Translation of article from the Danish magazine "blender", issue no.13, February 2000 by Mette.

Not a Blockbuster Boy

The American actor Johnny Depp has left his undeniable mark on the movies of the 1990s with underplayed and unforgettable performances in Edward Scissorhands, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, Ed Wood and Donnie Brasco. He currently stars in Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate and soon in Batman-director Tim Burton's opus Sleepy Hollow.
Ralf Christensen circles the phenomenon who now lives in Paris with his girlfriend Vanessa Paradis and the couple's child Lily-Rose Melody.

How does one thoroughly describe a person whom director John Waters calls "the best looking gas station attendant who ever lived", while one of his Parisian friends has named him "a modern Arthur Rimbaud"? The former is an arch-American symbol of decent but trivial industry, while the latter is one of the greatest and wildest poet souls of European cultural history. How does one make these ends meet? It's really a silly question. One can never thoroughly describe a human being.

And that's exactly the problem with the movie star Johnny Depp, because the 36-year-old actor insists on being perceived in public as complex and fragile, yes, furiously human…. It would undoubtedly have been easier if he had chosen the one-dimensional armor that you find in, say, John Travolta, Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise. Not Johnny Depp: "I'm not Blockbuster Boy. I never wanted to be".

A Sneaking Suspicion
"I have this sneaking suspicion that when directors or producers bring up my name, the people in charge say: 'Oh no. That weird guy. The man who fancies himself to be a character actor'. I think they get a little nervous. But that's understandable. Why not?"
Do you feel a commercial pressure on your shoulders when you make movies?
"I just know that it's part of the beast. And I have nothing against that. It's good to know your enemy".
Hollywood is not in love with Depp, and Depp is not in love with Hollywood either. And he has given some answers of refusal that have resounded throughout the industry: He refused leading roles in Speed, Legends Of The Fall and Interview With A Vampire. Parts that were given to other great and contemporary idols: Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise.
Depp's motives are not based on exposure, commercial potential or fulfillment of ego, but on personal passion for the film medium and the art of storytelling. And while Pitt is currently redefining his image - with the challenging ( at least in the United States ) Fight Club, and more radically, in his low-paying part in the indie film Waking Up In Reno - Depp has always been known for being willful in his choice of roles, which has brought him together with some of the great small directors - Jim Jarmusch, Emir Kusturica, John Waters - but also bigger and critically acclaimed directors like Roman Polanski, and especially Depp's great collaborator, Tim Burton, has employed him. And on the way, there's been a couple of commercial successes: Burton's Edward Scissorhands and Donnie Brasco by Mike Newell…

Indirect Parody
There's a red thread through Johnny Depp's work and choice of roles. All the way back to his first major role in 1990 in John Waters' Cry Baby, where Depp plays a parody of the James Dean who was the obvious comparison back then - dark, mysterious, silent, passionate, romantic - but also an indirect parody of the teen idol he had become with the TV series 21 Jump Street, in which he played the main role for three seasons. And of which he claims to have only seen six episodes.
With Cry Baby, Depp distanced himself from the fan hysteria of 21 Jump Street - without ever being able to get rid of it. That's not possible with a face like that. But then you can always disfigure it - on film - which Depp did effectively in his other major role from the same year: Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands. A chalk white, powdered face, strewn with fine little scars, and dark sad eyes defined Depp's appearance in the extraordinary film. It was a choice of role that wasn't marked by defiance, but by kinship, and the part that Depp still cherishes the most today. Edward Scissorhands - the odd, lonesome creature with scissors instead of fingers, who will never be able to touch the persons or things he loves - a metaphor for the outsider and loneliness.
Depp was dying for the role which he believed Burton chose him for because his appearance was misleading. "I wasn't what people thought I was." During the shooting, which took place in the burning heat of Florida, he remained in Scissorhands' leather costume without complaining, and he learned to hold his beloved cigarettes with the enormous hedge clipper hands. And he carried Edward's facial scars like they were medals.

A Pattern Of Fine Scars
One can't exactly claim that Depp has only played in masterpieces. But there seems to be two motives behind his choice of roles: Quality and admiration - not the audience's, but his own. Because Depp is a fan, and several times his motive for picking a role has been his wish to work with a certain person. That explains his participation in John Badham's Nick Of Time and in Roman Polanski's tame but elegant The Ninth Gate, where Depp plays a literary detective hunting for satanic books. A role which might not add anything significant to Depp's repertoire - except for a deeper voice and the experience of working with one of the great willful directors. An experience, however, that he doesn't describe in the most positive terms.
But Depp carries his scars as if they were medals - not just the scars of Edward Scissorhands, but also his own; under the two tattoos on his upper right arm, you thus find a pattern of fine scars - self-inflicted knife wounds that, according to himself, mark various transitions in his life. Good times, bad times. He refuses to tell their story to the press.

Do You Think That's Such A Good Idea, Johnny?
Depp's coming achievement on Danish screens is Tim Burton's gothic thriller Sleepy Hollow, a film version of Washington Irving's classic American fairy tale "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" from 1819. All American children know the story of the village of Sleepy Hollow which is haunted by a headless horseman who cuts this missing body part off the townspeople. Depp is the detective, Ichabod Crane, who is sent to the sleepy village. You don't look a lot like Ichabod Crane.
"No, not the way he looks in the Washington Irving story. When I read the story again, I thought, 'Wow, I can get a really great make-up artist to make a long nose and big ears and have my fingers made longer, so I could have big hands.' But to tell you the truth, the brass at Paramount weren't particularly thrilled with that idea. It was one of those: 'Do you think that's such a good idea, Johnny?'."
There was a time in your career when you could have become a Hollywood hero, but in stead you chose different roles. Is Hollywood punishing you for that now? No. I chose that road myself. If it's anybody's fault, it's my own. Which is fine. I think that if I had chosen the beaten path, the normal, golden road, two things would have happened. Number one: I would have been bored to death, and god knows what would have become of me. And number two: I probably wouldn't be here talking to the press. I would be a gas station attendant somewhere in Minneapolis or working at a laundromat or mowing lawns." Or play second fiddle.
"Well, I've already done that."

Headless Science
Ichabod Crane is a super-rational detective who uses modern methods like deduction and not very functional gadgets in his attempt to solve the rather supernatural Sleepy Hollow-affair. He uses his head in a case that involves the cutting off and stealing of same. Science faces the paranormal, and again Johnny Depp plays a loner, an outsider, a misfit which he also did with the title characters in Tim Burton's Ed Wood - about the greatest B-movie director of them all - and in Edward Scissorhands. And Depp has personified a remarkable number of outsiders and/or loners throughout his career. The mad/brilliant gonzo journalist and author Duke/Hunter S. Thompson in Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The weakchested William Blake in Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man. The schizophrenic patient who thinks he's the world's greatest lover in Don Juan De Marco. The almost mute circus artist in Benny & Joon - and even Joe Pistone, the FBI agent on undercover assignment in the mafia in Mike Newell's Donnie Brasco.
Depp inspires in them a certain presence that isn't about words, mimicry, and exaggerated body language, but about a dusky presence that never makes the movies into JOHNNY DEPP-movies, but movies with Johnny Depp as the interpreter of the leading role.

Reluctant Star

Depp doesn't play himself - as, for instance, Willis and Travolta do in awfully many roles. Even a great actor like Al Pacino has had a tendency to let himself be typecast as Al Pacino, but Depp manages to glide into the film with an obvious humility which shifts the focus from the star Depp to the portrayal of the actual character. Quite an accomplishment for an actor who currently - reluctant star or not - receives an estimated $10 million a film.
With some exceptions, Depp uses few external artistic effects, but he possesses a charisma pregnant with calm and immersion, but also darkness. Take for instance the taciturn part as an undercover agent in Donnie Brasco. "This particular role interested him, I think, because the whole character had to run beneath the surface, as it were", says director Mike Newell in Vanity Fair. "Johnny is one of those actors who acts in a kind of long term. You stay with his characterizations throughout a film because he tells you his story in his own good time." And he adds in Newsweek: "I also think he has a devil in him. Underneath this wistfulness, you feel a sanction of violence. So there's this terrific mental energy going into keeping these two mutually antagonistic things in balance."
Take What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, where you forget that it's a sex symbol and an international star who underplays his way through a family crisis opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. "He moved very slowly", says Depp of the title character. "And sometimes you play characters who are very close to yourself, who you identify with. Not that you become the character, because I don't believe in that at all. That film was tough for me. I was a little bit like that person I played in What's Eating Gilbert Grape? when I grew up in Florida."

Like A Sponge
Depp is not into method acting - the method founded by the Russian Konstantin Stanislavski and which the American theater director, Lee Strasberg, taught to people like James Dean and Marlon Brando. The method by which one should identify 100% with the character by way of personal experiences and emotions. Depp doesn't believe in this psychological technique, but seems to work with his characters on a more intuitive level. He spent a long time with the real-life persons behind both Donnie Brasco and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, he even lived in Hunter S. Thompson's basement for several weeks during his stay at Owl Farm where he absorbed the manners, gestures and speech pattern of the gonzo journalist.
"Kind of like a sponge," Depp himself says, "which is a horrible way to approach a human being." "He's not like a Method actor," adds Fear and Loathing director Terry Gilliam in Rolling Stone. "Osmosis is what he uses."
Osmosis means seepage or the passage of fluids through porous walls and gives evidence to an extremely absorbent presence by Depp in relation to the real-life person he has portrayed. Not so with his fictitious characters. For instance, Depp was never rehearsed for the part of Edward Scissorhands, in stead Tim Burton relied on Depp's intuitive understanding. His trust paid off. But is Depp a good actor? Well, he is not the man who can save a film. Rather, he becomes one with it. He can't do like Edward Norton and lift an otherwise mediocre film like American History X to the emotional heights that he evokes in the best moments of the film. In that respect, Depp's talent and technique is too subdued and subtle. Depp is an intelligent prism through which a character portrait shines into the film. He doesn't overshadow. He is not the director's instrument ( "I'm not a very good puppet" ), but the filter through which the role gets its unique Depp-ish tone.
"There's a lot of pain and humor and darkness and light," says Tim Burton about Depp. "It gives a very strong feeling of loneliness. It's not something he talks about or is even capable of talking about. Because it's so sad."
Burton has also written the poem "Johnny Depp":

there was a young man
everyone thought was quite handsome
so he tied up his face
and he held it for ransom

he made everybody
back up 20 feet
then he ran off
with his head
down a darkly
lit street

the whole town
wondered why he'd
threatened his face,

they couldn't understand,
… it was that kind of place.
( From: Double Exposure - Take Three )

Tour de Depp
So where do we stand in our Tour de Depp? We still stand with an image of a subdued and complicated human being who in some strange way has become a film star. But we also stand with an idealist and a passionate man who demonstrates direction and will in his work. "I think it's important for an actor to keep changing and try new and different things." From his early films until now, he has shown a much greater interest in artistic expression than in populist noise - if not always with a sure sense of taste.
"Johnny didn't ignore his fans, he brought them with him," says his friend Nicolas Cage of Depp's transition from TV to movies. "He was wise. He took this large group of people, brought up on TV formula, and exposed them to new and interesting things."
Maybe Johnny Depp is really a European in the making. He was born in the United States, and he loves rock'n'roll and Beat writers, but he also namedrops Antonin Artaud, Fiodor Dostoyevsky, Jean Cocteau, and today he lives in Paris with his French girlfriend, Vanessa Paradis, and their baby daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp ( such a exquisite boho-name ) [ boho is a composite of "bohemian" and "SoHo" ]. And he enjoys Europe.
"Let me give you an example. I have been away from the US a lot in the past two years. I filmed Sleepy Hollow in England for about six months, and then I did the Polanski thing for about six months. I have been away from the US for two years and spent about 15 days in my house over there. I was in Paris working on a Sally Potter film, and I had to fly to Mexico to play a part in a friend's film, a Julian Schnabel film. I had to make a stop in LA and flew with Harry Dean Stanton. We went to a restaurant, and within an hour, a guy showed me a script. And another one five minutes later. It's a madhouse. This obsession, this ambition, these people who only want to talk about movies and make movies and talk about acting. It's not like in Paris. 'These people who live down the road, they make the most wonderful cider. And they have a wonderful dog. Have you seen the grapes they grow?' That's the kind of things they talk about. It's simple. It's fantastic. It's wonderful to live in a place where culture is allowed to exist, where people respect history and life. Art, architecture, everything. They understand how to live - and to eat well."

When A Man Stops Running
It's certainly a far cry from the young grunge kid in torn jeans, leather jacket and bandana, which was the media figure, Johnny Depp, in the early days. And thank God. It's a far cry from the rock guitarist who went to LA with his band to find happiness. Far from the man who, during the shooting of What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, survived on whiskey, nicotine and - maybe, maybe not - heroine following the break-up with his girlfriend of four years, Winona Ryder. But there is one problem: Mr. Depp is settling down. In the arms of Paradis, embracing their daughter. "This is probably the only life I have ever lived. From May 27, 1999, I learned to breathe. I learned to see. I know it sounds corny, but that child gave me much more than I had. May 27 at 8.25 PM."
Is there reason for concern when a man finds what he might always have been looking for? Is there reason for concern when a fan of the Beat Generation, a Jack Kerouac fan, a travelling spirit, thinks it has found what it's been looking for? Well…an actor or - if you will - an artist whose work has been marked by search and self-challenge can never do with settling down. Something always stiffens.
"We chase our tails for so long. Getting high is about fucking trying to numb something. Getting loaded is trying to destroy yourself. You just get to a point where you think: 'Fuck! What am I doing?' This really shows I'm getting older. I'm sounding like John Denver right now, but I look forward to having a kind of peace of mind," he said in 1997 to Vanity Fair. Maybe that's what it's really all about.
So let's instead try to picture Johnny Depp right now: caught in a ray of light in his apartment on a Parisian afternoon. On his belly is Lily-Rose Melody, probably sound asleep. Depp takes a drag on his cigarette, tries to direct the smoke towards the ceiling, not into the girl's lungs. Sees Paris through the cigarette smoke, thinks about his next role, thinks about how he can further develop as an actor. These thoughts he tries to capture, and the cigarette helps him concentrate. But the shorter it gets, the harder he tries to figure out how he can get this exact moment - his daughter's breathing, the caress of the sun, the whispering of Paris in perfect harmony - to last forever.
So, yes, there is reason for concern. But in a good way.

Sleepy Hollow opens March 17.

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