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From the Gainsville Register
Review: "Finding Neverland"
By The Critical Couch Potato

If you only get to see one movie this year, try to make it "Finding Neverland." This movie is good.

This movie transcends the film and becomes a spirit-altering experience. If at all possible, squeeze time from the hustle and bustle of the holidays to see this movie and be transported to a place that reassures the viewer that the cycle of life is good.

It's emotional, it's touching, it's a love story, it's an adventure story.

"Finding Neverland" is a tale of magic and fantasy inspired by the life of James Barrie, the author of the children's classic "Peter Pan."

The movie is set in London in 1904 and the film follows Barrie's creative journey to bring Peter Pan to life, from his first inspiration for the story up until the play's premiere at the Duke of York's Theater -- a night that changed not only Barrie's life, but the lives of everyone close to him and has touched the lives of millions of people for more than 100 years ("Peter Pan" celebrated its 100th birthday in December 2004).

Johnny Depp, as Barrie, continues to prove that he is one of the finest actors on the screen today: his portrayal has a manner of movement and facial expressions that make him a gentle hero.

In my opinion, "Finding Neverland" is destined to become one of the classic movies of this era.

Beautifully acted, sweet but not syrupy and perfect for a break from all the holiday madness, "Finding Neverland" is a true gem. It is not at all "children's fare." It presents historical reality between lushly imagined expeditions to the fictitious Neverland.

This film also pushes your imagination to the limit with beautiful imaginary scenery and bizarre moments when everything changes around the characters as the protagonists create Neverland.

If you're looking for computer-generated graphics and unbelievable tales -- look elsewhere. If you are seeking a truly good movie with good moral values, strong acting and an intriguing plotline, look no further. This is it.

It's a relief to see a movie that had romance without overt sexuality, a plot, and true emotion without sentimentality. This is such a movie.

Cast: Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell, Dustin Hoffman, Kelly MacDonald, Ian Hart, Eileen Essell, Paul Whitehouse, Freddie Highmore, Joe Prospero, Nick Roud and Luke Spill

Peter Pan

Rating (**** stars out of *****)

Synopsis: (Courtesy of Miramax Films) The boundless imagination of the man behind "Peter Pan" and the poignancy of his journey combine in this emotional tale inspired by events in the life of Scottish author James Matthew Barrie. In "Finding Neverland," director Marc Forster ("Monster's Ball") and an accomplished cast including Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman and Julie Christie take a fictional look at the creation of "Peter Pan," the classic of children's literature that speaks directly to the child in all of us. "Finding Neverland" traverses both fantasy and everyday reality, melding the difficulties and heartbreak of adult life with the spellbinding allure and childlike innocence of the boy who never grows up.

It all begins as successful Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie (Depp) watches his latest play open to a ho-hum reaction among the polite society of Edwardian England. A literary genius of his times but bored by the same old themes, Barrie is clearly in need of some serious inspiration. Unexpectedly, he finds it one day during his daily walk with his St. Bernard Porthos in London's Kensington Gardens.

There, Barrie encounters the Llewelyn Davies family: four fatherless boys and their beautiful, recently widowed mother (Winslet). Despite the disapproval of the boys' steely grandmother, Emma du Maurier (Christie) and the resentment of his own wife (Radha Mitchell), Barrie befriends the family, engaging the boys in tricks, disguises, games and sheer mischief, creating play-worlds of castles and kings, cowboys and Indians, pirates and castaways. He transforms hillsides into galleon ships, sticks into mighty swords, kites into enchanted fairies and the Llewelyn Davies boys into "The Lost Boys of Neverland."

From the sheer thrills and adventurousness of childhood will come Barrie' s most daring and renowned masterwork, "Peter Pan." At first, his theatrical company is skeptical. While his loyal producer Charles Frohman (Hoffman) worries he'll lose his shirt on this children' s fantasy, Barrie begins rehearsals only to shock his actors with such unprecedented requests as asking them to fly across the stage, talk to fairies made out of light and don dog and crocodile costumes.

Then, just as Barrie is ready to introduce the world to "Peter Pan," a tragic twist of fate will make the writer and those he loves most understand just what it means to really believe.

Making a special guest appearance in the cast is Laura Duguid, J.M. Barrie's real-life goddaughter and the daughter of Nico, the youngest of the real-life Llewelyn Davies boys. She plays the small but vital role of the theater-goer who at the party following "Peter Pan's" premiere suggests that young Peter Llewelyn Davies must be the real "Peter Pan," only to have Peter point to Barrie and reply: "But I' m not Peter Pan, he is." Duguid was just nine years old when Barrie died. Nonetheless, she has unforgettable memories of spending time with him as a child.

And for those trivia fanatics:

The legacy of "Peter Pan" includes:

# The birth of children's literature as a popular commercial genre. Although there previously was a long tradition of children' s literature beginning with adaptations of "Robinson Crusoe" and "The Arabian Knights," Barrie's novel of "Peter Pan" sparked a revolution in literature, proving that child readers were just as vital a market as their parents.

# The word "Neverland" is now included in the American Heritage Dictionary, defined as "an imaginary and wonderful place; a fantasy land."

# The name Wendy, which was invented by J.M. Barrie based on an associate's young daughter, Margaret Henley, who, unable to pronounce an "R," used to call Barrie "my fwendy." Though Margaret died at age six, she lives on in the character of Wendy, who also inspired many parents to name their girls after her.

# An enduring fashion style: "The Peter Pan collar," a name that came to represent the large, rounded collars that boys of the period often sported.

# Thousands of theatrical stagings, a Broadway musical, numerous films and television shows, an animated classic, a beloved Disney theme park ride, and a Peter Pan statue in Kensington Garden, among other incarnations.

# A tradition of cross-gender casting for the role of "Peter Pan." The first actress to play "Peter Pan" was 37-year-old Nina Boucicault, sister to the play' s first director, whose casting started a trend. It wasn't until 1982 that a male was first cast as Peter Pan in England. The role continues to be sought by actors of both sexes.

# Millions of dollars for the Great Ormand Street Children's Hospital in England. The copyright for "Peter Pan" was bequeathed by Barrie to the hospital, which over the years has used the substantial proceeds to treat countless needy children. (See note about the Dec. 27 showing)

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From the DesMoines Regsiter
'Finding Neverland' a journey into the wonders of childhood

By JEFFREY BRUNER
REGISTER FILM CRITIC
December 17, 2004

"Finding Neverland" sparkles like a little gem, a whimsical flight into the joy of a child.

This fanciful (and fictional) look into how Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie created "Peter Pan" comes from director Marc Forster, who adapted Allan Knee's play "The Man Who Was Peter Pan." It's a spirit-lifting, deeply moving experience that combines the power of theater with the high-tech capabilities of movies.

The drama hovered under the radar all fall, elevating its profile recently with a National Board of Review win and five Golden Globe nominations.

Johnny Depp shines as Barrie, giving a terrific performance that's worthy of all the acclaim awarded to his hammy turn last year in "The Pirates of the Caribbean." Depp shifts effortlessly from the dramatic to the fantasy sequences that Forster creates to illustrate Barrie's vision and imagination.

As the movie opens, Barrie certainly needs some inspiration - his latest play is a flop and appears to bore everyone, including the playwright.

One day during a walk in the park with his dog, Barrie comes across four boys and their recently widowed mother (Kate Winslet). He befriends the family, much to the chagrin of his distant wife (Radha Mitchell), and begins to spend quite a bit of time with them.

And so mischief and make-believe worlds of pirates and fairies light a spark in Barrie's imagination that leads to the children's classic. "Finding Neverland" brilliantly moves back and forth between the pain of adult heartbreak and wondrous innocence of childhood.

"Young boys should never be sent to bed," Barrie notes. "They always wake up a day older."

Forster, who previously helmed the much-darker "Monster's Ball," shows here he's definitely a versatile director. His fantasy sequences burst with a vibrancy and energy like Tim Burton's "Big Fish," and his moving ending grabbed me in a fashion similar to that film.

Part of that is due to Freddie Highmore's great work as young Peter - if this little boy doesn't break your heart, you just don't have one. His work here is so strong that Tim Burton cast him in the lead role in next year's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

The rest of the supporting performances are first-rate, especially Winslet as the widow Barrie befriends and Dustin Hoffman as a theater producer who takes a gamble on Barrie's risky new idea. Children everywhere certainly are glad that he did.

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Depp embodies spirit of Neverland
Thursday, December 16, 2004
By Mark Burger relish staff writer

Movies don't come much nicer than Finding Neverland, an appropriately sentimental big-screen rendition of Allan Knee's stage play, which is "inspired by true events" according to the film's opening legend.

Having scored his first Academy Award nomination this year - for Pirates of the Caribbean, no less - Johnny Depp is gunning for his second here, and he just might get it. Depp's performance as the real-life author J.M. Barrie is lovely, loving and charming - and the best thing about Finding Neverland.

The year is 1903, and Barrie's latest stage play has crashed and burned - much as several have before it. He's desperately seeking inspiration, and he's not finding it at home from his frosty, socially-conscious wife (Radha Mitchell) - a character that the film has absolutely no idea what to do with.

In a local park, Barrie meets and befriends Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet), an attractive young widow with four sons. Barrie, who has no children of his own, is captivated by the boys' energy and imagination - and by the palpable grief of Sylvia's son Peter (Freddie Highmore), still profoundly affected by his father's death.

In spending time with the boys and their mother, Barrie begins to formulate the story of what will ultimately become his greatest triumph - Peter Pan. But as Barrie gleans more and more inspiration from Sylvia's boys, the tongues of London's haughty social strata start wagging about their relationship, which further strains Barrie's marriage - as if his wife's general disdain weren't enough.

And then Sylvia falls ill. It's never clear what ails her, beyond the usual, indeterminate fatal illnesses that have befallen leading ladies since the days (daze?) of Greta Garbo in Camille (1936) and even Ali MacGraw in Love Story (1970).

So, Sylvia's going to die and Peter Pan will become the work that Barrie will best be remembered for. All's well that ends well, more or less. David Magee's adaptation and Marc Forster's direction are sympathetic without being particularly remarkable - a Lifetime cable movie with a large-screen pedigree.

Julie Christie is appealingly brittle as Sylvia's disapproving mother-in-law, and Dustin Hoffman adds a boost of star power as Barrie's faithful if rather worried producer, Charles Frohman. Joe Prospero, Nick Roud and Luke Spill round out the quartet of Davies boys, and Ian Hart pops up briefly as Barrie's friend and colleague, the author Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame).

But Finding Neverland is Depp's show all the way, and his performance goes a long way toward making the film as affecting as it is. There has always been an almost child-like fascination and sense of wonder in his best work, and it's on full display here. Although most around him have, Barrie has never lost touch with his inner child - and it's not inaccurate to apply the same sentiment to Depp as an actor, which is one of the reasons he's such a good one.

mburger@wsjournal.com

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Found by Celeste: 

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Found by Pam
Finding Neverland interview

By Paul Salfen

Director Marc Forster came to town to talk to a select few that have seen an early screening of his new film, Finding Neverland, that is sure to be a big holiday hit. Sitting in a conference room at the Adolphus Hotel downtown on a balmy August day, the Monster’s Ball director has a lot to be excited about. It’s several months away from the release and already Johnny Depp is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly to promote the film with a tag line suggesting that it could be his “Oscar movie”. Somewhat loosely based on the controversial figure J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan - whom many argue was a pedophile - many of the sketchier details are skipped and ultimately glossed over by a fantastic performance by Depp in the lead role. Because of his shooting schedule with the now-wrapped Stay (with Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts), Forster had to come in early for interviews, which was a treat seeing what was (so far) one of the best films of the year.

Dallas Music Guide: This is ultimately based on a play. Had you seen the production?

Marc Forster: No, I only read the play, "The Man Who Was Peter Pan".

DMG: Did you know much about Barrie before the movie started?

MF: No, I didn't really know much at all and, actually, I read a lot of books because when I read the script I loved the script but I wanted to see how different his real life story was and how different of a person he was. You have all these rumors that he might have this whole pedophilia issue. I read everything about it because I didn't want to make a movie about someone if he would have been a pedophile. I wouldn't have been interested, but I read so much about him historically and there was never proof of it; all these stories said he was asexual. I did like what the script was going for because it was always focused and concentrating on the inspiration of how this man got the idea to write Peter Pan and I loved how it captures the spirit of that.

DMG: Coming off of Monster's Ball, you must have been inundated with a lot of scripts. How did you come about choosing this one as the next project because it's a change of pace from anything that you've done?

MF: Actually, I read this script before I made Monster's Ball and I loved it. When I finished that, my agent called me and said, “You always loved that script - it's still available.” They couldn't find a director, everybody passed on it, or the directors who wanted to do it, Miramax didn't want to give them the project. I met with them and talked to them about it and it was before Monster's Ball came out so I showed them Monster's Ball and they really responded to it. I basically signed up, then people knew I was busy, so they never send me scripts.

DMG: Why were the other directors hesitant?

MF: A lot of my friends who knew about the script said, "Why do you want to make this movie? It's not for kids; it's not for grownups. Who are you making the movie for?" And I said, "I don't know. I just think it's a great story and I love it and I think it has some of the wonderful aspects in it." They didn't get it. I said, "I can't make a movie thinking about my audience or just because of commercial reasons. I only can make it when I'm passionate about it." With Monster's Ball, I was surprised that it actually became "commercial" because three people die in the first half of the movie, and no character is likeable. The one woman is abusive to her child, he gets run over by the car, the other person gets electrocuted, the third person, the only likeable
character, shoots himself on screen in front of his father. The studio said to me, "Look, nobody is going to see this. Let's just be clear about that. So we're not going to give you any money for it, but we're going to make it." I thought, "Okay, if 10 people go and see it, it will be a blessing." Then suddenly it became this almost commercial film.

DMG: I assume Johnny Depp was attached later after all these directors turned it down?

MF: They wouldn't have turned it down if they knew that beforehand. (Laughs) I thought of him immediately because he still had this child-like quality. I said, "I'm going to ask Johnny because he's one of the few actors who makes decisions not because of commercialism. He really makes decisions because he's passionate about something." That the pirate movie became commercial was a fluke because a lot of people told him, "Why do you want to do Pirates? This is making a movie off some ride in Disneyland. It would end your career." And he
said, "No, I liked the character and I can see it with my kids."

DMG: So he did this right on the heels of Pirates of the Caribbean?

MF: No, he did it before. We shot this in the summer of 2002 and I finished it in 2003.

DMG: So you were actually fortunate that he had Pirates of the Caribbean come out afterwards?

MF: Oh, yes. And that's great for the studio because they didn't have to pay him his price. After Pirates Of Caribbean made $300 million dollars, his price definitely went up. He always had a following, but his following now is much, much wider.

DMG: I'd read that it was held back so as not to conflict with the live-action Peter Pan that came out last year. Is that right?

MF: That's correct. The film was finished a year ago and basically Miramax wanted to release it last year in the fall, but all the stage play stuff was owned by Universal, who released that other Peter Pan film and they didn't want another film with that subject matter in the marketplace at the same time. They got the rights ninety days after that film was released last year, which was in the spring. Miramax felt that this was more of a fall movie, so they pushed it to the fall.

DMG: Entertainment Weekly had Johnny on the cover, calling this “Johnny's Oscar movie” and there’s a lot of early “Oscar buzz” about his performance. How do you feel about that being that the release is several months away?

MF: It's a tricky one because if they call it that people will have a high expectation of the film and I feel that if they come in the movie not knowing too much or having less expectations sometimes they walk away saying, "Oh my God, I loved the film!" But if they come in with high expectations, it's much harder to please them. In the sense the cover helps the movie because it makes it more accessible to people and brings the word out there, but at the same time I hope people will not be disappointed.

DMG: Was there extensive pre-production work on the costumes and settings? How elaborate was that?

MF: I try to get as much time as possible for the money we had. Visually, I had a certain style and approach I wanted to do for the piece and also costume- wise. I worked with an entire British crew, except the cinematographer that I brought with me. Alexandra Byrne, who did the costumes, did this film Elizabeth as well, which I really thought looked beautiful. She did Hamlet for Kenneth Branagh and did several costume dramas in England. She just had such an interesting way of putting costumes together and designing. We did a lot of discussions, especially for the Neverland scenes and the fantasy sequences. She made everything handmade; she didn't take anything from a costume store. And I also wanted the characters not to change clothes too much because I always felt like in period pieces, every scene they wear something else. I felt like Kate Winslet's character couldn't afford it all. In production design, we built a couple of stages in Shepperton and that took a while. The pirate scene, to build the boat also took a while. The script just says "pirate ship", but it doesn't describe any visuals. The other part is the ocean. I said to the production designer, "I don't want a real ocean, I want it to be stormy and rough, but I think we should do it theatrical. Everything should be mechanical; the shark should feel like metal or mechanical. The waves should feel a little awkward." The boat should be two masts, shouldn't be too much; it should have some cannons, but not too many; like a poor man's version of a pirate ship. Step by step we discussed every detail and I'm very detail orientated and I'm sort of very controlling in that sense, so I think I drove them a little crazy, but it worked out fine.

DMG: There were a number of different ways you could have shot the fantasy sequences. How did you decide on your approach?

MF: It was scripted, but some of the stuff, which was scripted, didn't cut back and forth and I thought it was very important to go back and forth between reality and fantasy to make a differentiation in that regard. I felt that I wanted to simplify it as much as possible because as a director if you read fantasy sequence, you feel like you can really try to go anywhere and "show off", show how great one can be and I didn't want to go in that direction. I wanted to make it very mechanical, very simple, and make it almost from a child's point of view, also a turn of the century way of seeing it - just to make it simple and a little bit raw.

DMG: What was it like directing scenes with both Depp and Hoffman in them? Are their approaches very different or the same and did they dovetail nicely?

 MF: No, their approaches are definitely different. Dustin definitely comes from
a different school than Johnny does. Dustin is like a wonderful…I don't know too much about cars, but people say when you have an engine of like an old Ferrari that it has to run for awhile before it sounds perfect - after eight, nine, ten takes, he starts running. He's warming up and then like on take fifteen, sixteen, you're getting to the jewel of his work. Johnny is like take three, take four, and after take ten he starts getting tired. So if you have a scene where they both are in the shot, Johnny's best work is between take three and take five, that's when he peaks and Dustin peaks between eight and twenty five, somewhere in between there. So it was hard for Johnny because it's Dustin Hoffman, we both love him, he's an icon of ours, so you just try to keep going and keep his focus going.

DMG: This is your first experience working these extensively with children. What was it like directing them?

MF: Children…they were so easy and lovely and wonderful. I made sure that I looked at a lot of children and chose those children after I brought them in two, three, four times just to work with them. Once I got close to a bunch of them, I work with them two hours at a time with a video camera, just me and them in a room. I gave them directions and did some scenes; I just wanted to see how long is their attention span, when do they get tired, how much are they willing to take direction or work with me. The first person I cast was Peter -
Freddie Highmore - he was the key and then I started casting around him and he was such a great actor in spirit. He was so focused and just great to work with. The little one, Michael, was this cute boy, Luke Spill. He was like five and a half and sometimes after take four or five, that was as much as you can get, but he was so cute and wonderful that you didn't need more. It was just lovely.

DMG: When you start with somebody else's script, how much do you go in and modify it to match your vision?

MF: I modify quite a bit. I go through and see what works visually for my head how the scenes play out. If something doesn't work, I just cut it. I just keep working on dialogue. Eventually, I show it to the writer again; I want him to be happy because he wrote it originally; I don't want to be disrespectful. I have to modify it to make it work for me and then collaborate with him in case he's not happy with something I did to smooth it out. But usually, he was very pleased with what I did. I did with Dustin Hoffman a few improvisational scenes  because he thought some of the dialog felt not right for him. So we improvised; I wrote down a few notes and we worked on it together and then basically after we did the changes we presented it to David Magee and Johnny, but they both seemed to like it just fine.

DMG: What is your favorite moment in the film?

MF: I really do like the final scene between Johnny and Freddie. It has a certain honesty how he treats the child. I loved shooting that scene as well. There are a couple of other scenes we just had fun shooting. A great scene where we had so much fun was the dinner scene where everybody is there: Julie Christie, Kate Winslet, Johnny and the kids. Johnny had this great idea. (Laughs) He had this fart machine and he said, "We should use this for the kids. It's hysterical." It had a remote control and I stole it under the chair of Julie Christie. And Julie didn't know; nobody knew except Johnny and I. I had the remote control and when we're shooting the scene and they were eating… (makes a “fart sound”). It was very subtle. And you just got these great natural reactions. By take seven or eight, I was just going nuts with it and then they realized that it was a machine. But the laughter we got from the kids and the reactions from Julie, how she got more and more tied up during the whole thing, was worth it. It was very funny.

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Sent in by Chris
Famous for failing
By John H. Richardson
December 11, 2004
 
 

Johnny Depp: " Maybe I was just too dumb to sell out ... "
 

The fact is, I wanted to meet Johnny Depp because of Alison, my sister-in-law. She's about 45 and pretty but always looks a little beaten down, one of those people who seem to apologise for living.

She and her husband have spent years living in the usual small apartments trying to raise a child on spit and spare change, but a year or two ago something happened to Alison - she discovered Johnny Depp.

But let her tell it.

"When did I first start getting into him?" she asks. "I think with Don Juan DeMarco." She loved the theme of the movie. Then she saw From Hell and was blown away by that too.

But the turning point was Pirates of the Caribbean. She was with a friend, a fellow devotee, and as soon as Depp made his entrance on the mast of that sinking ship, well . . .

"Afterward, we said we hadn't felt that way since the Beatles."

They became addicted. Every weekend that summer they went to different cinemas. They started watching Entertainment Tonight to catch glimpses of him and they scanned the internet for Depp trivia.
 

He made them question their lives. How had they become so cautious, boring, utterly middle-of-the-road? What had had happened to them?

Oddly enough, Depp had a similar experience, which he described five years ago in an article he wrote called Kerouac, Ginsberg, the Beats and Other Bastards Who Ruined My Life. The story begins with the day his older brother ripped Frampton Comes Alive! off the turntable, put on Astral Weeks by Van Morrison and handed him a copy of Jack Kerouac's On the Road.

"And so began my ascension or descension into the mysteries of all things considered 'Outside'," he wrote. "I had burrowed too deep into the counterculture of my brother's golden repository, and as years went by, he would turn me on to other areas of his expertise, sending me even further into the dark chasm of alternative learning. I wanted my education to come from living life, getting out there in the world, seeing and doing and moving among the other vagabonds who had had the same sneaking suspicion that I did, that there would be no great need for high-end mathematics, nope. I was not going to be doing other people's taxes and going home at 5:37pm to pat my dog's head and sit down to my one-meat-and-two-vegetable table waiting for Jeopardy."

So it makes perfect sense that when I finally do get my Depp moment, it's like a drug deal: Check into the Chateau Marmont and we'll call you when we call you.

Depp's new movie is Finding Neverland, a largely fictionalised account of Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. Depp plays Barrie, Rahda Mitchell plays his wife, and Kate Winslett plays the widowed mother of the boys who inspired him to write it.

I sit in my room waiting and watching movies. Finally the phone rings and a voice comes on and says, Johnny's running a little late. Hang tight.

What movie star has enacted the paradigm of celebrity evasion more perfectly than Johnny Depp? The guy hides behind masks and makeup and scissor hands and bald spots and oddball, bizarre weirdness more than any other movie star in history. Look at his films: Cry-Baby, Edward Scissorhands, Dead Man, From Hell, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Another half-hour, then the phone rings again. Down the hall, knock knock, and there he is, sitting in a chair. For a guy who doesn't give a damn, he's definitely sporting a look - professionally ripped denim, a floppy old brown fedora, amulets up his arm, and some kinda mojo hand necklace dangling to his breastbone.

He smiles sweetly, asks about my room. And we start to talk, mostly pretty boring stuff at first.

When the room-service waiter comes in, Depp talks to him about antiques and even walks him to the door. The kid leaves beaming.

Every so often he asks me if I want some more coffee. Every so often he rolls a cigarette and smokes it. And adds a little water to his coffee.

You have spent some time in France, right? Don't they do that in France?

"No, this is me just growing up on diner coffee. I'm a Maxwell House guy. This is way too highfalutin' stuff for me."

I do ask him about showbiz a couple of times but it doesn't seem to be a subject that brings him much joy.

"I don't recall anything that knocked me out. I like not seeing too much of what's going on out there, you know? In fact, I like not seeing what's going on, not knowing what anybody else is doing and not knowing who anybody is. It's like ignorance is bliss."

I ask if he had to ignore a lot of expensive professional advice to make so many oddball movies.

"Well, I took their advice. It was Cocteau, I think - Cocteau said advice is a great thing to listen to and disregard. And at times it is, you know? Because nobody really knows what you're feeling, what you're really going for, what you're really trying to do. Hell, I didn't even know what I was going for. I just knew that I didn't want to be assembly line.

"There were agents, upper-echelon agents over the years who said, listen here's the deal: you have to do this because you can make this much money and you can do this and you can do that, success and power and all that. I listened to them and they were right, you know, but I was right. I couldn't go where they wanted me to go."

Are you happy being an actor?

"Yeah. I'm a lot happier now than I used to be. Because for a lot of years I was really freaked out. Maybe I took it all too seriously, you know? I was freaked out about being turned into a product. That really used to bug me. Now, more and more, I enjoy the process. Creating a character, working that character into a scene, into the movie. I mean, the last couple of things have been just a ball."

You seemed to be having fun on Pirates.

"I had a ball. I really had a ball every single day. It was just a gas. It's probably the most centred and content I've ever been, starting a little bit before that point, because everything comes from home and emotion and what you're living in. We started Pirates and my girl was three and a half, a great relationship. My little boy was just in the throes of the caveman period and hilarious."

Is that one of their bracelets you're wearing there?

"My daughter made these for me, and then, amazingly, she chose every single bead on this one, little skulls and stuff. She put these skulls on and then she had one green bead and she said, 'Ah, this is gonna be for Daddy'."

He talks about the past, how he came out of Florida with his rock band in 1983 and lived in Nick Cage's old apartment near Hollywood Boulevard, so broke that he took the Mexican change in Cage's drawers down to the cheque-cashing joint so he could buy a hot dog or a pack of cigarettes. Getting his first role in Nightmare on Elm Street, gradually realising he wasn't going to play guitar for a living after all.

Then he brings up the TV heartthrob thing, something he returns to several times, how he got the part on 21 Jump Street that changed his life so fast. Suddenly he was living in a nice hotel and getting paid big money and people were staring at him in restaurants.

You were playing some kind of teen detective, right?

"I was playing a cop who looked young enough to go undercover in high school."

You were playing an a---hole.

"Yeah, a fascist. I've always been drawn to those fringe types."

That's why it's strange you're in Hollywood, cause it's basically such a mainstream place.

"Maybe I was just too dumb to sell out."

There's a purity to the characters you play. They're trying to be themselves and not fake it.

"I think that's important. Even in your own life. When you meet someone like Hunter Thompson and watch him, get to know him - people say whatever they want to say about Hunter and his books - he's pure, he's absolutely pure. There's really not an ugly bone in the guy's body."

Really?

"Yeah. He's just himself. That's rare. You know, like Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, a band out of Texas. They were basically the first psychedelic-rock band; 1965. And if you listen to old 13th Floor Elevators stuff - Roky Erickson especially, his voice - and then go back and listen to early Led Zeppelin, you know that Robert Plant absolutely copped everything from Roky Erickson. And it's amazing. And Roky Erickson is sitting in Austin, Texas. And Robert Plant had a huge hit. It always goes back to those guys, you know?

"The interesting thing is, like, for the most part, I've kind of been able to glide through this weird little thing they call a career in terms of the business world and in terms of the industry in many movies that were considered absolute failures, flops. So I've kind of made a career of -

Failure?

"Failing."

This article first appeared in Esquire magazine. John H. Richardson is a US author

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