translation by Corinne

The magnificent "Sleepy Hollow", his third movie with Tim Burton, is also a celebration to his ten years in the cinematographic industry. To celebrate this in our way, we asked Johnny Depp to be our guest star. He agreed to open the doors to his secret garden, to talk about those he likes, about what he believes in and about what he wants& Self-portrait of one of the most special actors of his generation.

Text and photos by Christophe d'Yvoire

Johnny Depp by Johnny Depp

(first part)

Eurostar reaches its full speed as it leaves the suburbs of London. It is January 7th, 2000, 9 a.m. A pale skimming sun crosses the first-class coach desert in which we stay. Only the hostess walks by and by again, looking with insistence, with furtive glances to the long hair boy sat opposite to me and whose face obviously reminds her of somebody. Wearing a black bonnet and a white shirt, Johnny Depp talks in a soft and serious voice. In spite of tiredness, the lack of sleep (the day before at the evening, after two days of intensive meetings with the European journalists, it was the premiere of Sleepy Hollow in London) and the planning charged which awaits him at his arrival in Paris (again, press conference and series of interviews), the actor delivers himself with this heat and this naturalness which marked our various meetings, phone calls, exchanges of fax and e-mail during these last weeks. Again, he evokes all these figures which accompanied us these last days - Antonin Artaud, Iggy Pop, Buster Keaton, Serge Gainsbourg... He tells his first meeting with Marlon Brando and Emir Kusturica, entrusts this new love which submerges him and which he did not suspect of having inside him for his 8 month old daughter, Lily-Rose, insists on the impossible delights of this French language which he was sworn to learn and of which he likes to repeat his two favorite expressions: " à dada prout prout cadet " and " de guingois ". "Three hours of train, we'll be at ease and we'll have time.", he said when we spoke. He was right. At almost 200 per hour speed (literally), we finished (or quite) together the development of this special issue which we wanted, for a long time, to dedicate to him and for which the French premiere of Sleepy Hollow, his third and splendid collaboration with Tim Burton, constituted the ideal occasion.

More than an actor, he has to shown the way

Without any doubt, Johnny Depp is the most intriguing actors of this last decade. There is this real presence, of course, this undeniable charm about him so delicate with this touch of elegance you can almost feel at any time on the screen, and in real life as well. There is also this inner treasure you can guess through his eyes and his silent pauses that say so much. There is also that blend of boldness and demanding and discernment that allows him to claim what he became: one of the most enthusiastic filmographies of his generation.

A movie star, he certainly is, but he stays far away from the Hollywood dream. Johnny Depp seems to appeal the inspiration of the most creative directors. He can play drama and comedy as well, he can become your craziest dream on screen and always with this incredible innocence. Without him, who ever dare to tie together John Waters, Tim Burton, Emir Kusturica, Jim Jarmusch and Terry Gillian? For, Johnny Depp is more than a simple actor. He shows you the way to act. He seems to show you a new path of which is the only one to know the secret. He can be romantic and rebel as well, idealistic and pragmatic but also disrespectful or absolutely loony. Guided as much by an insatiable curiosity than by a chronic fear of being trapped in the same characters. "Doing the same things all the time," he said, "is the worst thing that can happen."

May 1991, somewhere at the end of the world in Arizona. First meeting. First image : Johnny Depp is sitting on an old bike on which they have added two huge wings. First try of flying in front of the camera of Emir Kusturica who wanted Johnny to be the hero of his "Arizona dream". Obviously good friends, the director and his interpret, before the first take, laugh like children to the thought of how the scene is going to end up.

Unknown in France, already famous in the States

Johnny Depp had always look younger than his age. At the time of Arizona Dream, he was 28 years old and appeared 18 in it. A kid. In France, nobody really knew his name, even less his face. ("Cry Baby" was not yet in the theaters and he was unrecognizable in "Edward Scissorhands"). In United States, on the other hand, Johnny Depp was already famous, very famous. And more than this a real idol for millions of teenagers who had followed him on TV in the series 21 Jump Street every week from 1987 to 1990.

His success was such that he received more than 10000 letters of fans per month! The beginning of the dream? On the contrary, a true nightmare: Depp hated his character in the series (a young cop investigating in schools), to whom he had been found bound in spite of him by a long duration contract." I had the horrible feeling to be in the heart of a gigantic trickery", he says today.

While shooting with Kusturica, he discovers freedom

Others, instead of him, would undoubtedly have tried to start up carefully. He had preferred to speed up the end and entrusted to John Waters, then known as "the pope of bad taste", the task of splitting up his image in "Cry Baby" right before meeting a certain Tim Burton to end up with him in a marvelous tale, in which he finally found his real place: "Edward Scissorhands" (see p. 86).

There was Johnny Depp with his career when, in this dump in Arizona, a particularly inspired Yugoslavian gipsy director asked him to fly away on his bike. Naturally, the bikes didn't take off, the cyclist, on the contrary, had this wonderful feeling of being free to fly. "With Kusturica, I discovered freedom" says Johnny today. A freedom he's going to drawn frenziedly himself into like a man on the run who succeed in escaping a cursed destiny. For more than five years, up to the middle of the 90's, Johnny Depp is living at the hotel, sharing his time between New York, Los Angeles and Paris where he regularly stays, free as a bird, gathering meetings with interesting people and movies as well ("What's eating Gilbert Grape", "Ed Wood", "Dead Man"), going out proudly with his fiancées (Winona Ryder, Kate Moss), giving work to paparazzi and tabloids, scoffing at the Hollywood Industry which couldn't understand why they so easily find a place in the sun for Tom Cruise. But anyway, how many chances did they have to really understand such an actor who declared, without a laugh, that he was "more scared by a blockbuster than a failure"?

Success, he met it and drank it to the last drop. His ambition is being faithful to himself.

Johnny Depp never tried to succeed, not in the way we usually are used to, neither to attain any place in the sun. He has never been among the most highly paid actors in Hollywood and has always run from blockbusters. He never tried to use his romantic image of seduction. "After "21 Jump street", I made myself a promise I will never fall for a project in which I didn't completely believe in" he said. Success he met it and drank it to the last drop. No one else knows better what delusion it really is. His ambition is somewhere else. Just being faithful to himself and to what he really believes in. That can easily explain without any doubt why today he can run from labels. From "Dead Man" to "Ed Wood", from "What's eating Gilbert Grape" to "Donnie Brasco" and from "Don Juan de Marco" to "The Ninth Gate", the characters he plays are always losers, moonlike, brave, honest and giving up everything for their destiny.

What seduces him in Hollywood are the pioneers

But Johnny Depp is too sensitive to myths and legends to not be lured by Hollywood. Stars and glamour didn't appeal to his coming to this town, on the contrary he liked these characters in the dark, these bunches of outlaws and drop outs, all kind of pioneers who burned their wings and without them the myth couldn't exist. For as we all know, Hollywood needs to devour the best of its own children. Love and hatred & seduction and repulsion. Despite freedom that lives in him this way he has to survive sailing towards his desires and his curiosity, finally Depp found his place in Hollywood or at least asserts himself. In 1993, he bought in Sunset Strip, which is the place where bikers, poets, rockers and others drop outs meet, "The Central" which used to belong to Lucky Luciano in the 30's and used to have Charlie Parker, John Coltran or Jim Morison playing live in it. He gives the place a second chance and names it after "The Viper". Two years later, in the same location, he bought an astonishing old manor that used to belong to Bela Lugosi, the famous Dracula and friend of Ed Wood. Then he gets to know legendary people who, everyone in his way weeps away his standards: Timothy Leary, LSD precentor, Allen Ginsberg, cult poet of the beat generation; Hunter S. Thompson, loony writer, removed from rim novelist to the most subjective journalism; Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan, Robert Mitchum, Vincent Price, Martin Landau, etc.

Depp has his own models and always does his best to meet them. Let's say he can't meet them at least he can share the places they have gone through. (Once, he went to visit the famous illusionist Houdini's house in Los Angeles and spent the night in Paris in the room in which Oscar Wilde died.) As well, he collects paintings, drawings, books, antics which has in its way a particular story to tell. Depp heaps up signs, drawings and prints, multiplies meetings, and feeds himself with those he admires the most to keep on working and living. Like ghosts they seem to inhabit him. It could be a charge, on the contrary it gives him an indestructible strength. But that opportunity he has to bring it about. For instance, the fact that he met Marlon Brando couldn't have existed without himself fighting for this meeting. He is the one who insisted on "Don Juan de Marco" producers' asking Marlon Brando to play the strange psychoanalyst in the movie. Is this the reason why Brando accepted to leave his secret refuge? Was it because Johnny Depp asked it? We surely know that the best can easily recognize one of their own. We don't know the answer but we surely know that Marlon Brando, one of the most genuine rebellious Hollywood has ever met, became a true friend to Johnny Depp and speaks of him as his "guardian angel". For instance, when Johnny Depp became a director for "The Brave", Brando naturally came to him and asked him if he could play in the movie so Johnny Depp didn't have to ask him.

"The Brave" : a truthful romantic query

September 1996, in the suburban Los Angeles, Johnny Depp is directing "The Brave". The story of a young father, living in a ghetto, who accepts to become the hero of a "snuff movie" (those particularly horrible illicit movies in which murders are not simulated) in order to save his family from misery. That movie, he was once offered to play in, he wanted so much to direct himself, Johnny Depp became the true father of it. Partly because he found his roots in it (he has Indian origins: his maternal grandfather was a Cherokee) but also he truly likes to fight for the "neglected ones". But mostly it deals with one of these fundamental questions that inhabits him: what will you do for love? And as a result: what is a thing, a feeling, a passion, something you deeply believe in, someone's worth and as long as you are not ready to sacrifice everything to them, such as your own life? This question, every one ofJohnny Depp's idols has try to find the answer, some of them even gave their life or art for it. The query is romantic. The answer is a little bit naïve but truly sincere: "The Brave" is a failure in Cannes Festival (and will never be released in United States, neither was Arizona Dream that came out directly in the video stores). That failure could have make him insecure about his career. Not at all. He follows his own steps and plays in a row "Donnie Brasco", "Fear and loathing in Las Vegas" and "The Ninth Gate". Same as usual : weird adventures in which the hero goes to the end of it such as finding the devil if he has to. As usual he doesn't care neither for success nor for failure, not even more his status. That's the reason why when he comes to read "Sleepy Hollow" script, the producer Scott Rudin asked him to read it, he thought Paramount will never let him having the part for his popularity rating is at its lowest. But you can't never prejudge on Tim Burton's obstination who really knows what Johnny Depp is to his "world". This reunion will be the most successful movie of Johnny Depp's career in Hollywood. Like this young naïve investigator, so determined, who succeeds in solving the mystery of the haunted forest in Sleepy Hollow, Johnny Depp, with his long time companion Tim Burton on his sides, have finally triumph from this maleficent and redoubtable world that is Hollywood. In his way without pressure. And obviously there is no secret in Johnny Depp inaugurating the star with his name on Hollywood Boulevard when, at the same time, "Sleepy Hollow" is in the theaters.

Among the quoted names : Jacques Dutronc

October 1999, Epinay studios. Matte complexion, scare on his cheek, two golden teeth, turned into a gipsy, Johnny Depp ended the shooting of his next movie "The man who cried" directed by Sally Potter. An epic movie that passes through the century and that will be release next spring. Johnny Depp looks at ease in this studio, he knows well for he was also on the set of Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate". In his caravan, parked in the parking lot, he uses as a dressing room, the walls are covered with warm colored curtains, I first talk about our same desire of having an issue dedicated to him. An issue in which he could talk about his movies and his job but also about his sources of inspiration, his own world, whether they are or not connected to the movie industry. He is witty and says he is OK but we have to give him some time to think about it. That doesn't prevent him from quoting immediately names such as Gainsbourg, Dutronc, Artaud, who have to be in his kind of imaginary museum.

About French people and Depp there has always been a special link with France. To him she is a kind of Eldorado. He loves her since ever, he comes visiting her regularly. She is a country he knows well. Better than this, today, he's been living here for almost two years. Since he first met Vanessa Paradis. And there's also a part of him in this country: their daughter (Vanessa and Johnny's daughter) Lilly-Rose of whom he had a portrait hung on the wall of the caravan. He's gone for shooting and when he comes back he wants to talk about Taraf de Haïdoucks, the group of musicians from Rumania, he met on the set and with he became friends, about absinth, this alcohol prohibited nowadays in France and that fascinated so many poets, about Chuck E. Weiss, one of his musicians friends he listens tirelessly to at the moment. He also shows me the painting he made of his boot. Obviously, our idea seduces him faster than the light.

The list stretches out: his universe comes to life

Two months later, a small village on the French Riviera. After six weeks spent in the United States for the American release of "Sleepy Hollow", Johnny Depp is ready to celebrate Christmas, with his family, in the South of France. Our meeting place is the piano-bar room, he booked for us, with an overlooking view on the harbor. He chose the middle of the afternoon for our working meeting. Since our last meeting in Epinay, we send each others fax in order to try to elaborate a primal list of what this special issue is going to be. Names are often quoted such as: Dutronc, Gainsbourg and Artaud so, but also Brando, Buster Keaton, Lon Chaney, Iggy Pop. Don't we dare to forget the directors he worked with such as Burton, Jarmusch or Kusturica. His universe comes to life. I also knew that more than being quite a guitarist (at the beginning he came to Hollywood to become a famous musician), he writes, he draws and paints. I asked him to bring pieces of his work in these different fields. He never said he was OK or not quite entirely.

He comes apologizing for being late, he explains that he has to drive a friend to the airport in Nice and as he was on his way back he suddenly felt the urge of seeing Cannes for he had only see her during the film festival. He wears a leather jacket, a pair of jeans and always these same black boots, but he also came with a black back bag full up with a personal computer, drawing notebooks, pix, and so on and so full. He puts everything on the table as if it was natural. At the same time I feel a sense of decency, a kind of modesty for having to tell everything about his secret garden.

Key of his collecting : a text by William Saroyan

The very first thing he shows me is a page torn up from a book. A twenty lines text he said to be really precious to him. A text by William Saroyan (see p. 100) he reads on and on, that lights up his life and which is a very key to his approach of life. The key of his collecting in a way. Then he pulls out different small notebooks with used covers, a kind of personal diary in which he regularly writes or draws. He reads parts to me and there is one particularly funny in which he tells how he came to this same bar for his first time and ordered a whisky exaggerating a French accent: "un jé bé, s'il vous plait !" (= A JB, please !), and the owner answered him in a row in English "Ice", we don't know if he recognized Johnny or not. On this same notebook, few pages further, he shows me one of the numerous portraits he draws of Gainsbourg, with a pencil. From a small black box, he pulls out some of the paintings he made photographed especially for us. So there is this astonishing portrait with a lonely eye, he painted on the set of the Polanski's movie. There is also this portrait of Antonin Artaud in black and sepia. From his Mac, he reads a never heard text from Jean-Michel Basquiat he loves and that he wrote recently, especially for the preface of a book dedicated to the American-Haitian painter, and offers me to publish an excerpt.

He ordered a bottle of Bordeaux (French wine). The bar tender (who now knows who he is) also brings tapenade (a specialty made with black olives) and sea urchins. You have to see his scared face before the seafood platter: "I hope you do like these, me I cannot eat those." Back to our list, we make some choices: we rate some and add others. That reminds him of a special object he is absolutely crazy about, in Los Angeles : "I have it photographed for you and I will send the photography." He talks about Marilyn Manson, the provocative rocker, he found the media's unfair with. He evokes his passion for music and his urge desire to going back to studios pretty soon and having a new album with P (the name of his band). He talks about the concert he played recently with Iggy Pop and Vanessa Paradis last week and that will be on TV on February 5th (Canal +) : "I had a 40° fever, I was kind of flying."

Night falls and we have been discussing for almost two hours now. He would like to write something special and he really wants to choose every single illustration. One thing is for sure: we haven't finish our work together and we will have to see each other again. That's the moment he chooses to offer me a trip to London from Paris, on Eurostar, next January. The conversation keeps on freely. From his Mac, he shows me a picture, a friend of his took, of his arrest in London while they were shooting "Sleepy Hollow". He had a fight with paparazzi when he came out of a restaurant: Depp is handcuffed in his back and held by two policemen. On this picture you can really see an inner rage very violent. At this particular moment, Depp hated the man who took the picture. Though, today that pix makes him burst into laugh. "I know, it could seem weird, but to me, the best pictures are the ones shot by paparazzi. They often capture much more essence of yourself than the dressed up pictures shot in the studios." In this statement you could guess perversity with a touch of schizophrenia. It's absolutely the opposite. Depp is into truth from the bottom of his heart even though this trough sometimes is painful.

About his acting work, he claims being from no particular school

This trust he puts into truth, this quest for genuine is always with him. You can find it as well in people he sincerely admires, as in his choices he has to make for the movies and his talents for acting. Because, concerning his acting work, Depp claims being from no particular method or formula. So, it's not a chance if his acting job is so unique (look at him closer in "Sleepy Hollow" a pure made up). "The only thing I deeply believe in is a commitment, a conviction. The ideal way should be acting like when you play a solo on guitar: left handed, eyes closed and never in the same way."

Eurostar is know crossing the English Channel. The train noise is getting louder and the electric light blinding. It's a strange feeling at this moment, like being between brackets. Our conversation follows strange intricacies. I ask him about his numerous tattoos. He says that, from the moment he was a teenager, he inflicts himself small cuts on his arm, every time he has the feeling something important happens to him good or bad. Small scares instead of alive memory. Depp has a strange relation with his body. Many actors are tempted to protect their body, to preserve it, like taking care of an instrument, Depp, on the contrary has it marked willingly. He even says it's a "self mutilation", that is exactly the word he uses. "Your body is like your personal diary. The others should be able to read what you've been through" he says. Depp knows he did many wild things such as taking risk in having drugs. He also says that he's been this close too death many times and if he is still here there must be a miracle. Does he believe in his good star? "I don't know a thing about the middle age culture or anything about any stuff like that but I have always had this feeling that an inner force, coming from nowhere, guided me, as well for the bad or the good things happening to me in my life. For I'm quite sure to really understand your life you have to experiment everything. That force, I do believe my grandfather gave it to me. At least, I like to think it. He died when I was 7. We were really close. I do love him and I think he liked me."

Depp is not keen on talking about himself but keen on talking about the others. That is what you can easily guess through his collecting: his curiosity, his quest for adventurers, pioneers or precursors. There is in his imaginary pantheon a sort of accumulation of tragic destinies, people giving themselves out of sacrifice to their art or at least to their convictions. These artists are people with a huge influence, unique personalities, extreme, who dared to approach the thrill even if this meant going beyond limits. People who burned their wings. Death is not very far in this collecting. But there is certainly no fascination for that in it. On the contrary, it's rather something positive that draws him to put in the light special destinies. Like if his goal was to portray a gallery of saints. They surely died because of what they deeply believed in but they surpassed themselves. They brought their passion to fire. "When you commit yourself, it also means that you have to go as far as you can" he said on the train between Paris and London. "You mustn't protect yourself and never look back. Do I know what I'm looking for? Not at all. I'm surely looking for something but I don't know what. Maybe my daughter will understand that when she is 80 and that I'm gone forever.". What you can guess without any doubt from his collecting is his real desire and pleasure to give posterity the learning from his great "heroes". Those models, Depp wants to share them with us and made us feel like discovering them. It's always the same story: showing the way. That can easily explain his commitment to our special issue. To receive, to give and to give himself to others.

The train has now reached France. The daylight came back pale and cold. Words become rarer as if the essence has been said. The end of the voyage is close. He take the Polaroid on the table between us and in a gesture, obvious as a game or a consequence, he takes a picture of himself. Johnny Depp by Johnny Depp without a doubt.

The Inspiration (by Karelle - page 80)
Text especially written by Johnny Depp for this issue.

The origins of inspiration are a little like ghosts, sometimes they even are ghosts. These are fantasy creatures, impossible to say exactly where they come from, and why they come.

These malicious creatures, who work for free, show their real appearance in many ways, assume many shapes. Good or bad, their pesence is always welcome.

They have arrived via sleep and have filled my dreams during too many nights. They have visited me in music, in pictures, and have lived in me for days, months, years, as far as I can remember, and even farther. They penetrate your soul, viciously take hold of your heart, your mind, and drag you where they wish, as long as they want you with them.

The origins of inspiration, it's everything and nothing at one and the same time.

Music, as an origin of inspiration, is the best vehicle for all those who wish to undertake a trip in the past, see again old lifes, old places, friends, recollections _ good or bad.

As my favorite guru, Hunter S. Thompson, likes to say: "Buy the ticket, take the ride."

Johnny Depp

PHOTOS FROM ARTICLE

FILM COMMENTS

JOHNNY'S COLLECTION