JOHNNY-DEPP.org

Having sailed so long outside the mainstream, Johnny Depp isn’t sure how to navigate superstardom – BY JEFF STRICKLER for the Star Tribune

LOS ANGELES — Sure, he has starred in plenty of movies, but usually as a performer who prides himself on disappearing inside his role. It wasn’t Depp who drew audiences to those films, it was characters such as Edward Scissorhands, Donnie Brasco and George Jung (“Blow”).

The patrons lining up at theaters today will be there to see Depp. The sequel to the 2003 blockbuster — which had $652 million in ticket sales worldwide — is a mega-budget star vehicle built around and totally dependent on Capt. Jack Sparrow, the flamboyant pirate he created. And that blows his mind. “I’ve definitely never been a crowd-pleaser,” he said. “I was very surprised that the first ‘Pirates’ did as well as it did. I still am.”

“If you define my career in terms of box office, I’ve spent 20 years making movies that the studios consider failures,” he said. “To me, they were great successes just because we got them made.”

Depp says he’s “not the leading-man kind of actor — there’s a whole bunch of guys out there, actor types, who do that well.” Instead, he prefers characters “who may seem bizarre.” He points out that while the first “Pirates” movie was being filmed, studio executives went bonkers over reports that he was playing the freewheeling character as a seagoing Keith Richards.

read full article

Topix.net – People Magazine editor-at-large and The Early Show entertainment contributor Jess Cagle spoke with Depp about the new movie and his unique role.

“You’ve said that ‘Pirates’ initially came from a desire to do a movie for the kids. And I wanted to know what kind of feedback have you gotten from your kids about the movies?”

Depp: “The kids have been incredibly sort of supportive,” he says. “They enjoy the character a lot. Every now and again, very rarely, but they’ll ask me to sort of, say something like Jack Sparrow. Or do something like Sparrow. My son for example, used to think that – it was the cutest thing in the world – he always thought that the character’s name was ‘Captain Jack Sparrow Savvy.’”

Depp was practically a kid himself when he starred in the TV drama “21 Jump Street.” Director John Waters saw that Depp was capable of much more and gave him his first big-screen starring role in “Cry-Baby.”

“John Waters said he thinks Captain Jack is actually, of all the characters you’ve played, the character closest to you,” Cagle asks, laughing. “Is there, first of all, why would he say something like that, is there any truth to it?”

“I’ll never reveal the truth … I cannot and will not say. No, I think with all the characters, you know, they’re still in there, you know. Ed Wood pops up every now and again,”

read full article

ABC News –
Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean” isn’t really what anybody apart from Depp had in mind for the character.

“I think in their minds they had a sort of Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster type,” Depp said.

Shock soon turned to glee. The director and studio bosses took a chance on Depp’s bizarre creation.

Now he’s back, playing Jack Sparrow again in the second “Pirates” movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”

Depp said that he had to rein himself in when returning to the character.

“At times, yeah, at times you definitely had to control yourself,” he said.

Sometimes he goes into character off the set.

“There are moments when he [Jack Sparrow] shows up. My kids are sort of like, ‘Oh, Dad,’” Depp said. “You know one of those things when you’re like, ‘Don’t become Jack Sparrow.’”

This role might have overwhelmed a lesser actor and made him known forevermore as Jack Sparrow. When you’ve played Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka and Ed Wood, as Depp has, that’s not likely.

“Although there is the off chance that I’ll end up at fast-food chains doing personal galleries/appearances,” Depp said, “or golf tournaments as Jack Sparrow. Things like that.” [More…] –

read full article

Agent Tracey Jacobs was selected by VARIETY, the Hollywood trade paper, as a “Woman of Impact,” one of the most influential females in an industry where powerful women are still a rarity. Ms. Jacobs has represented Johnny Depp since his early days in Hollywood; in fact, it was Tracey who prevailed upon Johnny to meet Tim Burton and discuss playing EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. Johnny has often spoken of Tracey’s loyalty to him despite career choices that could drive an ordinary agent round the bend–for example, turning down blockbusters like SPEED while electing to make the little-seen (but thoroughly brilliant) DEAD MAN. “Tracey’s taken a lot of heat over the years,” Johnny told TIME’s Josh Tyrangiel last year. “She has bosses and higher-ups, and every time I take on another strange project, they’re going, ‘[…]When does he do a movie where he kisses the girl? When does he get to pull a gun out and shoot somebody? […] When is he finally going to do a blockbuster?’”

Ironically, Tyrangiel added, when Johnny Depp’s blockbuster opportunity came around, “his long-suffering agent didn’t want him to take the part” of Captain Jack Sparrow. “He was pitched the movie without a script,” Tracey told Tyrangiel. “They basically said, ‘We’re going to make a movie out of this theme-park ride. Want to do it?’ And he said, ‘Great! I’m in. I believe in the idea.’ I just thought, What idea, you lunatic?”

Today Johnny celebrated Tracey’s being named a “Woman of Impact”

read full article

Sun-Sentinel.com – It’s really big, really black, and really, really scary — just the kind of vessel a crew of skeletal pirates would feel right at home in. Though you may not recognize it, if you’re a dedicated filmgoer, you’ve most likely seen it – By Robert Nolin.

The Black Pearl, the pirate ship from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, is at a Dania Beach marina being spruced up after several months of sea and salt exposure. The 150-foot-long, 38-foot-wide faux galleon was built in Alabama from the wooden hull of a supply ship and is painted black from stem to stern, said lead painter Giovanni Ferrara.

“People see it and say, `What the heck is this old boat doing here?’” Ferrara said. “When they realize this is the Black Pearl, Johnny Depp’s boat, they freak out.”

Ferrara said the ship spent time last year in the Caribbean filming the sequels to the Pirates of the Caribbean. It has been in town for about a month getting re-painted before leaving on a yacht transfer ship Monday for California, for about three more weeks of filming.

read full article

Meet Jack Sparrow’s nemesis – by Steve Head.

**May Contain Spoilers**

IGN – To many Pirates, Davy Jones is a frightening myth. They tell stories of “those who have disturbed him” – entire crews being killed, and their ships pulled to the bottom of the sea, trapped in his locker. There have been a few survivors of these phantom encounters. (Their lives were spared to tell the tale.) They liken the experience to staring death in the face.

“I’ll tell you this,” says Bill Nighy, the actor who plays Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, “If you are so unlucky as to stand before him, then it’s true: you are staring death in the face, and he’ll kill you without question.”

There are few things that will deter Jack Sparrow if a tidy profit is involved. Without getting into spoilers here, we’ll just say, in pursuit of his next treasure, he isn’t entirely aware of the consequence involved.

“Most don’t have any idea what Davy will do because they don’t expect it,” Nighy tells IGN FilmForce. “It isn’t that he’s an entirely predatory killer. He’s not out to simply kill pirates. He’s out to kill the pirates who trespass upon his territory. Death has always surrounded him, and he spends considerable time arranging for the destruction of such adversaries. Unfortunately [Sparrow] looks where he ought not to, and stirs up trouble as such that the price he’ll pay is more than he initially considered.”

read full article

Santa Cruz Sentinel.com – Nobody thought much about the sight of two blond women crying in each other’s arms in the parking lot of Mountain Elementary School on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 – By PEGGY TOWNSEND Sentinel staff writer.

Lots of people had cried that day at the news that three hijacked planes had plowed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and a fourth had nose-dived into a Pennsylvania field.

But this was different.

This moment would shift the lives of those two women, and possibly the lives of thousands of children and families, in a whole new way.

Nearly five years later, the two Soquel moms – Lori Butterworth and Devon Dabbs Maggard – are heading a program that is fighting to change the way critically ill children get hospice care and are rubbing shoulders not only with powerful politicians but also Hollywood heavyweights like Johnny Depp, Toby Maguire and the former head of the Screen Actors Guild Melissa Gilbert.

They have helped write a California bill that would begin the process of changing children’s hospice rules and will be the focus of a Senate hearing next month. They have organized a statewide coalition of health agencies to push for children’s hospice care, set up a model for the program here in Watsonville and now head an organization with a $500,000 budget.

And sometimes, they find themselves sitting beside a dying child’s bed or holding a parent whose daughter or son has just died,

read full article

This is an an excerpt from the newly updated third edition of Mark Salisbury’s BURTON ON BURTON published by Faber. The book sells for $14.99 and is currently available at AmazonUk.

Johnny Depp explains his special relationship with Tim Burton

The Guardian – Many a moon has passed since the days of my brief brush with TV stardom, or whatever one might dare call it. I mostly think of them as the do-or-die years: picture, if you will, the confused young man hurtling dangerously towards the flash-in-the-pan at sound-breaking speed. Or, on a more positive note, forced education, with decent dividends in the short term. Either way, it was a scary time when so-called TV actors weren’t eagerly received into the fickle fold of film folk. Fortunately, I was more than determined – even desperate – to break away from my ascent/descent. The chances were nearly impossible, until the likes of John Waters and Tim Burton had enough courage and vision to give me a chance to attempt to build my own foundation on my own terms. Anyway, no time to digress… this has all been said before.

Many a moon has passed since the days of my brief brush with TV stardom, or whatever one might dare call it. I mostly think of them as the do-or-die years: picture, if you will, the confused young man hurtling dangerously towards the flash-in-the-pan at sound-breaking speed. Or, on a more positive note,

read full article

Johnny Depp always has been known for his tendency to take on off-the-wall characters and dark, seemingly on-the-fringe parts in movies. But he’s also been in some seriously dramatic roles that have earned him a place among the Hollywood elite – whether he wants it or not – By Judianne Triglia.

His latest endeavor – “The Libertine” – is one of those dark “only Johnny Depp will do” kind of parts. He plays the Earl of Rochester in the 17th century famous for his debauchery and wicked ways. Hmmm . . . lets think this over . . . lots of sex and drinking and other evil deeds . . . sounds like a perfect role for Depp since women want him and men pretty much want to be him. Plus, who doesn’t like a little debauchery?

But before you hop to the movies, take a stroll through the duality of Depp from his beginnings in “A Nightmare on Elm Street” to his long-awaited “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels.

“A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984)
He played: Glen Lantz – killed by Freddie for falling asleep while watching TV.
Why we care: Anyone killed by Freddie who “lives” to have a movie career gets a thumbs up. He even reappeared as another character in “Elm Street 6.”

read full article

Johnny Depp has turned his back on the hellraising days when he trashed hotel rooms and dated Kate Moss – By Alexa Baracaia, Evening Standard.

Yet despite swapping parties for the quiet life, Depp remains the most fascinating Hollywood star. The 42-year-old heart-throb has topped a list of the most popular film icons of 2005, according to online movie database www.imdb.com

His name received the most hits among the tens of thousands of actors covered by the website.

It is the second year in a row that Depp, who lives in rural France with wife Vanessa Paradis and children Jack and Lily-Rose, has made it to number one on IMDB’s “star-o-meter” list.

He began 2005 with an Oscar nomination for Finding Neverland, before enthralling millions with his idiosyncratic interpretation of Willy Wonka in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

He also lent his voice to another Tim Burton movie, Corpse Bride, and began filming back-to-back sequels for Pirates Of The Caribbean.

Depp says shunning the limelight and settling down has “done wonders for my relationship with Hollywood”.

He says: “I don’t know who’s famous. I don’t know who’s not famous. 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.”

read full article