Johnny Depp Quotes
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Acting

"I pretty much try to stay in a constant state of confusion just because of the expression it leaves on my face."

More on Acting
"I guess I'm attracted to these off beat roles because my life has been a bit abnormal. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled."

Theme in Johnny’s work

"There seems to be a constant theme in things I do which deal with people who are considered "freaks" by so-called "normal" people. It's not my goal to become the biggest box office star in the world."

Johnny’s Journal

"My body is a journal in a way, where every tattoo means something, a specific time in your life where you make a mark on yourself."

Life before Lily Rose

"Anything I've done up till May 27, 1999 was kind of an illusion, existing without living. My daughter, the birth of my daughter, gave me life."

Defensive of family

"If someone were to harm my family or a friend or somebody I love, I would eat them. I might end up in jail for 500 years, but I would eat them."

About playing the world’s greatest lover

"The whole idea of being Don Juan is so foreign to me that it's funny. Here's a man who says, 'I am the world's greatest lover' to every woman he meets, and he really means it. He believes it. I could never go up to a woman and say anything like that. I just couldn't [laughs]."

Clowns
''Clowns scare me.  I have this fear of clowns, so I think that if I surround myself with them, it will ward off all evil''
 

Filming the Pirate movie
"There were moments when Orlando and I would look at each other and say, 'Do you believe we're getting to do this?' I don't think it gets much better than being Capt. Jack. I loved the character. I'm not one of those guys who becomes the character, but when we wrapped, I got depressed. I'm going to miss him."

Who Johnny is

"I don't pretend to be captain weird. I just do what I do."

What Interests Johnny

"I’m attracted to the extreme light and the extreme dark. I’m interested in the human condition and what makes people tick. I’m interested in the things people try to hide."

Fame and Celebrity
"Fame, celebrity--it's not such a big deal in Europe. People seem to understand that you just have a weird job. They're not running after you, trying to carve chunks out of you. It's strange in the states. Most fans here are great, but there's a handful who have seen the movies and feel they know you. They think it's alright to touch you and ask personal questions."

On Tim Burton

I would do anything Tim(Burton) wanted me to. You know - have sex with an aardvark... I would do it.

Inside the Actors Studio

"What do you want God to say when you get to the Pearly Gates?" guy from 'Inside Actors Studio'

"Whoa!" Johnny

Deeper

"...Things in life are not the way they seem..

When you listen,for instance, to someone talking, there is another voice beneath his words ..
Even if you hear clearly what he's saying, the real truth is much DEEPER."

Johnny's Message in his Work
"If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it’s OK
to be different, that it’s good to be different, that we should
question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who
looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different
color."

Wilde Night

Johnny Depp, a firm believer in the supernatural, once spent a night in the room where the famed (and famously gay) Oscar Wilde had died. The night was uneventful, Depp later recalled, "but I was a little paranoid that I might be buggered by his ghost at 4:00 am."

Selling pens

"I was selling pens," Johnny Depp once recalled of his first job. "You're calling people who don't want you to call them. You put on your best fake voice and try and sell them a gross or two of ballpoint pens with their name printed on them. First you say, 'Congratulations. you have just become eligible to win a grandfather clock' - or a trip to Greece or a Jacuzzi or whatever.

"I only had success one time. The name I used was Edward Quartermaine, the guy from General Hospital. I said, 'This is Edward Quartermaine. How are you doin' out there today?' It was a whole script. He was from the South, and you talk about pork and stuff like that, and I hooked him. He said, 'Okay, I'm in! And the grandfather clock?' I said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' 'The trip to Greece?' I said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' And then I gave it up. I said, 'Listen, the grandfather clock is made of cardboard. It's a piece of shit, and you'll never get the trip to Greece - it won't happen. So f--- it, it was nice talking to you. And he said, 'Okay!'"

ANTECDOTES

One Hour Photo

One day Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp took a series of explicit photographs and brought the film to a one-hour processor, thinking no one would see them because machines do all the processing.

They soon returned to collect their pics. As they pulled up to the drive-through window, the couple were met by a beaming teen: "I loved your pictures!"

Johnny Depp & the Mark Hotel
In September 1994, Johnny Depp trashed his $2,200-a-night Presidential suite at New York's exclusive Mark Hotel. Though he offered to pay for the damages, he refused to leave and was forcibly evicted. His accomodation for the night was generously provided by the NYPD: Depp was taken to three different jail cells (and was mobbed by female cops at each location).

Ironically, the guest who first complained about Depp's behavior at the Mark was... none other than The Who's Roger Daltrey, who, with Keith Moon and his other bandmates, had once taken the art of hotel vandalism to dizzying new heights.
 

From Zap2It - 2 Johnny on being bankable
"It kind of goes back to what I've experienced over the last 20 years; when you're coming up the ranks, people are watching from the sidelines laying their bets and they have high hopes for you and you veer left a little bit and they go, 'Ah, take him off the list. He's off the list now.' And then, a few months later, or a year later, you're back on the list because you have a movie coming out that might be commercial. And then it's not commercial and they take you off the list again."

"I'm convinced that the timing has been perfect on all fronts," he says. "Had this kind of thing happened to me 10 years ago, I wouldn't have had enough experience or distance or savvy to be able to appreciate it or understand it. Raising a couple kids has given me a great strong, stable ground to stand on for life so when these sort of things come up, you're can identify what's actually happening. Whereas before, for many, many years I walked around in confusion; I didn't understand what any of it was for -- know what I was acting for, making movies for, until I started having kids. And then I suddenly realized: Oh, it's for them. It's for them."

In fact, since "Pirates," Depp's name is so hot that some films, such as "Once Upon a Time in Mexico," have cashed in on his success, putting the actor on the forefront of the marketing campaign for the film, despite the fact that he only played a small role in the film.

"That was very strange and very uncomfortable," he says, shaking his head.

But the success of the film, based on a Disney ride, seems to have suddenly proved that the actor is bankable, the one golden standard that Hollywood caters to. The result is that some are saying he can now greenlight any project he wants.

"I don't know, it would be great. I'll have to check into that," he laughs. "It's difficult for me to approach it from the angle of a businessman. I just try to do what I'm hired to do, what I feel is right for the character."

Although he does say that he has "a whole slew of pet projects" that he hopes to get made one day.

"Yeah, maybe this is the time to submit those projects," he laughs. "There's a lot of stuff that I would love to get made that I'm not even right for as an actor. Just stuff that I would like to see made, just movies or stories that I think would be great to get made that don't need me in them, I would hope to get stuff like that done -- we'll see."

If anything, Depp comes across as very aware of how fickle the film business can be and it doesn't seem likely that success will change him.

"One week you're on the list, the other you're not. For me at this time in my life at the age of 40 with two kids, it's like, the nomination itself is fine for me. It's a great thing for my kiddies in 25 years, or 50 years, if it means anything for them to say, hey my pop made these movies and got this acknowledgement, that's the award he got, that's the nomination he got -- it's just something that they can mull over in their lifetime."
 

From Zap2It - 1 Johnny's response to winning the SAG award
"Not being well-versed in that arena myself, it's a little bit frightening because I'm not very good in those situations with lots of people and lots of famous people and cameras and all of that. It's not my specialty," Depp tells Zap2it.com.

While the actor says it's the nomination, along with the SAG Award for best actor that he won Sunday (Feb. 22) is a "real honor," he admits to still being shocked that his name is in the best actor hat.

"At the SAG, them giving me the thing, it's just amazing. I still can't believe it -- I'm sure there must have been, maybe a weird misspelling or a strange computer error that my name was in the envelope -- or maybe it wasn't in the envelope, who knows? Maybe Renee Zellweger just said, 'Well, let's just shake things up a little bit,'" he laughs.

"Leave it to a bunch of actors to throw you a curve ball to that degree."

Depp finds the accolades from his peers especially surprising considering the performance for which he is nominated, the film's pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, who Depp previously was inspired by Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards and the cartoon character Pepe Le Pew.

"It took me a back a little bit because it's a pretty outside choice for the Academy. It's a risky vote for them; it's not something they vote for every time, you know? So I was really amazed by that, the same thing for the SAG Awards. It's a real rickety branch for them to climb on for them, so I have to salute them for that; they really went out on a limb for me, so that's really touching," he says.

While Depp was not able to attend the SAG Awards, he will be on hand for the Oscars, but that doesn't mean that he's expecting to take home an award.

"As far as I'm concerned, I would never walk into one of those things -- the SAG Awards or the Academy Awards or anything -- expecting to walk out with anything," he says. "I'm not expecting to win anything and I don't need to win anything. The mere fact that they nominated me and acknowledged the work is plenty, that's just plenty. "
 

Charlie Rose Show, November 1999
Charlie: "You live pretty much full-time in France. Doesn't that make the Hollywood list that much harder to make?"

Johnny:"Yes."

Charlie: "Do you care?"

Johnny: "No."

Charlie Rose: "So her name is Lily-Rose Melody..."

Johnny: "Depp. She's something!"

Charlie: "Man, you really look happy!"

Johnny: "I'm floating... I've never, ever in my life - I haven't lived before that day. I was not alive. I existed. I imagine that I drew breath and exhaled and all that stuff, but I don't have any particularly fond memories of it. I mean, I don't think I took a real breath until my daughter was born."

Early Influences of the Vampire kind
"I can remember being totally fascinated with Bela Lugosi and the Dracula films when I was five years old, and I can remember sitting in class in first grade and drawing pictures of Dracula and Frankenstein. I remember it like it was yesterday. And when I was a kid, in about 1968, I was completely, utterly obsessed with a television show called Dark Shadows."

That gothic soap opera featured ghosts and werewolves. Its central character was a vampire named Barnabas Collins.

"I wanted to be Barnabas Collins and I wanted the cane with the wolf's head on it. For my parents, that must have been a very scary thing. 'Where did we go wrong?' "
 

His relationship with Hollywood
The five years that I’ve been living in France and in the States to some degree a little bit, because I’m not a resident of France, has done wonders for my relationship with Hollywood. And also having kids, I’m so removed from it that I don’t know anything. I mean, I don't know who anybody is. I don't know who’s famous. I don't know who’s not famous. I don't know who’s rich, who’s poor, who’s successful, who’s a drag. I don't know anybody. I don't know what made money and what didn’t make money. And it’s great. So, I come in just completely ignorant of all of it and it feels really good. Because then, I don’t have to think about anything but my work and I don’t have to worry about what anybody else is doing or anything. I just think about my work.

How  it feels to be a high school dropout who’s done well
Isn’t that something? Well, I can only say it worked for me. It’s not for everybody. I wouldn’t recommend it to most kids, but the situation that I was in, it was inevitable. I had to leave. School’s a weird thing. I’m not sure it works. It’s debatable, but I think that the way school is now, I’m not sure teachers- - certainly there are some who are very, very good but there’s a lot of teachers who I don’t think care about teaching. Therefore, it’s not inspirational for kids to learn when they’ve got a teacher who basically is just taking a paycheck. And there’s also you’ve got to deal with some kind of weird cop syndrome and the abuse of authority and all that stuff. I just couldn’t take it anymore.

The greatest piece of advice he's ever received?
Don’t ever take any sh*t off anybody. It think that’s probably the best advice I’ve ever gotten.

Privacy
"You use your money to buy privacy because during most of your life you aren't allowed to be normal."

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