Superstardom is uncharted territory for Depp
Having sailed so long outside the mainstream, Johnny Depp isn’t sure how to navigate superstardom – BY JEFF STRICKLER for the Star Tribune
LOS ANGELES — Sure, he has starred in plenty of movies, but usually as a performer who prides himself on disappearing inside his role. It wasn’t Depp who drew audiences to those films, it was characters such as Edward Scissorhands, Donnie Brasco and George Jung (“Blow”).
The patrons lining up at theaters today will be there to see Depp. The sequel to the 2003 blockbuster — which had $652 million in ticket sales worldwide — is a mega-budget star vehicle built around and totally dependent on Capt. Jack Sparrow, the flamboyant pirate he created. And that blows his mind. “I’ve definitely never been a crowd-pleaser,” he said. “I was very surprised that the first ‘Pirates’ did as well as it did. I still am.”
“If you define my career in terms of box office, I’ve spent 20 years making movies that the studios consider failures,” he said. “To me, they were great successes just because we got them made.”
Depp says he’s “not the leading-man kind of actor — there’s a whole bunch of guys out there, actor types, who do that well.” Instead, he prefers characters “who may seem bizarre.” He points out that while the first “Pirates” movie was being filmed, studio executives went bonkers over reports that he was playing the freewheeling character as a seagoing Keith Richards.