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For years he seemed dead set on being anything other than a movie star, playing so many offbeat characters in so many offbeat movies that he practically became his own genre. Between 1989 and 1998, not a single Johnny Depp film grossed more than $55 million domestically. But two summers ago, “Pirates of the Caribbean” plundered $652 million worldwide, and Depp suddenly became Hollywood’s hottest “new” leading man. He spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Sean Smith. July 4 issue.

Smith: You and director Tim Burton have made several movies together. Did you assume he’d ask you to play Wonka?

Depp: I was stunned. I was ecstatic, man. I was doing Snoopy dances.

Smith: But after the success of “Pirates,” why wouldn’t the studio want you for this?

Depp: That didn’t even cross my mind. All the little films I’ve done that were perceived by Hollywood as these obscure, weird things, I always thought could appeal to a larger audience.

Smith: Still, it must have felt good to have your work seen and loved by so many people.

Depp: I had never experienced anything like that where you meet a 75-year-old woman who had seen “Pirates” and somehow related to the character, and then five minutes later you meet a 6-year-old who says, “Oh, you’re Captain Jack!” What a rush. What a gift.

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Johnny Depp, Hollywood’s hottest eccentric, meets his match playing Willy Wonka in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. How sweet is that? By Sean Smith. Newsweek, July 4 issue.

Playing Willy Wonka is not for the timid. It requires courage, imagination and flawless fashion sense. “I like these heels,” Johnny Depp says, pulling up his pant cuff to reveal a sleek boot emblazoned with a swirly W. “I wanted Wonka to be this long, string-beany kind of figure, and give him these unbelievable cha-cha heels.”

To build the character, Depp began thinking about the kind of folks who host game shows and children’s TV programs. “Not like Captain Kangaroo, but like that guy on the local cable station in Podunk, Idaho,” Depp says. “Wonka had sheltered himself from the outside world, and television would have been a good friend to him.” Depp also decided to make Wonka a perfectionist and a germ-a-phobe. As for his look, that flawless pale skin, perfect pageboy and slightly feminine air have had some people wondering whether Depp found inspiration in Michael Jackson. “That never crossed my mind,” he says. “I never thought about it once, honestly. But it’s interesting, people’s perceptions.”

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Sunday Herald Sun – Johnny Depp has confirmed that he will return to the land down under to Melbourne Australia next summer to make the movie version of Shantaram. The film will be based on the life of Gregory David Roberts, also known as the Gentleman Bandit and Depp will star as the lead.

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Ruben V. Nepales of the Philippine Daily Inquirer caught up with Johnny in Nassau, Bahamas in an article called; Only in Hollywood: On a Caribbean island with Johnny Depp.

No longer pasty-faced from his role as Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Johnny is deeply tanned from returning to the set of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3. Wonka’s pearly whites are gone as well, with several teeth morphed in gold as fittin for Jack. He wears old worn out boots that should have been discarded years ago and chains & shells dangle from his belt. Johnny sports a mustache and goatee and wears a cap backwards.

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contactmusic.com – GILLIAM STUNNED BY LACK OF INTEREST IN DEPP/WILLIAMS FILM

Movie maverick Terry Gilliam is amazed, that a planned movie starring Johnny Depp and Robin Williams is still on the shelf – because American investors cannot raise dollars 15 million (GPB 8.3 million).

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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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