JOHNNY BE GOOD
He be very, very good.  Empire has always loved Johnny Depp, but as he searches for childhood innocence in this month's Finding Neverland, we discover his new-found popularity is eclipsed only by his immeasurable coll...
Words by Will Lawrence
Portraits: Mark Seliger
Hollywood kingpin Harvey Weinstein looks around the table.  To his left is a pair of publicists, their shirts as crisp as their smiles.  Opposite is Johnny Depp, looking cooler than a penguin's picnic, clad in ripped blue jeans, any number of pendants, and a white shirt so crisp it could have been ironed by a publicist.  To Weinstein's right sits Empire, dressed in a battered blue T-shirt emblazoned with a Porn STar logo.  We are, putting it mildly, uncrispy.

As Weinstein surveys the disparity of sartorial sophistication before him (and Empire wonders whether some sort of shirt might have been in order) he suddenly turns the table's attention to its least distinguished guest.  "Tell them what you told me earlier," he says, giving Empire a gentle nudge with his elbow.  Reluctant to refuse a request from the head of Miramax Films, we clear our throat and unravel a rather thin yarn...

When Miramax's most recent movie, Finding Neverland, screened in the UK, a large portion of the assembled press was male.  Even so, with Depp, Kate Winslet and a gaggle of children led by the feisty Freddie Highmore wringing every drop of emotion out of a highly charged script, many of the boys in the audience, well, they cried like girls.  And, with the male psyche rarely acquiescing to public outbursts of sensitivity, by the time the lights had come up, most of those boys had donned their sunglasses.  Direct glances were, subsequently, kept to a minimum, and those without shades all seemed to develop some kind of irriation around their eyes that required immediate attention...

"that's wonderful," booms WEinstein as the story fizzles out.  "I cried at Neverland too."  The two publicists, perfect paradigms of professionalcharm and courtesy, also smile (whether they are being polite or are genuinely amused by our first-base social commentary, we are genuinely grateful), adding that they too were deeply moved by the movie.  Johnny Depp, however, peeping out from behind blue-tinted shades, has a different verdict.

"That's cool," he says softly, gensturing to Empire's T-shirt.  "Porn STar.  I like that."
"The notion is beautiful, the idea of staying a boy or child forever.  And I think youcan."
It is noon on a September day in Venice when Empire discovers that Johnny Depp likes our T-shirt.  Maybe he wasn't listening to the over-ebullient effusions about his performance as Peter Pan author James Matthew Barrie (we could hardly blame him), or perhaps he sensed Empire's embarrassment at relating a frankly feeble talke to such august Hollywood alumni and tactfully changed focus.  Whatever, his off-kilter response has only reinforced our prejudice: Johnny Depp is the coolest actor in the world.

As Weinstein and the publicists melt away, talk first turns to Porn Star.  Empire wishes it were a job description rather than a fasion label; Depp wishes he had some coffee and calls over a waiter.

"That's very clever," he beams as the waiter returns and places a small cup of coffee in between Empire's two tape recorders.  (The coffee delivery was impeccble, but we're unsure why it's so clever.)  "Having two of them," he continues, prodding a digit at the nearest Dictaphone.  (Oh, right, yes, a back-up machine, that is quite clever.) "But you know what that means?" *Erm, no, not really.) "Soon it'll be four, then five.," his voice quickens, "then six, until you're surrounded by these things.  You'll have them strapped to your chest..."  He does an impression of a man infested with small tape machines.  It seems pretty good; we may have witnessed in the fine form of Johnny Depp an acting first.  If not, we've certainly witnessed the world's First Actor on very fine form.  In Venice to promote Finding Neverland, Depp is tackling his PR duties with all the youtful verve and sprightliness of J. M. Barrie himself.

Playing the Scottish playwright in Finding Neverland, an adaptation of Allan Knee's stage play "The Man Who Was Peter Pan"(itself an imaginary series of meetings and conversations between BArrie and the Llewelyn DAvies kids, the inspiration for the Lost Boys), Depp is immersed in Barrie's ceaseless search for the virtue and wonder of childhood innocence, forever reaching beyond the dour constraints of everyday existence.  Barrie is indeed the real Peter Pan.  The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up.  And who better to step into those enchanged shoes...

"Of course," smiles Depp, "the notion is beautiful: the idea of staying a boy or a child forever.  But I think you really can.  I've known plenty of people in their later years that were like little kids, had the energy of little children, the curiosity and fascination.  I think we can keep that.  It's important we keep that."  This facination with a playful purity of heart has been the guiding light throughout Depp's career, drawing him towards characters that, while masquerading as the macabre, lurking behind masks, maek-up, bald spots and scissorhands, are invariably defined by their innocence.

"That's true," he says quietly, dropping a pinch of Bali Shag into a chocolat cigarette paper.  "Innocence and purity are definitely themes that I've plodded about in over the years.  They're themes I'm fascinated with, because for the growing up in American in the '50's and just into the 60's, there was still some kind of innocence.  There was hope.  People equate the day Kennedy was assassinated with the end of innocence and transition to this very strange and very dark..."  His voice trails of as he lights the cigarette.

"I'm interested in innocence and purity because they're things we don't really have in the world anymore," he continues.  "With Neverland, well when I was a kid I had all the same fascinations with Peter Pan as other kids.  The first thing I saw was the Disney animated feature, which I loved.  But I didn't love it in the way I loved Tod Browning's Dracula, or Frankenstein.  That's the stuff that killed me.  But later in life, reading the book and the play and doing research on J. M. Barrie, it went to another level.  HE was a very complicated figure with a very dark past.

Complicated figures dominate Depp's rather dark celluloid CV, with almost all of his fragile, tender-hearted protagonists sheated in a morbid, mysterious or just plain screwball veneer.  Look at 'Cry-Baby' Walker, Bill Blake, Ed Wood or Raoul Duke...  With J. M. Barrie, however, the character's murkier depths bubble away beneath the surface, disguised by the film's joyful celebration of his rampant imagination.  Director Marc Forster interweaves Barrie's life with that of the Llewelyn Davies family, with the sole purpose of creating the tapestry on which Pan was brought to life.   And while he hints at the storm of gossip whipped up by the playwright's relationship with Winslet's Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, his friendship with the boys is presented as nothing but pure.  In the cynical 20th century however, it was regarded with pure suspicion.  Today the film could feature in the case for Michael Jackson's defence.

"Yeah, maybe," Depp chuckles.  "But with Barrie, a lot of the criticism is unjust; it goes back to what Brando used to say: 'Were you there?  No, you weren't.'  Those kids were interviewed later in life and said in no uncertain terms that there was no molestation, no fiddle-faddle;  Barrie was just a great man.  He loved those kids and they loved him.  That's what it boils down to."

"We all change, except a little somethin is us which is no larger than a mote in the eye, and that, like it, dances in front of us, beguiling us all our days."  As Empire first arrives at Venice's opulent Hotel Cipriani to wait for Johnny Depp, we flick through Barrie's To The FIve, a dedication to the Llewelyn Davies family that prefaces our edition of Pan, congratulating ourselves on the discovery of the above passage.  Empire will no doubt be able to see the mote in Depp's eye (we've yet to discover that he's wearing shades, blue-tinted or otherwise) that suggestion of the jocular japer who's accompanied Depp throughout his career trying to get him fired from his first big TV gig, on 21 Jump Street, and still alive years later, parading around the set of Once Upon A Time in Mexico in a false moustache, occasionally barking at dogs.  Oh yes, the impish innocent is always fizzing away...

"Hi, my name's Harvey Weinstein."  Empre's reverie is broken by a surprsie, sizable and very welcome visitor.  "Neverland's screening last night," he says as he crushes our fragile fingers in his vice-like grasp, "it didn't finish until 2am (prompting WEinstein to state publically that the Venice Film Festival organiser might soon be swimming in the lagoon wearing concrete shoes). But Johnny was talking to every kid he could, and did it with his back to the cameras.  He doesn't care if the pres is there.  And I'm not just saying that because Johnny's my friend."  Weinstein then names someone who is not his friend (Empire's not friends with that someone either, wouldn't you love to know?).  His point, however, is clear; Johnny Depp does what he does for personal reasons.  "Johnny can smell bullshit ten miles away," he notes.  "The same guys who years ago were saying he's box office poison, now they're kissing his butt."

The 41 year-old rock-movie-star has long played on the heartstrings of the world's waifs and strays - he is the patron saint of the lost and lonely, cinema's very own St. Jude - yet now everybody loves Johnny Depp.  The butt-kissers adore him because of Captain Jack Sparrow, that dandified guide to box office gold, but really they owe their adulations to J. M. Barrie (who might yet prove Depp's guide to Oscar gold). For wihtout Barrie, Sparrow may not have been so riotously rambunctious, the most quixotic quipster to hit pirate land since a certain CDaptain Hook.  Finding Neverland was shot before Pirates of the Caribbean, its release delayed so it wouldn't clash with P. J. Hogan's disappointing 2003 interpretation of Pan...

"In coming off Neverland and going into Pirates," explains Depp, "well, there was Barrie, so stepping out of those shoes and into the boots of Jack Sparrow was like being shot out of a cannon.  It was very freeing, and that had an impact on how I approached Jack.  Also, it was a happy time for me - having two kiddies gives me endless amounts of pure joy.  I was genuinely moved by the success of Pirates."  And presumably, by the Oscar buzz around Neverland?

"Sure, I find it touching, honestly, but awards are not as important to me as when I meet a ten year-old kid who says, 'I love Captain Jack Sparrow.'  They were really affected by his character and took something away with them - that kid will have the memory in his head for a long time.  That's real magic for me."  And that magic is set to continue, with Depp again taking flight as the sozzled Sparrow in the Pirates sequel, due in 2006.

"Jack's well established," he continues, "so now it's a case of showing more of where he came from, and there are a couple of things that might be fun to do, but I'm not going to tell you what they are."  He laughs , his eyes twinkling behind his sunglasses.  "Maybe I can get it like last time, when a fewo f the Disney executives were less than happy with what was going on.  Their unhappiness with what I was doing first time round just fuelled me.  It made me feel good:  'If they don't like it, it must be good.'"

As a perennial picador, that motto lies close to Depp's heart, and it crystallizes the philosophy propounded by his next onscreen incarnation, the syphilils-ridden John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester in John Malkovich's pet project The Libertine, which opens shortly after Neverland. AS the film begins, the world's most popular actor makes the following entrance: "Allow me to be frank at the commencement.  You will not like me."

"That opening monologue is like a challenge," beams Depp.  "Wilmot is misunderstood in British literature, written off as a debauched psychotic, guzzling spririts and dry-humping the universe.  Actually, he was hyper sensitive, a man who at the time of the Restoration was medicating himself, trying to divorce himself from his emotions.  But more than anything, he had no tolerance for bullshit.  He was able to tell King Charles II, 'Fuck you, you're an asshole.'  He medicated himself to death, dead of drink and syphilis by the time he was 32.  I love dhim."  With Depp wearing the Earl's puffed blouses and heavy insouciance so wryly, well, balls to Wilmot's challenge: we're sure ot like him.  And, as misunderstood man with no tolerance for bullshit, Depp was sure to like him, too.

Listening to Depp enthuse about exploring Wilmot's managled reputation - and for scaring the upper echelons of Mickey's magic castle - Empire fancies that just perhaps it has found that mote in his eye, that bright spark still gleaming even during the most contented time of his life.

Johnny Depp wipes something from his eye and asks for a little water in his coffee.  His neck is festooned with necklaces and amulets.  A chain carrying a replica of Che Guevara's iconic visage nestles next to a pendant engraved with the name of his daughter, Lily-Rose (his son's name, Jack, is tattooed on his right arm), while above them both is a charm of Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu god of wisdom and success.  It is, Empire notes, an approprite image.

"I'm interested in all religion," he counters.  "When I grew up, my uncle was a Baptist minister, a heavy-duty 'Halleluja praise God' guy.  I was exposed to that and didn't quite buy into it.  NOt so much the belief in something, more my uncle; it was like he went into character to become the preacher, and even as a kid I thought, 'There's something funny here.'  We overcomplicated things, if you get down to the real base needs of a human being.  We don't wake up every morning and go, 'Thank God, another day.'  Yet every time we take a breath, it is a gift."

Living with girlfriend Vanessa Paradis, and their two children, breathing the rarefied air of southern France, has gifted Depp the opportunity to settle and ponder the more important elements of his life (the pendants round his neck seem to represent them all), and he emanates a quiet satisfaction.  After a vagabond's upbringing, being dragged from town to town for his first 16 years, followed by an unesy existence under the glare of the Hollywood spotlight, he finally feels at home.

A typical day for Depp, a rock'n' roll representation of Gallic gentry, might involve a spot of reading, a little painting, a glass of whine with the locals and an evening with his family; a very restrained lifestyle, yet one that is starting to inform his work.  Where once Depp's motivation for a part was primarily the director (Polanski's the Ninth Gate, Jarmuch's Dead Man, to name two) or a script that yearns after innocence (take your pick), now he has the other concerns.

"It's not like I'm going after any particular audience," he says, "but Neverland was great becasue it was much more accessible to my kids than say, Fear and Loathing (or, presumably, The Libertine).  And the same with Charlie And The Chocolate Facotry - I want my children to see daddy's work."

With daddy currently working alongside the muster of the magical, Tim Burton, on a non-musical version of Roald Dahl's great classic, due in cinemas next year, they won't be disappointed.  "Tim's version stays truer to the book," he smiles.  "IT's darker."

As with the likes of Dead Man, Ed Wood and even Pirates, Depp tucked into The Chcolate Factory without even sampkling the basic ingredients, like a script (an idea from Tim Burton is always a golden ticket).  Yet, with Freddie Highmore - Neverland's chief Lost Boy, Peter Llewelyn Davies - bringing his unique, almost ethereal qualitites to the character of CDharlie, the film promises to be rich in charm and mystery, another of Burton's shape-shifting dances amid light and dark, with Depp's wily Wonka drifting in and out of the shadows.

"In The Chocolat Factory, Freddie brings a real sense of the otherworldly," says Depp.  "He's a pure being, and that same innocence comes through in Neverland.  WHat I love about him is he's much more interested in playing football.  He figures he'll act for a few years and then go and play football."  Depp smiles.  "Freddie really doesn't think in terms of the long haul; that's impressive.  I can empathise with that."  A 41-year-old empathising with a 12 year-old?  Like James Barrie, Johnny Depp, happy and at ease, really is The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up.

Finding Neverland is out on October 29
 
 

What's next for Depp...

It's not all japery with Jack Sparrow and wags with Willy WOnka, y'know.

THE CORPSE BRIDE(2005):  Depp teams up with Tim Burton as the latter embarks on another stop-motion adventure, this time in the director's chair alongside Mike Johnson, Depp will voice Victor, husband of the undead heroine.  Written by Caroline Thompson (The NIghtmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands), The Corpse Bride is an interpretation of an old Russian Folk tale.

THE RUM DIARY (2005) Benicio Del Toro makes his debut behind the camera directing Depp as reporter Paul Kemp, a character whose adventures mirror those of tThe Rum Diary author, Hunter S. THompson.  Although published in 1998 (the year Depp played Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing...), Thompson wrote the wry and tangled love story in the '50's.  It's not as looney as the Fear and Loathing series.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (2006)  Depp stars as JEan Dominique Bauby, the ex-editor-in-cheif of Elle France who suffered a stroke that left only his left eye and brain undamaged.  Rather than acquiesce to his situation, Bauby dictated an account of his journeys to imaginary exotic places, fighting off death to see the publication of his memories in June 1997

by Will Lawrence