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Return to Depp home pageHeat Magazine - January 2000
How does it feel to play the lead in America's most famous Gothic tale?
When I read it I immediately thought of Ichabod Crane from the book, with his long nose, big ears, big hands, big feet and instantly got excited and thinking, "Goody, prosthetics…" but I was alone, no one else was going for it.
Even without the props, he's still very eccentric…
He's squeamish, uptight. It's as if there's a fine piano wire running through him that could snap any second. He has bravado, but would be on the verge of tears if an insect came near him.
What was the appeal of making a horror film, albeit a tongue-in-cheek one?
I loved the idea of riding the fine line between honest acting and being just a bit over the top, Hammer-style. In horror films, especially hammer ones, there's a kind of grandiosity to the performance and there's something funny about the seriousness and the graveness of it. That was what I was trying to capture, the balance.
This is the third time youv'e worked with Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood). What makes him so special as a director?
I trust him completely. If he said, "Walk on the precipice of this building, we're going to film it and it's going to be great," I'd do it. I'd try any thing for him. We have a connection. I think we have a similar outlook on things, a similar sense of the absurd. It feels great to go back to work with him. I would never turn down anything he offered.
What do you like about the characters you've played for him?
They're all related in the sense that they are kind of deeply damaged, which I think is a good thing. The damaged individual dealing with the world. That is probably, at its very root, why Tim does what he does, and why I do what I do.
What difference has living in Paris made to your life?
I'm happy to be removed. I'm happy I made the decision to stop looking at magazines, that I don't see many movies, that I don't know who people are…
And now you're a father…
She has given me life. I worked before, sure. I lived, but mostly I just existed. I see this amazing, beautiful, pure angel-like thing wake up in the morning and smile, and nothing can touch that. She gives me the opportunity to experience something new everyday.
You seem smitten.
I feel like there was a fog in front of my eyes for 36 years, and the second she was born, that fog just lifted and everything became clear and focused.
What do you feel clear and focused about then?
I just want a really simple life - and a simple life is expensive in my situation. I don't want to be stared at while I'm mowing my lawn. I want to wake up and have coffee and wander in my yard nude, or dressed as Abe Lincoln if I feel like it.
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