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It’s tempting, as some have done, to call Johnny Depp the king of the weirdo actors writes Michael Sragow, the Sun Movie Critic for the Baltimore Sun.com. He adds that anyone surprised at Depp’s outre buccaneer Jack Sparrow in his Pirates of the Caribbean movies needs to know it’s just Johnny Depp doing what he does best: trying to make an old character “interesting and different, and push him as far as you can go.

…Depp famously drew on Keith Richards for Sparrow — and Richards will play Sparrow’s dad in the third Pirates movie. In the current Rolling Stone, Depp also credits his wide reading in pirate lore for some of Sparrow, such as a study called Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition (“I wasn’t exactly going for that with the character. … It was more that I liked the idea of being ambiguous”) and a book by a French sailor who said that he’d keep going as a sailor “because the horizon is always there.” In fact, he mined that idea for the first film’s last line, “Now, bring on that horizon.”

Visit the Baltimore Sun website to read more about the stories behind Johnny’s characters.

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Jane Blaney, head of programming at the USA network has announced that the cable company has acquired the rights to the ’06 summer blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”The record-breaking movie wil be shown on the cable channel in the fall of 2008. USA also owns the rights to “Pirates of the Caribean: Curse of the Black Pearl.”

For more information on USA’s newly acquired pirate’s treasure please visit the Zap2it.com Website.

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Rolling Stone
July 13, 2006
by Mark Binelli
Photographs by Albert Watson, Matthew Rolston

On the path to Hollywood glory, Johnny Depp veered off course. So how did he tame his wild ways to become one of the world’s most bankable leading men?
On a recent summer afternoon, Johnny Depp walks into a luxury suite at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. Oddly, he is dressed like a pirate. A faded paisley do-rag is tied around his head. Smaller strips of cloth are braided into his hair, and he has gold caps on several teeth. His loose white T-shirt, with its blue horizontal stripes, may be more sailor than pirate, but it’s definitely in the nautical family.

We should note that Depp has not come directly from the set of his latest film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, where he will reprise the role of flamboyant pirate captain Jack Sparrow. Nor has he come from the cover shoot for this magazine. When I mention this fact to Gore Verbinski, the director of both Pirates movies and a third installment already in the works, he professes no surprise. “That’s the Johnny I know,” Verbinski tells me. “He’s always half-Jack.” Depp says, “With all of my characters, it’s just depressing to leave them. With Captain Jack, when we finished shooting the first movie, I had a feeling I’d see him again. I didn’t feel like I was saying goodbye.

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The rum-swilling Captain Jack Sparrow is back, and Johnny Depp couldn’t be happier writes Hanh Nguyen of Zap2it.com. The selfishly charming raider created by Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski is based loosely on real life rock and roller Keith Richards and the amorous cartoon skunk Pepe LePew.

CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW

LOS ANGELES – The rum-swilling Captain Jack Sparrow is back, and Johnny Depp couldn’t be happier.

He’s been playing outlandish characters for years, but it wasn’t until his turn as the selfishly charming raider in 2003’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” that he earned his first Oscar nomination. The popularity of his character was a vindication of sorts since the studio was initially nervous about his quirky portrayal, which was based on the oddball combination of rock legend Keith Richards and the amorous cartoon skunk Pepe LePew.

“I mean, bless ’em, [the executives] did panic on the first one, and probably to some degree for good reason,” says Depp. “I think it’s a prerequisite to become an executive: you have to have that capability to panic instantly and do your best to resolve it as quickly as possible. But really it was a case where the audience, the viewers, actually came in and they were the ones that saved me.”

Now Depp’s returning the favor with the eagerly awaited sequel “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” Jack Sparrow is no mere imaginary friend for a man who was sad to finish shooting the original film because of “separation anxiety.”

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A press release by Profiles in History, will be holding their Summer 2006 auction, featuring more than 650 items of original TV and movie memorabilia, worth more than $2 million on Friday, July 28. The six-hour auction, starting at 12 noon PDT, will feature Johnny Depp’s ‘scissor-hand’ glove from Edward Scissorhands, with the expected sale price of $7,000 to $9,000.

Profiles in History the nation’s leading dealer of original historical letters and manuscripts and the preeminent auction house specializing in Hollywood memorabilia including props, costumes, artist’s sketches, posters and autographs from film, television and rock n’ roll will hold the sale at their gallery located at 110 N. Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.

For more information about the auction or how to bid, please visit Press Release or Profiles in History Website

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And in resurrecting his Sparrow character, Depp found himself in strange territory: acceptance. “On Pirates 2 and 3, we didn’t get the calls – ‘My God, you’re ruining the movie!’ By Anthony Breznican for USA Today.

…”In a lot of instances they [Disney executives] kind of were beyond supportive to the degree where it’s, ‘Keep doing it! Make some more stuff up! Add some more weirdness!’ But we did hit a couple of places that made them nervous. . . .”

Depp pauses for a long time. That devil’s smile returns. ”And it does feel good. It does,” he says. ”If you don’t sort of tread in the arena of fear, you won’t move forward somehow.”

Gore Verbinski, director of the Pirates movies, says he and Depp were trying to find a way to ”one-up each other” to avoid playing it safe the second time around. At one point in the sequel, when Sparrow is captured by cannibals, Verbinski had the savages drape a necklace of severed toes around his neck.

Sparrow then does something outrageous. ”People were like, ‘You can’t put that in the movie,’ ” Verbinski says. ”Well, who’s going to stop us?” Not the suits. Not this time…

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JOAN E. VADEBONCOEUR, entertainment columnist for the Post-Standard writes “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” delivers everything that a summer blockbuster should be and then some.

On the otherhand, she feels the movie lacks enough screen time with the Disney fan’s favorite scruffy pirate: Captain Jack. She says, “Too often, Depp is off and leaves the heavy-duty stuff to Bloom and Knightley. Two characters designed as comic foils are needless baggage. More Depp would be much more preferable.”

Read more of Joan’s review by clicking on the link above.

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In his exclusive interview for If Magazine Contributing Writer EMMANUEL ITIER talked with Johnny about playing Jack Sparrow in the Disney blockbuster sequel PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST. An excerpt follows:

iF: And how was it kissing Keira Knightley?

DEPP: Oh the smooch. Well those things are always so awkward especially because Keira and I have never been in that kind of situation together. She’s three and I’m a thousand. I’m Methuselah and she’s a toddler. There was that, but more than anything, we’ve known each other for a couple of years and suddenly it was, "Are you ready for this?" And you just kind of do it. It becomes more like a stunt in a way. "Where’s my double?" She was a great sport about it. She was really sweet.

Follow the link above to read more as Johnny talks about staying in character with his kids, Keith Richards as a dad, and French films.

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