Irish Examiner – 17/07/2005 – Thousands of screaming fans packed London’s Leicester Square to see the star, who plays Willy Wonka in the £80m remake of Roald Dahl’s much-loved children’s classic…
Hollywood hunk JOHNNY DEPP bought drinks for an entire London pub yesterday (18JUL05) …when he paid a surprise visit to famous Leicester Square pub, Waxy O’Connors, and quenched the thirst of more than 50 tourists and Londoners.
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July 18, 2005 – bbc.co.uk. – ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’ premiered in London yesterday (Sunday) and all the cast turned up on the red carpet – including Johnny Depp…
July 18, 2005 – FemaleFirst.uk.co. – Johnny Depp insists his children are nothing like the spoilt brats in the new ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ movie…The Hollywood heartthrob, who plays eccentric sweet maker Willy Wonka in the film, said Lily-Rose Melody, six, and three-year-old Jack are well-behaved like the movie’s character Charlie Buckett.
July 18, 2005 – eitb24.com – Actor Johnny Depp says the similarities between his Willy Wonka character in ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and Michael Jackson were not intentional. “It doesn’t relate to me, the Michael Jackson thing”, explained Depp. ” A few people have brought it up. Not because Wonka in fact is dangerously anti-social, in many many ways and Michael Jackson is, well, clearly not all that anti-social. Yeah, when people brought that up to me, the whole Michael Jackson thing, it just didn’t compute…
Hi everyone!
Well, it’s almost one week ago and I’m (finally) able to write something about the premiere, ’cause I stayed in London till Thursday and I needed a few days to recover…
I don’t wanna bore you with a long description – you all saw the pics and know how the park looked like – I’ll sting to the interesting things.
The funny thing was that most female fans were really, really lovely and I had quite a lot of fun – but the guys were bitchy!
I mean, there were those two guys who had more than a dozen DVD’s with them (ebay, I suppose) and didn’t gave a damn about their surroundings… Wow, they were pretty nasty to my mind.
Nevertheless, I caught a good spot opposite the press. Honestly, it was hot and my feet still hate me, but seeing Johnny was a pretty good compensation!
The crowed simply went MAD when Johnny showed up – the ordinary run of things – and our man first went to the press, calm as always, then turned around and started signing, hugging and a bit of small talk. Pure Johnny.
Well, I had this really weird gift with me – needs a bit of explanation:
My grandfather gave me this rusty “buzzer”, a 40 year old piece of metal, when I was about ten. The great thing about it was, that it was a fartmachine – all you had to do was twist the back,
After flying to London from Ireland the day before the premiere, it still hadn?t hit me yet. I was being gradually introduced to the fact that I was going to meet the man himself for the past few days; preparation sleepover on Wednesday, made my t-shirt, Gill flew out on the Thursday, Julia went on the Friday. Since I was the last to go, we decided it would be least hassle if I put together the charm bracelet for Johnny Depp. We collectively bought the charms, particular ones catching our eyes, I can?t remember whether it was Julia or Gill who spotted the ?drama queen? charm, but we certainly all agreed that it was perfect! We thought it was best to make the bracelet completely from scratch instead of just buying a charm bracelet and attaching the charms. I went into town to buy chain and links on the Friday, smiling stupidly when I was asked if I was making the bracelet for a guy or a girl. I got home and got stuck in, still not packed for my trip the next day. After about an hour, it was done. I couldn?t hide my excitement at how well it turned out; it looked perfect. With that out of the way, I could finally concentrate on packing. Making sure I had the 5 most important things on my list (the bracelet, a letter for Johnny from an online auntie, my t-shirt, directions to the bench from Finding Neverland and things to get signed),
July 17, 2005 – FemaleFirst.uk.co – Johnny Depp can’t understand why women love him [and] is bemused by his effect on women – and is convinced the only reason he has so many female fans is because they “feel sorry” for him…
Johnny Depp (Willy Wonka), Director Tim Burton, David Kelley (Grandpa Joe), and Freddie Highmore (Charlie Bucket) were recently interviewed at a press conference held in London on July 16, 2005. The subject was to discuss their much anticipated new movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This unoffical transcript was compiled by Jack Foley.
Q. For the actors, having real sets must make a huge difference, I would have thought?
A: Oh yeah. I mean to have all that stuff around you to react to and especially for the kids I imagine, you know?
Q. You always seem to play eccentric characters in film like Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow and now Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. How much of you is there in these films?
Burton: We’ve got lots of problems. (Laughter). So we like to work them out in films.
Depp: It is kind of therapeutic to go in and make an ass of yourself and be paid for it. There’s something to be said for that. As an actor, with any character you play, you have to bring as much of your own truth to the character as possible and then you make an ass of yourself.
Q: How do you go about finding the character of Willy Wonka? Obviously, you don’t want to go down the route that was done in the 1971 film, so where do you get the character from?
A: We’re all very lucky to have the book.
Saturday, July 16, 2005 – By LIAM LACEY – The Globe and Mail.com – Could the career of Johnny Depp have existed without Tim Burton, or Burton’s without Depp, wonders LIAM LACEY