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With Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Johnny Depp proves again he’s the Brando of his generation – BRIAN D. JOHNSON – July 22, 2005.

Depp is Hollywood’s rebel angel. And he’s lived a renegade life. Growing up in Florida, he dropped out of high school at 15, and became a garage-band rocker. After moving to Los Angeles and making his name as an actor, he turned into one of Hollywood’s legendary bad boys — linked to the drug-overdose death of River Phoenix in 1993, arrested for wrecking a Manhattan hotel room the following year, and scrapping with paparazzi outside a London restaurant in 1999. Since then, he’s settled down with singer-actress Vanessa Paradis in her native France and fathered two children.

It’s ironic that the kid who dropped out of school to do drugs and join the rock ‘n’ roll circus should stumble into A-list respectability by mimicking a heroin-chic Rolling Stone in a Disney movie. It was a risky choice, and one that initially alarmed his producers. But with his outrageous Keith Richards routine in Pirates of the Caribbean, Depp struck box-office gold.

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This is an article excerpt. To view the entire article, please visit the Macleans website.

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There was a definite film fraternity on the chocolate carpet Sunday in Hollywood at the premiere of Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” By Elizabeth Snead and Joel Stratte-McClure Article Published: Thursday, July 14, 2005.

:: Young actor Freddie Highmore (Charlie) speaks on fellow actor Johnny Depp (Willy Wonka) ::

…So has Johnny given any acting or life advice? “Not in so many words, but one learns by watching,” said the freckle-faced British lad. “What impresses me the most is that Johnny is just so completely normal,” says Freddie. “Even though he’s a famous actor, he’s just a regular person.”

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Johnny Depp, Hollywood’s hottest eccentric, meets his match playing Willy Wonka in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. How sweet is that? By Sean Smith. Newsweek, July 4 issue.

Playing Willy Wonka is not for the timid. It requires courage, imagination and flawless fashion sense. “I like these heels,” Johnny Depp says, pulling up his pant cuff to reveal a sleek boot emblazoned with a swirly W. “I wanted Wonka to be this long, string-beany kind of figure, and give him these unbelievable cha-cha heels.”

To build the character, Depp began thinking about the kind of folks who host game shows and children’s TV programs. “Not like Captain Kangaroo, but like that guy on the local cable station in Podunk, Idaho,” Depp says. “Wonka had sheltered himself from the outside world, and television would have been a good friend to him.” Depp also decided to make Wonka a perfectionist and a germ-a-phobe. As for his look, that flawless pale skin, perfect pageboy and slightly feminine air have had some people wondering whether Depp found inspiration in Michael Jackson. “That never crossed my mind,” he says. “I never thought about it once, honestly. But it’s interesting, people’s perceptions.”

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When Tim Burton proposed the role of Willy Wonka to his friend and frequent collaborator, two-time Oscar nominee Johnny Depp, he was barely able to get the words out. As Depp relates the conversation, “We were having dinner and he said, ‘I want to talk to you about something. You know that story, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Well, I’m going to do it and I’m wondering if you’d want to play….’ and I couldn’t even wait for him to finish the sentence. I said, ‘I’m in. Absolutely. I’m there.’ No question about it.”

“To be chosen to play Willy Wonka in itself a great honor,” says Depp, a long-time fan of Dahl’s work, “but to be chosen by Tim Burton is double, triple the honor. His vision is always amazing, beyond anything you expect. Just the fact that he was involved meant I didn’t need to see a script before committing. If Tim wanted to shoot 18 million feet of film of me staring into a light bulb and I couldn’t blink for three months, I’d do it.”

Before long the two were poring over Burton’s preliminary sketches, discussing Wonka’s look and the themes of the story, falling into a familiar creative rhythm that began when the director cast Depp as the lead in the 1990 poignant fantasy Edward Scissorhands. They subsequently re-teamed for the critically acclaimed Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow and are currently working together on the stop-motion animated feature Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride.

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Your little ears will delight with this Jo Whiley-Johnny Depp audio interview on bbc/radio1. Johnny chats about his fans, about the weirdest thing one of his fans has done and about the prospect of making Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You will need Real Player to listen to this Audio interview. This interview was first published on 22 April 2004.

BBC.co.uk/Radio1 Excerpt:

Whiley: On chatting a lot with fans…
Depp: “There’s no reason to be otherwise really…I think that the kids that come around the people who come around, it’s so nice to meet them. For all intents and purposes they’re my boss aren’t they? they keep me employed.”

Go to Audio Interview

© bbc.co.uk. Reprinted with permission.

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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the auto-biography of Hunter S. Thompson starring Johnny Depp, was the tie that brought the two individualists together. Now, Johnny has come to Aspen, Colorado to attend a private party to celebrate the life of writer-journalist Thompson who committed suicide on February 20 at 67.

The following excerpts are provided by the BBC News UK edition:

At the doorway [Hotel Jerome] was a sign reading “Thompson for Sheriff”, a reference to his failed bid for office in 1970.

It was reported he ran his election campaign from the bar at the Hotel Jerome.

Thompson was considered one of the most important political writers of the 20th Century and pioneered “gonzo journalism” – which includes much of the writer’s personal views and shuns objectivity.

Among his seminal works were Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, published in 1972, and The Great Shark Hunt in 1979.

© bbc.co.uk. Reprinted with permission.

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JOHNNY DARKO.

By Erik Hedegaard. Photograph by Albert Watson.

HE’S FOUND NEVERLAND WITH THE WOMAN HE LOVES AND THEIR KIDS. BUT EVEN WITH OSCAR CALLING, JOHNNY DEPP SAYS “RAGE IS STILL NEVER FAR AWAY”

At Claridge’s Hotel in London, squirreled away at a table in the bar, over a relaxing glass of red wine, Johnny Depp lighted one of his hand-rolled cigarettes, grinned, leaned back, exhaled a plume and said “Fuck it” quite happily. It was a Tuesday afternoon. Earlier, he’d thought to go to the Dorchester Hotel, one of his other usual hants, but was put off by all the paparazzi and professional autograph hounds milling around, so he ended up here, talking about the movie he’d just finished shooting, the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, his fourth film in fifteen years with director Tim Burton “I have no idea what I did” he said, which he basically says about all his performances “And I have no idea of it’s anywhere near where it needs to be. I can only go by what I feel, and I feel good”
He smiled his slightly fractured, slightly raffish, entirely vulnerable smile and said that he was looking forward to a few months off before relocating himself and his family – his girlfriend of seven years, French pop singer and actress Vanessa Paradis, and their two children, Jack, 2, and Lily Rose Melody, 5 – to Los Angeles to begin making the sequel to Pirate of the Caribbean,

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He’s found neverland with the woman he loves and their kids, but “rage is still never far away” – By ERIK HEDEGAARD. (Excerpted from RS 967, February 10, 2005)

Critics love him, magazine writers fawn over him, and he’s developed a fan base like no other (with many a pubic hair winding up in his daily mail), largely because his performances are most often off-kilter, angled and light, full of soul, tenderness, toughness, sincerity and grace, expressed through the liquid cadences of his voice and his diction, his beautiful man-boy face, the unerring and particular use of limbs to amplify and enhance, the whole shebang centrifically whipped together, and so forth. One could go on…

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Johnny’s Depth

Sure, he’s still cool, but Johnny Depp is a new man, creating Oscar buzz with Finding Neverland and cherishing his family-though he still loves a whoopee cushion.

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Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet are ‘Finding Neverland’!:

[Hollywood News]: London, Oct 18 : Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet walked down the red carpet for the UK premiere of their forthcoming flick, ‘Finding Neverland’.

The movie tells the tale of Peter Pan author JM Barrie, played by Depp, and the ‘Titanic’ beauty plays Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, a mother whose young sons inspired Barrie to write the unforgettable classic.

The proceeds from the London premiere, held in Leicester Square, would go for the benefit of the ‘Great Ormond Street Hospital’, which treats sick children.

Meanwhile, Depp has confessed that it was difficult for him to get the Scottish accent required for the role.

“Musically, rhythmically, I initially couldn’t quite get a hold of it. Luckily, I found this dialect coach who helped me out a great deal,” the BBC quoted Depp as saying.

Kate, who was clad in a shimmering floor-length turquoise Ben de Lisi dress at the premiere, said that motherhood helped her play the part of Sylvia to her best potential.

“I don’t think I could have played Sylvia if I wasn’t a mother. There is something about the physicality of being a parent that you don’t know about until you become one,” the stunning actress added. (ANI)

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