In September 2001 Johnny Depp was in Deauville, in the Normandy region of France, to promote “Blow”. I live not very far from Deauville so I decided to go – after all, I’d been waiting for this day for 12 years!
After work I jumped into my car with my best friend and off we went. When we arrived in Deauville there were so many people — girls crossed France to see him. We waited for him for about an hour. At last he arrived and I was a little bit excited, but unfortunately he was so far from me and he went into the cinema screening room. I thought that I?d missed my chance to talk to him and I was very disappointed. I was about to leave to go back home, but then I thought “S**t, I ‘m going to wait until the end of the movie”, and I decided to go back to the cinema. After about 15 minutes I saw cameras flashing and a lot of people milling about inside. My best friend, who knew the town very well, told me “He’s going to take the underground passage”, so we ran towards the underground to wait for his car. Two other people had heard what she said and followed us.
Then Johnny stopped his car – oh my god he was so beautiful: long hair, a clear pink skirt and an arabian scarf, and his old, old famous hat! He was drinking a glass of wine and smoking a rolled cigarette. (Are you surprised by this? Our authentic Johnny as we love him.) A girl moved towards him and she told him about her favourite movies. I don’t know why but he was so distant with her, he just signed her picture, ouf!
Then it was my turn, but it was strange – I wasn’t under stress anymore; I got the impression that I?d always known him. I told him that I was a big fan for 12 years, and he looked at me very surprised (maybe because I look younger than I am). He caught my hand and kissed it, and he asked me “Are you OK? You didn’t want to see the movie?” (It was funny because he knew that we were French and he spoke in an easy English.) I explained that I will have time to see it but that I didn’t have time to buy a ticket and, yes, I was very fine! He took my paper and asked me my name. I started to spell it in English but he stopped me and told me: “In French please”. After this he took a lot of time to pronounce it. While he wrote I talked to him about the time that we saw each other very quickly at the end of Vanessa Paradis’ concert in Normandy; he remembered it and he laughed. “So, I read you what I’m writing for you: “elise = my best to you always = love johnny depp”. I asked him to kiss my hand again so I could get a picture, and he took my hand and put his lips on my hand, and waited so that my best friend could find a good moment to take the picture. Unfortunately you don’t see my face in the photo – only my hand and of course his tender touch. I thanked him for his simplicity and I told him “Carry on making us dream through your movies”, and he thanked me.
It was the most beautiful day in my life. I hope that I won’t have to wait another 12 years to meet him again!
Elise
January 2003
From the old JOHNNYDEPPZONE
