MORE THAN 11 years ago, in one of my first columns for this paper, I said of Johnny Depp that “he has just what it takes to revive that dodo bird of the American cinema, the swashbuckler.” By Joe Morgenstern for the The Wall Street Journal.
How could I have foreseen, way back then, his performance in “Pirates of the Caribbean”? Well, I couldn’t, and didn’t.
What his sudden ascension means for the studios is clear — a mad competition for his services, now that the second installment of “Pirates” is a staggering success, and the third one is already in the can. What it means for movie lovers, especially those who care about actors and acting, is equally clear. Stardom isn’t always synonymous with interesting acting — Robert Redford and Keanu Reeves come to mind. Yet every Depp performance holds out the promise of surprise, and he delivers on the promise more often than not.
Everyone who has seen “Pirates” can readily recall Jack Sparrow’s quirks — the slyness, the blitheness, the woozy feyness that slides in and out of genial gayness. Even those who haven’t seen the film seem to be aware that the model for this unlikely hero was Keith Richards, although an earlier stage in the character’s evolution may well have been that aforementioned Don Juan, who wore eyeliner and, in a fantasy sequence, sported a mask and bandana as a typhoon survivor washed up on the island of Eros.
Moviegoers who don’t usually register the specifics of performance love to talk about his work in “Pirates,” but it’s hardly the first time Mr. Depp has inspired such discussion. He has a star presence and a star’s set of skills — in “Don Juan DeMarco” he managed to dominate most of his scenes with Marlon Brando — but without the burden of a star persona. Like the younger Dustin Hoffman, he declines to confine himself to roles that conform to his public’s expectations.
To the contrary, he seems to have chosen most of his films for the sake of the work, rather than for how they might affect his career. (He has done more than 30 features so far, including such small-scale favorites as “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” and “Benny & Joon.”)
In a medium that rewards coarse performances, he approaches most of his characters with the restraint of an English screen veteran. In an era when so many performers are stuck in the tar pits of greed and neurotic indecision, it was nice to hear a recent piece on National Public Radio in which Disney’s studio chairman, d**k Cook, recalled Mr. Depp’s disarming eagerness to be in a pirate movie — to his agent’s consternation, the actor committed to the general idea before anyone had written a treatment, let alone a script, then insisted that he would play the rogue.
