**Language warning**
Prince of Darkness
Booze, Oscars and tax breaks.. On set as Johnny Depp delivers his most outrageous performance ever in The Libertine
Words Jonathan Crocker additional reporting Martyn Palmer.
“This guy had been kept in the darkness for far too long.” Says Johnny Depp, leaning towards Total Film. We’re in Depp’s trailer on the Isle of Man. It’s cold outside. He’s wearing cuffs frilly enough to shame a poodle and passionatley telling us about John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester. “He’s an incredible character. I’m amazed that, like, Marquis de Sade has got more action, you know? But then I’m also amazed Marlowe hasn’t got as much action as Shakespeare…”
Depp in in his element. “It’s been great. It feels f**king great…” And he deserves to enjoy the moment. Because his journey to playing the titular 17th-century poet hellraiser in The Libertine has been much longer and more involved than simply nipping over the choppy water from his home in France.
It started in 1995. Depp watched John Malcovich playing Rochester in Stephen Jeffreys’ play. He was brilliant, Johnny told him so. Malkovich said he wanted him to star as Rochester on screen…
Depp has signed to headline, bringing freshly found box office clout in addition to his talent, having just starred in Pirates of The Caribbean. He also approves of edgy Accurist and BMW ad helmer Laurence Dunmore, who is making his feature directorial debut. “I just had a feeling,” says Depp,”he would be all right…”
Then everything fell apart.
“Literally, one day we were funded and the next we weren’t,”Dunmore tells Total Film, shaking his head. It was catastrophic.”
Most films were sunk, gone forever. But then, most films don’t have Malkovich and Depp. The two stars poured in their own money to keep the production afloat. “they dug very deep,” Says Dunmore
“Johnny stuck by us, at a time when we could have been facing a cascade into a meaningless puddle. He stood his ground. “Malkovich, meanwhile negotiated a quick thinking deal to shoot in cut cost safe haven, the Isle of Man. Hence the frills and chills of our on set encounter with Depp, who doesn’t trumpet his own role in freeing The Libertine.
“You know it’s a great part.There are a million things to like about Rochester. It’s very easy for the take on him to be, ?He’s a pig, a drunk, he’s a randy, Psychotic madman,’ but he was brilliant. I mean for all his adventures and all his sexual and deviant encounters, he was quite sensative and loving. He was really a very caring man. And this sort of material only rolls around once. Material like this is just, I mean, more prescious than any jewel.”
So, dunmore’s movie survivied. The rain sodden 45 day shoot (turns out we were there on a good day) was an endurance test for all involved (“It ranged from the absurd to the hilarious,” says Dunmore) but the result is extraordinary: Depp is extraordinary. His potty-mouthed display of time bomb hedonism centres The Libertine’s filthy delicious drama, with Dunmore realising the 17th Century as a grimy, conflicted netherworld. Superficially, the film may dip in the same ink pot as Philip Kaufman’s Quills, but it draws a darker, more intense picture. “It feels shocking in that it moves with this force of its own,” says Depp. “It has the energy of punk rock. It’s unforgiving and it’s ugly at times and it’s brutal and it’s flowery and it’s funny, all kinds of things, but it doesn’t let up…” copyright totalfilm.com
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