if they do it’s not a worldwide affair. As for the way he went about it, I have to say I don’t know where his mind was, but was it worth the attention it got? If something that bizarre had happened to me, I think I would have laughed and laughed.
Playboy: You had a Hollywood Babylon moment of your own in Don Juan when you played a scene with 250 naked women. Is it possible to appreciate 250 nude women at once?
Depp: Your brain won’t acknowledge it. It’s too much. You can’t process the fact that these women are real and three-dimensional. It’s like a huge painting—you can’t appreciate all the details at the same time.
Playboy: Do you think there’s a perceptual limit to the number of nude women a guy can process?
Depp: The trouble for me is that I have one bad eye, so there go 125 right there. You might do better. I’d say I can deal with something in the 30s, 30 to 39.
Playboy: How is a screen kiss different from a real kiss? Do you try different ones the way actors work through various line readings?
Depp: I don’t work that way. I think it’s awful when people plan how to say something. That’s the wrong approach because it’s never real. The same applies to kissing. I try to kiss normally. But there are times when the other person isn’t comfortable or you aren’t, so you fake it [miming a near-miss kiss] with a movie kiss. Maybe we should always do that; it’s not wise to run around kissing people. It’s not hygienically sound. You don’t know where they were the night before and they sure don’t know where you were. But a movie kiss is never like a real kiss, where there’s love involved. It takes emotion to turn a kiss into something wonderful.
Playboy: Is sex more demanding for a movie Romeo? Have you ever been accused of being less than stellar in bed?
Depp: [Laughing] Never. Of course, I’ve never been called stellar, either.
Playboy: If you were forced to star in a TV show, which one would you choose?
Depp: There’s an English show I love called Whose Line Is It Anyway? It’s all improvisation. Brilliant, quick, clever comics—spontaneity with both barrels. I wish I could do that show.
Playboy: Why don’t you call them?
Depp: No, no. I respect that show far too much to be on it. I wish I were together enough to do what they do, but it’s not going to happen, not in this life.
Playboy: We’ve talked about your past exposure to fire-and-brimstone religion. Do you have a faith now?
Depp: Nothing with a name. I haven’t found that, but I hope there’s something else out there. I hope that when we leave this world we go on a little trip. Why not? Countless people have had near-death experiences and have come back to say they saw interesting things. Nobody returns from the dead and says, “Hey, there’s nothing else.” And while there’s no organized religion I agree with, I think the Bible is a very good book. Probably a novel.
Playboy: Do you ever pray?
Depp: I pray on airplanes. I get instant religion during takeoff, then when we’re safely in the air I sit there thinking about the fact that any little thing that goes wrong could send us crashing to the ground.
Playboy: Pop quiz: Other than Kate, Brando and all of your other famous friends, who have you learned from in Hollywood?
Depp: Craft services.
Playboy: The people who do the catering on movie sets?
Depp: Those people are pros. I have learned a lot from craft services. How to make dips. Tricks for keeping things fresh. It’s not just Tupperware—you can put vegetables out on a platter, fine, but they’ll last a lot longer on a bed of crushed ice. I recently learned to make a fine seviche. I can cook, too.
Playboy: What do you cook?
Depp: I’ve made some pretty good beef stew in my day. I’m good at French toast. But most of all, I cook pork like a magician. You’re looking at a guy who cooks a fine plate of bacon.
Playboy: What’s the secret with bacon?
Depp: Frequent flipping. You have to even it out on both sides. And don’t use a high flame. Take your time. You need patience with bacon.
You have to maintain a calm attitude with pork.
Playboy: Cooking for Kate Moss—that in itself would be a high-profile job.
Depp: I cook for a supermodel. And contrary to what’s been written about Kate, she has a healthy appetite. That girl can put away a plate of bacon.
Playboy: Not the most healthful diet.
Depp: I’m not sure I could give up pork. Steak, OK. Maybe hamburgers. But nothing in the world can make me stop eating swine. I mean, I had a great-grandmother, Mimmy, who ate the greasiest food you ever saw and chewed tobacco till the day she died, and she lived to be 102.
Playboy: What did you learn from her?
Depp: I learned that I never want to see a spittoon again as long as I live. I have vivid memories of fetching Mimmy’s spittoon, and it was nasty in there. Not only tobacco juice but toenails too. She’d put her toenail clippings in there and they looked just like cashews. To this day I can’t eat cashews.
Playboy: You’ve played Ed Wood and Don Juan. Any other notable characters you want to play?
Depp: Le Petomane.
Playboy: You speak, of course, of the noted Parisian cabaret performer of the turn of the century, the fartiste who tooted grand opera from his anus—the original classical gas?
Depp: You have to admire anyone with such great control of his…instrument. I’d love to play him. I’m sure there were tragic moments in his life. It’s tragic that he left no successors. But what a hysterical scene when he discovers his gift. That’s a role I’d do in a minute.
Playboy: Forgetting your “quote-unquote career” for a moment, do you ever think about your legacy? Film stock lasts; people will still be seeing you 100 years from now.
Depp: Yeah, they’ll say, “Whatever happened to Johnny Dope? Jimmy Dip? You know, the Scissorhands guy.…”
Johnny Depp, May 2004
Johnny Depp has one of the quirkiest résumés in Hollywood. After starting his career as a TV heartthrob, he reinvented himself as a serious actor in offbeat and usually brutally uncommercial movies: He was critically acclaimed box office poison. But now, thanks to his role in last year’s $300-million-grossing smash Pirates of the Caribbean—a big, goofy Disney family film that is the antithesis of Depp’s indie work—he has at last emerged as a mainstream star. He notched his first Oscar nomination. People magazine dubbed him the sexiest man alive for 2003, even as he turned 40. And the actor with a penchant for getting in trouble—and landing in jail—has been replaced by a kinder, mellower Depp, a family man who has given up drinking and drugging in favor of days in the park with his kids. Who the hell is this guy anyway?
Depp’s early days are well documented. As an undercover cop on 21 Jump Street, he emerged as an instant teen idol in 1987. But a future as a lunch box icon scared him, and he quickly fled to movies. He turned down star-making parts that later went to Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt, but he found a niche playing idiosyncratic misfits. He became a muse for director Tim Burton, who first cast him in the title role of Edward Scissorhands and later in Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow. He played a tormented introvert in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, a drug-addled Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and a conflicted undercover FBI agent in Donnie Brasco. There’s barely a normal guy in his repertoire.
Born in Owensboro, Kentucky, Depp was an indifferent student. At the age of 16 he dropped out of high school, began pumping gas and joined a band that opened for Iggy Pop and the Ramones. In 1983 the band moved to Los Angeles but struggled to find gigs. For a while Depp sold ballpoint pens by phone. His then wife, Lori Allison, introduced Depp to Nicolas Cage, who arranged a meeting with an agent. The rest is history.
Flash-forward a couple of decades, and Depp is the hottest actor in town. His latest film is Secret Window, and future projects include J.M. Barrie’s Neverland, in which he plays the author of Peter Pan; The Rum Diary, based on a Hunter S. Thompson novel; and The Libertine, in which he will play a debauched 17th century poet. More is on the horizon, including a Burton-helmed version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the inevitable gazillion-dollar sequel to Pirates.
Depp’s run-ins with paparazzi are tabloid fodder, as are his bad-boy exploits involving drink, drugs and a long list of beautiful women, including Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Grey and Winona Ryder. He and Ryder were serious enough that he emblazoned himself with a “Winona Forever” tattoo. (When they broke up he had it laser-altered to “Wino Forever.”) He was dating model Kate Moss when he famously trashed a New York hotel room and was arrested. Depp co-owned a popular Hollywood club called the Viper Room. It was there on Halloween night 1993 that rising star River Phoenix died of a drug overdose. The tragedy contributed to Depp’s image as an actor teetering on the edge.
Depp has since settled down with his girlfriend of six years, Vanessa Paradis, the French actress and pop singer. They have two children, Lily-Rose, four, and Jack, two. The couple divide their time between Los Angeles and St.-Tropez, France.
Playboy sent journalist Bernard Weinraub to meet with Depp in a suite at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles. Depp arrived decked out in a cowboy hat, with a Che Guevara charm, an amulet and a tiger’s tooth around his neck. He promptly opened a bottle of water and rolled a cigarette.
Playboy: You’ve been through quite a few changes lately, not the least of which is that Pirates of the Caribbean has made you one of the hottest stars in town. You were even nominated for best actor.
Depp: It’s really weird. [laughs]
Playboy: What impact did Pirates have on your career and your life?
Depp: I’m the wrong person to answer that. For one thing, four- and five-year-old kids and people in their 50s, 60s and 70s—a broad spectrum—loved that movie. That hasn’t happened to me before. That was great. I just want to continue getting good jobs.
Playboy: Has Hollywood’s view of you changed?
Depp: I don’t know if Hollywood’s view of me has changed. I’m certainly getting calls from people and filmmakers who maybe didn’t know my name before. That’s all right. My next film has been planned for a while. The story takes place in Restoration England. I play John Wilmot, the Second Earl of Rochester, a debauched poet. He killed himself with drink and syphilis at the age of 33. A real piece of work.
Playboy: You’re now considered a bankable movie star.
Depp: I’ve always been some distance from that game. I guess there have been times when I was on the brink of being bankable. But that’s all so weird. All these weird lists—top five stars, top 10, “Let’s get this guy because he’s bankable.” I don’t think about that. You’re on the list two weeks and then—poof—you’re gone. It never jarred me that I wasn’t on the list. If I’m considered bankable this week, that’s great. Next week I’ll be totally off. I’m used to that. I’ve never had an allergy to the idea of commercial success. When you put a movie out and it’s successful, that’s great. I just wanted to get there in the right way, in a way that’s not too compromising or demeaning or ugly. Whether I’m there as a bankable movie star or not, I don’t know. If I stay there, who knows?
Playboy: Do you consider yourself a star?
Depp: Well, the real movie stars were Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy, Montgomery Clift. How could I put myself in the same category as Clark Gable? Tom Cruise is a great movie star. Do I consider myself a movie star? I consider myself a guy with a good job, an interesting job.
Playboy: Maybe better than a good job. You’ve become big box office. You’re spending less time in France and more in L.A. to be closer to the action.
Depp: Well, I still live in France part-time.
Playboy: Are you as at home in France as you are here?
Depp: Now I am. It was amazing at first, because I didn’t speak the language. I loved that, because I didn’t have to talk. It was great just to be out among people and n
ot have the responsibility to say anything. I wasn’t thrown into the spotlight to be the novelty or to entertain.
Playboy: Are you often in that position?
Depp: Yeah, and this was nice. I could sit there and drink wine. Ultimately, though, what I love about being over there is the culture, which is very old.
Playboy: What’s your life in France like?
Depp: Simplicity, really. We have a little house in the country. We wake up in the morning, the sun’s coming out, we make coffee, and then we make breakfast for the kids.
Playboy: Now that you’re back in the public eye in a big way, do you feel more exposed?
Depp: We’ve always had our run-ins with the paparazzi. That hasn’t changed. They are very ambitious. They’re looking for God knows what. You think, Why that kind of intense invasion?
Playboy: Did it cause you to question making Pirates of the Caribbean in the first place?
Depp: No, I’m not going to complain. When we’re in a public place, like at some opening or a premiere, I don’t mind the press. It’s the nature of the beast. But when you’re shopping for Christmas presents for your kids, I just don’t understand the fascination. The other day I had a lunch meeting in the San Fernando Valley. There was a literal convoy, with seven or eight vehicles, behind us. My girl took my kids to the park the other day, and the paparazzi surrounded the perimeter just to photograph her playing with our children. It’s ugly. I don’t mind so much when they do it to me, but when it’s my kids, that’s another story. It’s evil.
