AUS – FilmInk August 2006 – Heartbeat Poet
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?