MS. LONDON (UK) September 27, 2004 Page 10

JOHNNY DEPP: PAN HANDLER
He's made it into his forties and he's lost in Paradis

Story by Jan Janssen

Though the life of J.M. Barrie may have been just as sugar-coated as his fabled children’s classic Peter Pan, Johnny Depp is pleased as pie to be earning serious accolades for his portrait of the author. Finding Neverland, co-starring Britain’s Kate Winslet, made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and has already prompted film industry observers to tout Depp as an early Oscar candidate. It’s a richly deserved tribute to Depp, who has not only mastered a Scottish accent but also layered his interpretation of Barrie with the childlike sense of wonder that animated the eccentric writer’s world. Johnny isn’t ready to buy into the Oscar hype yet, however. "I'm glad people seem to have enjoyed the film and my work in it, but I don’t want the attention to be focused on me," says Depp. “Kate (Winslet) also does a great job and there are so many elements to the story that make it something audiences will enjoy. I was so happy to have had the chance to inhabit the character because so much of what is beautiful in life is the kind of innocence and amazement at looking at the world which is what Barrie’s vision was like. As we grow older, we often lose that ability to experience the world that way and that’s a shame.”

Depp, 41, is in the middle of a career renaissance that began with last year’s Oscar-nominated role in Pirates of the Caribbean. For years, Depp has been drawn to playing outsiders and oddballs, and it’s only recently that his own self-image has undergone a drastic transformation - a change triggered by his relationship to French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis. Now six years strong, the Depp-Paradis pairing has produced two children, seen Johnny move to France, and occasioned a happy reversal in his previously dismal outlook on life.

“That was the dark side of me and a pretty dismal time in my life," recalls Depp. “It’s like someone you used to know and wonder why things looked so ugly from his perspective. When I was 30 I wasn’t that convinced I would make it to 40, but maybe I had to go through all the crap that had built up inside me to get to a point where I could start enjoying life. When I met Vanessa, I was still drifting. But being with her has just blown me away and made me a better man. Ten years ago I never would have believed in the kind of life I have now as a father, although I still wonder if it’s OK to be this happy."

Depp must be smiling his way through life if he stops to take stock of how his film career has undergone a similar reversal of fortune. Last year’s Pirates of the Caribbean earned him an Oscar nomination and box-office bankability, and his forthcoming film, The Libertine, in which he plays the lecherous 17th century dandy, John Wilmot, aka the Earl of Rochester, is bound to keep that momentum in place. On top of that, there is also considerable hype building around Finding Neverland.

Both films are believed to provide Depp with the kind of material that augurs well for next year’s Academy Awards, and further establishes him as a serious actor who has finally fulfilled the promise he showed earlier in his career with performances in Edward Scissorhands, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and Don Juan Demarco.

Depp has achieved a beautiful symmetry in his home and screen selves. But will success and happiness spoil Johnny Depp? We set out to ask the man himself.

You’ve often spoken about some of the sadder moments in your childhood in terms of how it’s affected you and made you more sensitive to people who are lost or otherwise confused by life. Do you always look to get into the psychological makeup of the people you play?

There’s a fragility and vulnerability that I look for in terms of figuring out what makes people tick. While we’re growing up, we all experience things which somehow warp our personalities and prevent us from being as open or as free as we could be. I grew up in a very different kind of family environment although I didn’t know I was living a weird kind of existence until I would go to other kids’ homes and see how they lived. I also felt very alienated and isolated in school and some kids and one particular teacher would love to pick on me. So that made me pretty defensive and angry in some ways and you want to do anything to escape that kind of aggression you’re experiencing.

How did you escape that as a teenager?

Music was huge for me. I loved playing the guitar and playing in a band and just hanging out with guys who loved music and pretty much felt the same way about school and life that I did. Even though I knew at one point that I would never be a great guitar player, I still loved the freedom that came from playing in a band. My band was good enough to open for Iggy Pop and that was a wild time for us. Music was the thing that got me out of pumping gas and indirectly led me into acting.

Do you think that teasing and taunting you experienced in high school was still part of the lingering negative attitude you might have had when you were going through a very difficult period in your life in your late twenties and early thirties?

That was a big part of it although it’s too easy to blame other people and things in your past for your own self-loathing. When I was drinking heavily, I was just in a really bad frame of mind and using alcohol to deaden whatever I was feeling at the time. I didn’t really know how to handle the process of going from a nobody to someone who’s suddenly famous and getting paid more money than he knows what to do with and having people stare at you when you’re sitting in a café. I don’t even really know why I was doing it except that I wasn’t happy and so you drink to escape that feeling.

Did you ever feel you were going over the edge?

You never think you're on the verge of disaster while you're looking over the edge yourself. It's your friends and family who are trying to get you to stop destroying yourself and after a while it kind of sank in and I just cleaned up my act. But that didn’t really solve the problem which was that I was unhappy with the way my life was going and didn’t see any great relief on the horizon.

And all that changed when you met Vanessa?

Basically, yeah. I pretty much fell in love with Vanessa the moment I set eyes on her. As a person, I was pretty much a lost cause at that point of my life. She turned all that around for me with her incredible tenderness and understanding. Very quickly, I realised I couldn’t live without her. She made me feel like a real human being instead of someone Hollywood had manufactured. It sounds incredibly corny and phoney, but that’s exactly what happened to me and what she has meant to me.

Do you think fate brought you together?

I don’t know what it was but I’m just glad that Roman Polanski wanted me to do his movie [The Ninth Gate] and I was sitting in a restaurant in Paris when I made eye contact with Vanessa.

Do you ever wonder why you happened to meet the right woman then and not earlier?

You have to be open to meeting someone and not be locked in your own ugly frame of mind. I was definitely ready to have someone be there for me when I met Vanessa but it was much more than that. She had this incredible self-assurance and naturalness to her whole way of being that it just made me feel so good to be around her. You can’t explain it but you can feel it.

What do you think about your life when you look back to the time before you met Vanessa?

I just wonder what I was doing with myself. I can only tell you that I just didn’t have a good feeling about who I was or what I was doing with my life. I enjoyed acting and I loved the process, but at the same time I hated the celebrity that came with it even though I know it’s part of the game and the recognition you need to have people come see your movies. I just couldn’t get my head into the place where I could just enjoy the attention and deal with it on that level instead of feeling stalked and paranoid about it. I’m a lot cooler about it now. I like the fact that my children think I’m a pirate and they can tell other kids that their dad is a nice pirate.

Is marriage something you think about?

Sometimes. But the truth is that Vanessa and I have considered ourselves husband and wife since the day we moved in together. It’s not a big issue for us because we know what we feel for each other and that kind of connection is what’s going to keep us together for a very long time. Marriage would just be a formality.

Do you feel you’ve achieved a kind of wonderful synchronicity with the way your private life and career seem to be working out so well?

Having a family has made me a much healthier and happier person and consequently a better actor. I would never have appreciated being able to play in a film like Pirates of the Caribbean, for example, if it hadn’t been for having a family of my own and seeing the joy little kids have when they see Captain Jack. Having my own children has just ripped away a lot of the confusion and insecurity that had been dragging me down for pretty much my entire life. I never knew what happiness was until I met Vanessa and we had our first child. And having that kind of beauty in my life has also made me appreciate being an actor much more. It all fits now.

You were always notoriously hateful of the paparazzi...

I haven't changed my thinking about those guys very much! Even in France, I still have them staking me out and watching our house in the countryside. I don't see the point of guys earning their living by taking photos of me and Vanessa walking our kids to a playground. But I'm trying not to let myself get worked up about it anymore. That just makes them even more money and they know that so some of them try to provoke you that way. So I've stopped playing into their hands. I'm just trying to be a boring family guy so there's no value to taking my photo anymore.

You seem to be a happy man these days. Does that kind of inner calm change your approach to the kinds of roles you want to be playing?

I still love the challenge of playing eccentrics. I don't see the point in playing the usual kind of leading men type roles and I also don't feel that I'm necessarily right for those kinds of parts. I loved Captain Jack (Pirates of the Caribbean) and we're doing the sequel to that and I think that's the kind of film I want my kids to see me in and maybe my grandchildren one day. But mainly the thing which attracts me is how many odd layers I can find in a role. That's what excites me as an actor - it's the process of creating a character and playing with all the possibilities. I also think that most of the people who appreciate my work look forward to seeing me playing unusual or eccentric personalities.

How eccentric are you in person?

I have a few quirks like being interested in insects and odd smells and stuff like that. More than that I’m not telling! (Smiles)

Did you ever use acting as an escape?

I think I did. But now it’s more of a creative release than anything else. When I finished making a movie in the past, I never felt that I had anything that go back to in terms of my life. Now I look forward to being with my family.

Are you finding that raising your children has affected the way you approach your career?

Strangely, even when I was miserable in my own life, I usually loved being on a film set and I truly revelled in the atmosphere of working with the director and the actors in creating something. Making films was always a refuge for me because I was totally focused on the work and not thinking about my own problems. Being with Vanessa and having children has made things very easy and clear for me. There’s nothing dark about my world anymore. I watch our son and daughter playing around the house or learning new things and I wonder what on earth could be more beautiful than that.

As well as the up coming FINDING NEVERLAND Johnny can be seen in the BBC’s Fast Show Special and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, both out on DVD.