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Title: Sweeny Todd

Author: John Logan

Publication: US-Entertainment Weekly

Issue: August 2007

A bloody musical about a homicidal barber and his human pie-making partner doesn’t exactly sound like standard Christmas viewing, but that doesn’t bother Burton (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). “Red is a color at Christmas.” He jokes. Actually, the director thinks that his adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical might make for a better Valentines Day option. “For me, it sort of sums up relationships”, says the director. “Although people might he horrified by that.”

The movies unrequited-love story also appealed to Bonham Carter, who, fortunately for Burton, is his real—life paramour. “There’s still such a humanity to it, and that’s what Tim always brings,” says the actress, who plays the bizarro baker. Still, Bonham Carter admits that working with her significant other “has its stresses”. Luckily, her costar is more or less unflappable. “[Johnny] was really diplomatic. Whenever Tim and I started arguing, he would just look away” Burton considers this film one of his most challenging productions yet, which means a lot coming from the director of Beetlejuice, Berman, and Edward Scissorhands. “To do an R-rated musical with 70 percent singing was kinda like, ‘Well, I haven’t done that one before.’ It’s exciting to keep surprising yourself and see what happens.”

Depp, like most of the cast (including Baron Cohen as a rival barber in his first post-Borat  role),

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Title: Pirate Kings

Author: unknown

Publication: UK –  DVD Review

Issue: November 2006

The thing that that greets you at the entrance to Industrial Light & Magic’s San Francisco HQ is Yoda. The wrinkly turquoise goblin stands on top of a fountain, wizened old hands resting on a cane, and he looks so realistic you half expect him to greet you with a sage “Help you, l will”, like some friendly Jedi  receptionist.

Yoda, of course, started life as a puppet then went CGI, so it might seem odd to label a statue of him as ‘realistic’. But then that’s exactly what ILM does best — making the impossible seem possible, the incredible seem credible, little green men seem wise  and worldly. It’s no wonder everyone you encounter on this imposing complex – built on the site of a former veterans’ hospital in The Presidio National Park – beams with pride about the quality of lLM’s work.

There’s a calm-before-the-storm atmosphere about the place. ILM has a regular staff of up to 800, which soars to 1,500 when it‘s at a creative peak, but today it seems half empty. “We’re quiet at the moment.” explains marketing and communications director Miles Perkins. Then he flashes a wide screen Californian smile and adds: “But we’re just about to start on Pirates 3…”

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Title: Heartbeat Poet

Author: Philip Berk

Publication: AUS –  FilmInk

Issue: August 2006

Generally conceded as the best actor of his generation, Johnny Depp is certainly the least predictable.  Having completed two back-to-back Captain Jack Sparrows for Pirates of the Caribbean, he’s free to take a stab at something different. Last January when l interviewed him, Depp was contemplating a number of offbeat movies, including the sprawling adventure Shantaram, Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diaries, and a Hungarian project called Whisky Robber; at that time he was enthusiastic about doing all of them. Six months later (in the interim he’s completed the second Pirates sequel), reports are flittering around that he’s in line to play Michael Hutchence in an INXS biopic. Even more mind boggling are claims that his ex-girlfriend Kate Moss has been signed to play Hutchence’s unhinged girlfriend Paula Yates.

As crazy as this sounds, it’s an interesting reflection on Johnny Depp’s career, Granted, he’s given great performances – as Ed Wood, Captain Jack, Willy Wonka, and some might add Donnie Brasco — but for the rest, it’s been more his unorthodox path to stardom that’s earned him his reputation. That is until The Libertine. The film came and went so fast in the US that you’d have to wonder if Disney had engineered its disappearance. Was the studio worried that Depp’s appearance in this sex-and-profanity-filled art film might adversely affect the Mouse Factory’s billion-dollar Pirates franchise?

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Title: The Shore Thing

Author: Martyn Palmer

Publication: UK – Total Film

Issue: July 2006

Inside the vast Atlantis Resort Hotel (think Las Vegas in the Bahamas), a multitude of mostly American tourists are going about the business of having fun with serious intent. The slot machines bleep, the drinks are served in primary colours then consumed in vast amounts, and there’s a queue forming for the ‘swim with the dolphins’ tour. Nobody pays much attention to the strange-looking guy with dreadlocks and beard, a man adorned with enough bangles and beads to stock a Camden market stall.

He weaves his way through the hotel lobby throng, orange shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal a number of tattoos, murmuring a polite “‘Scuse me,” mouth glinting with gold tooth. Some people – just a few, mind – give him a puzzled second glance as he disappears into an anonymous conference room”, and then continue about their business. Sure, looks a little different from the pasty skinned shorts and t-shirt brigade — but, hey; maybe he’s a member of the Calypso band that’s playing that night.

Johnny Depp isn’t filming today. Yesterday, out on his (or rather Captain Jack Sparrow’s) treasured vessel, The Black Pearl, he was in full regalia. Today he’s in partial ensemble: missing his bandana, battered three-cornered hat, pistol (authentic, made in London in 1712,

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Released in the UK on 29th July Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the second adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic. In the brand new version the film star Johnny Depp is sure to make Dahl collectables hot property this year.

Merchandise for the Elm is stacked up in stores ranging from lunch boxes for kids to golden ticket cufflinks for adults. Hang on to your packaging,  stash away those mint books and hide away those promotional posters because Charlie and the Chocolate Factory collectables should rocket.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was first published in 1964 in the US and followed on in the UK in 1967. The book was a huge success and has since been published in 32 languages selling 13.7 million copies. Today everyone knows the story of Charlie Bucket who eats cabbage soup because his family are so poor. One day he is lucky enough to find a golden ticket to visit the famous Wonka factory. Four naughty children, hundreds of Oompa Loompas and the eccentric Willy Wonka all add to the tale those generations of children have adored. Roald Dahl found C Charlie and the Chocolate Factory one of the most difficult books to write and originally had 15 children in the book. He showed his first draft to his nephew, Nicholas, who after reading it through, told his Uncle that it was rotten and boring! Dahl went back to the drawing board and after condensing the characters down to just five children created the story that we all love today.

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Title: I Felt like an outsider, Now I feel like I can do anything

Author: Martyn Palmer

Publication: Empire

Issue: August 2005

 In the Shadow Of two bright-red trucks emblazoned with an ornate “W” and across a courtyard packed hard with (fake) snow, the scarecrow figure that is Johnny Depp, as outlandish factory owner Willy Wonka, adjusts his black tunic before leaning in to have a few quiet words in Tim Burton’s ear. Burton stands away from his camera and has a little chuckle at whatever Johnny’s smiling about. They look happy. They look like two (big) little boys having a good time together kids in a sweet shop, you might say. Or. to be more precise, kids in a chocolate factory.

As if you didn’t know, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory reunites Team Burton and Depp, a kind of modern-day Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, with more quirk and fewer swords. Stand by for collaboration No. 4 (following Edward Scissorhands. Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow) and expect to enter a world originally created by Roald Dahl but perfectly designed for Burton’s particular, weirdly appealing sensibility and Depp’s beguilingly child-like demeanour.

“It’s fun and it’s meant to be fun.” Depp says later. “Tim is doing beautiful stuff: the sets are incredible and the work has been a ball. And for me. going back into the ring with Tim is like being home. Yeah, right at home,

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Title: King John

Author: Andrew Collins

Publication: RadioTimes

Issue: 23-29 July 2005

 I wish I’d been the one to spot it, but the honour goes to the creature behind ads for a satellite movie channel s few years ago. They montaged clips of Johnny Depp, but treated them to resemble 1920’s film stock:  black and white and scratchy. Each showed a wordless facial reaction with piano accompaniment. The thesis:  Depp is the great silent star who never was.

That’s Depp in a nutshell. He’s thoroughly modern – trendy, offbeat, rock’n’roll  – and yet there’s something deeply old-fashioned about him.  He’s a modern classic, combining iconoclasm with a crowd-pleasing populism that’s finally made him bankable as well as cool, thanks to Pirates of the Caribbean.

After achieving cheesy fame in the late 1980s in TV cop show 21 Jump Street, Depp found a more artistic kind under the guidance of director Tim Burton. His fourth collaboration with Burton – they’re a toy-box Scorsese and De Niro – is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It threatens, after Finding Neverland, to make him a Dick Van Dyke with attitude.

So what’s his secret? Dashing good looks aren’t enough (although fans of Chocolate may disagree); nor are the column inches accrued during his wild years smashing up hotel suites and dating Kate Moss. It might be his eternal youthfulness, even in his early 40s, or simply a knack for looking like he’s having a fantastic time.

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 Title: I’m Just

Author: Kate Jackson

Publication: UK Daily Star

Issue: July 2005

JOHNNY DEPP is so worried children won’t like Wonka.

JOHNNY Depp won’t be the only one going completely Wonkas over his new role. The super cool star has become Willy Wonka, the chocolate-loving hero of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; and there’s already talk of an Oscar.

But sexy Johnny 41, isn’t bothered about an Academy Award – he’s more worried about what his kids will think of the movie when it opens this month.

“What I did with Wonka was test it on my daughter; Lily-Rose Melody; to see if I was going in the right direction” says the father of two. “Many times we`ve played Barbies where she has said ‘Daddy; don’t use that voice. Just talk regular.’

“But one day I started to do the Wonka voice. She lit up and gave me this ‘Where’s that coming from?’  kind of look.

“I thought ‘Ok, I think I am on the right track here’.”

But if Lily-Rose, six, and her brother  Jack three,  think daddy will be as generous with hls treats as Wonka, they’ve got another think coming.

While Johnny admits his children are the apples of his eye, he’s determined they won’t grow up to be like Roald Dahl’s bratty character Veruca Salt played in the movie by 12 year old Julia Winter.

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Title: hot Chocolate
Author: Adam Stone
Publication: UK Fabric
Issue: July 2005

 The Peter Pan of Hollywood tells Adam Stone about his wild past, his family and his new found happiness

Johnny Depp and chocolate – two of the finer things in life and a recipe for sweet success if ever there was one. It’s just this combination that Tim Burton was banking on when he signed up his favourite leading man for his remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

But if you know Johnny Depp as an actor and Tim Burton as a filmmaker, you’ll know this won’t be a sugary tale from the sweet shop counter. This is dark chocolate – very dark – and it’s just how Johnny likes it. The film is based on Roald Dahl`s classic novel about a boy named Charlie Bucket who, thanks to a lucky ticket in a candy bar, becomes one of five children allowed a tour of the amazing chocolate factory run by the eccentric Willy Wonka and his staff of Oompa-Loompas.

Comedy actor Gene Wilder brought Wonka to the big screen in 1971 but his portrayal and the film as a whole infuriated Dahl, who refused the studio sequel rights.

Johnny believes his Wonka would please the legendary writer — if only he had lived to see it. “Regardless of what one thinks of the 1971 film, Gene Wilder’s persona stands out”,

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Title: I love playing with Barbie dolls

Author: Eveyln Moore/Corrine Barraclough

Publication: UK 3AM Mirror

Issue: June 2005

He’s one of the sexiest stars in Hollywood but Johnny Depp couldn’t be less bothered about his A-List Hollywood heart-throb status.  The 41-year-old hunk prefers the simple life with his family in France to the glitz and glamour of Tinseltown. But don‘t worry you haven’t seen the last of those smouldering came-to-bed eyes, girls. Johnny’s back in two films this month. Starring along side him in The Libertine is Brit talent Smantha Morton and funny man Johnny Vegas, in which Johnny D plays the lead as a drunken 17^th century poet.  Dreamy Depp also shares a screen with Kate Winslet in Finding Neverland, the story of J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. And if that isn’t enough to keep Depp fans happy,  you can also start fantasying about his return as Jack Sparrow in the sequel to box office smash Pirates of the Caribbean.

You‘ve always been labelled as a bit of a rebel in Hollywood — Is that true?

Well I’ve never though of myself that way! I never got that whole rebel thing, you know, the rebellious image.  It was something they slapped on me just to have a name for the product I think.

Maybe it’s also because you’re no pushover?

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