Johnny Depp.org

England There is no ground; there is only mudthick, oozing, inches deep, and alive. Put your foot in and pull it out, and you can hear it breathe. Above the dark woods, the sky is a flat piece of black construction paper. Perfectly, uniformly, almost unnaturally black. Somewhere between the mud and the sky isjohnny Depp. ‘l’hat`s about as specific as he likes to get. It`s the middle of the night in the middle of March in the middle of England, which means it`s raining. And cold. Tim Burton, the director of movies in which night is never far away (two of them, Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, with Depp) is shooting his latest collaboration with the actor: Sleepy Hollow, a creepier, more violent take on Washingtori Irving`s tale ofthe Headless Ilorseman. Burton and his crew have built an entire18th-  century village in an isolated valley about an hour’s drive from London. There are fully constructed houses, shops. an inn, a pub, and a covered bridge with a rooster weather vane. All are beautihilly crumbling outside and mere shells inside, empty but for the fog.

The fog is a character in Sleepy Hollow as are the mud and the rain and the natterjack toads that clack in the dark like monster crickets. lt wraps itself ‘around you, soaks you to the skin. It softens the edges ofeverything: the crewin their fleece jackets; the extras in spattered gowns or tricornered hats; the scaffolds and generators and trucks parked on sheets of metal so that they don’t sinkinto the muck and disappear forever. And the fog does great things, really English things, to the graveyard behind the village, where headstones tilt out of the hillside like teeth in a skull. Everyone is in church. At this point in the story. the Headless Horseman has decapitated half the town and is out gto claim the rest, including Katrina Van Tassel (Christina Ricci), her father (Michael Gambon, of the acclaimed BBC series The Singing Detective), and a passel of elders played—as in all Burton films—by relentlessly talented character actors:Jeffrey Jones (Beetlejuice), Ian McDiarmid (Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace), Christopher Lee ‘ (whose Dracula movies of the 50´s and 60´s Depp, 36, grew up watching).

To set the scene, smoke machines churn and a crew member runs around removing the protective Styrofoam cups that cover the spikes on the iron chandeliers, while someone else ignites the candles with a blowtorch. Outside, a three·ton light box the size ofa Manhattan studio is rising into the sky atop a crane. “0h, that rig can hold 225 tons,” one of the safety engineers says. “This is like hoisting a bag of peanuts.” The “first time the light box was raised, people in the surrounding villages phoned the police to report a UFO. At the exact moment when the light box has been swung over the steeple, and the extras have packed their muskets with gunpowder,

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Title: Where’s Johnny?

Author: Johanna Schneller

Publication: Premier

Issue: December 1999

England There is no ground; there is only mud — thick, oozing, inches deep, and alive. Put your foot in and pull it out, and you can hear it breathe. Above the dark woods, the sky is a flat piece of black construction paper. Perfectly, uniformly, almost unnaturally black. Somewhere between the mud and the sky is Johnny Depp. That’s about as specific as he likes to get.

It’s the middle of the night in the middle of March in the middle of England, which means it’s raining. And cold. Tim Burton, the director of movies in which night is never far away (two of them, Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, with Depp) is shooting his latest collaboration with the ac­tor: Sleepy Hollow, a creepier, more violent take on Washington Irving’s tale of the Headless Horseman. Burton and his crew have built an entire 18th-century village in an isolated valley about an hour’s drive from Lon­don. There are fully constructed houses, shops, an inn, a pub, and a cov­ered bridge with a rooster weather vane. All are beautifully crumbling outside and mere shells inside, empty but for the fog.

The fog is a character in Sleepy Hollow, as are the mud and the rain and the natterjack toads that clack in the dark like monster crickets. It wraps itself around you, soaks you to the skin. It softens the edges of everything: the crew in their fleece jackets; the extras in spattered gowns or tricornered hats; the scaffolds and generators and trucks parked on sheets of metal so that they don’t sink into the muck and disappear forever. And the fog does great things, re­ally English things, to the graveyard be­hind the village, where headstones tilt out of the hillside like teeth in a skull.

Everyone is in church. At this point in the story, the Headless Horseman has decapitated half the town and is out to claim the rest, including Katrina Van Tassel (Christina Ricci), her father (Michael Gambon, of the acclaimed BBC series The Singing Detective), and a passel of elders played—as in all Burton films—by relentlessly talented charac­ter actors: Jeffrey Jones (Beetlejuice), Ian McDiarmid (Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace), Christopher Lee (whose Dracula movies of the ’50s and ’60s Depp, 36, grew up watching).

To set the scene, atop a crane. “Oh, that rig can hold 225 tons,” one of the safety engineers says. “This is like hoisting a bag of peanuts.” The first time the light box was raised, peo­ple in the surrounding villages phoned the police to report a UFO.

At the exact moment when the light box has been swung over the steeple, and the extras have packed their muskets with gunpowder, and the white, wooden church has filled with choking smoke, its double doors bang open and Johnny Depp walks in.

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