On July 13, 2005 Johnny Depp appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to promote his new dazzler eye-catching children’s film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Depp who lights up the screen as the deliciously-dotty confectioner teamed up yet once again with the equally brillant director Tim Burton and together they produced a sweet sensation…
Introduction
Depp: Thank you.
Leno: Thanks for coming.
Depp: Thank you for having me.
lots of screaming – Depp is looking to Leno for help
Leno: Well, let’s talk to the guy. Johnny laughs Looking through your bio, you used to be a mechanic?
Depp: In a way…yeah…in a way. Yeah…I was a…I was a gas station attendant, and I…so I used to pump gas and the whole thing, and then one day the owner of the place came out and said, “You’re going to work in the garage, now.” And I tried….to stop him…from allowing me to do that.
Leno: Had you had any experience working on cars?
Depp: No. No, I knew absolutely nothing about cars. Uh, and then I, you know…I ended up…he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll show you”. So I did like, wheel alignments and all this stuff, until…one day… I did what I thought was a terrific wheel alignment, you know, changed all the tires and uh, put all the lugs back on. The guy took off around the corner, and his left front wheel just…shot off. *laughs” That was the end of my career as a mechanic.
Leno: Did you get fired?
Depp: Oh yeah! Oh yeah…
Leno: I was a fan before, but when I saw what you drove in here today, now of course, I’m a huge, huge fan…
Depp: Oh, the Packard.
Leno: A ’35 Packard, all original car – beautiful! show picture See, the cool thing is it’s original – not something that’s been all spiffed up – it’s just a nice original car. See, that car suits you, it has a nice patina to it…
Depp: It does have a nice patina…it’s got a better patina than I do.
Leno: I know you were friends with Hunter Thompson.
Depp: Oh yeah.
Leno: Tell people a little about him.
Depp: Um…let’s see…Hunter S. Thompson was…IS…still one of the most important writers in the 20th century, as far as I’m concerned. He wrote the classic book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas…which was made into a film, and um…he was a great, great man…
Leno: He had an interesting last request, and I understand you’re going to help fulfill it?
Depp: Yeah, yeah…we’re going to give it our best shot, as it were. snickers Hunter’s last request – his last wish – was to be…to have his remains fired out of a 150-foot cannon.
Leno: Where does one get a 150-foot cannon. A regular cannon you might find…
Depp: You might. Yeah, that’s the weird thing – you have to build the cannon. You have to actually design and engineer and build a cannon…for Hunter.
Leno: And you’re going to do it?
Depp: Yeah. Wouldn’t you? You kinda have to…yeah.
Leno: You have to ride a Vincent Black Shadow when you get there.
Depp: Maybe…
Leno: The motorcycle in the book…
Depp: Yeah, yes it was.
Leno: Where do you aim a 150-foot cannon – at some corporate headquarters somewhere – what direction?
Depp: I think straight into the stratosphere – just to the stars, yeah.
Leno: When will that happen?
Depp: Sometime in the very, very near future.
Leno: How about you? Any final requests…would you want anything like that?
Depp: No, you know, that’s…I…I…I…I’d probably want, I liked a little more subtle…
Leno: More subtle? Maybe a 25-foot cannon?
Depp: Yeah.
Leno: You don’t have that cannon envy thing going …
Depp: Be put into the eye of the Statue of Liberty or something like that…
Leno: I heard you were approaching Keith Richards to play your dad (in POTC) – have you had any luck with that?
Depp: Well, it’s looking good. It’s looking very good, actually, yeah. I mean, he’s got a…got a little tour to do with the Rolling Stones, but uh…
Leno: Did you know him before that?
Depp: I…um…ah…not before the Stones, no.
Leno: No, not before the Stones. I mean, before POTC. laughs You weren’t even born when the Stones went on tour.
Depp: You’ve got a point there.
Leno: Did you know him before Pirates.
Depp: Prior to that…oh yeah, yeah. I’d uh…known him on and off for a number of years. He’s really…he’s always been a very sweet, sweet man.
Leno: You think he’ll play your dad?
Depp: I think it’s…it’s looking very good….I think it’s going to work out. Very exciting.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Leno: Welcome back. Did you watch Willy Wonka as a kid?
Depp: Oh sure, yeah, yeah – loved it…every year.
Leno: You watch it every year?
Depp: Well no, when I was a kid. I stopped that. chuckles
Leno: How do you read a Tim Burton script – do you just trust him?
Depp: Yeah, when…when we…when Tim approached me about this, I…I didn’t even…there wasn’t a script, you know. He just started to talk about this…uh…this idea and I just stopped him in mid-sentence and said, you know, ‘I’m there, I’m in’.
Leno: So you just trust him?
Depp: Oh yeah. I’d do whatever he wanted.
Leno: What was the jungle scene, I heard there was some trouble shooting that.
Depp: Oh yeah. Uhm…well, it wasn’t so much trouble. I mean, there was…there was…kind of a jungle…sound stage…they built this really amazing sort of triple canopy jungle, and uh…I’m being chased by this massive, sort of wasp-beast thing, you know, swooping down at me, and uh…I have to run away. So I’m running…laughs…running through the jungle with a machete and stuff, and um, the next thing – ‘cause ya do – and the next thing you know, I’m just down, just flat. I just went down, I guess my lace, my boot lace, got caught on something, and I went face down. So, before you hear cut, I just heard incessant giggling, and it was Tim. I am starting to feel like that’s why he puts me in his movies, so that…he can laugh at me, you know.
Leno: Did that stay in?
Depp: I don’t know, I’m not sure…no, I haven’t seen it. I’m not sure if they kept that in…
Leno: Your character is a germophobe. Are you like that?
Depp: Well, I think that after you have kids, you become that.
Leno: Really?
Depp: Yeeeaaah.
Leno: You mean because of the kids – you afraid for the kids, or for yourself?
Depp: Well, no, no, just uh…uh, I mean, no, I don’t fear my children. laughs No, but I mean after you change a couple of diapers, you don’t want to make a tuna sandwich, or something like that. You know what I mean, you starting thinking about things like that…
Leno: ESPECIALLY a tuna sandwich…
Depp: You know what I mean. I could have said pastrami…
Leno: Like when you leave a restroom, are you one of those guys who touches the door like this – gestures with elbow – or do you just grab it?
Depp: I’ve never done that. But uh…no, but now it’s in my head and I’ll probably do it. Or maneuvering it with my boot – lifts foot and demonstrates – or something.
Leno: Here’s another thing – if you go into a bar and there’s a bowl of peanuts…
Depp: Bad news.
Leno: You won’t eat the peanuts?
Depp: Bad news. There was a study done – clears throat – this will change your life, by the way. This will change your life. There was a study done where they tested a…an ordinary bowl of peanuts, uh…on…at a bar. Twenty-seven different kinds of urine.
Leno: Are you talking about bars where people just urinate in the bowl of peanuts, I don’t know what kind of bars you’re going to!
Depp: laughs No, that’s home!
Leno: You talking about people who use the restroom and don’t wash their hands and come back and eat the peanuts?
Depp: That kind of deal …I’m assuming, yes. Yeah, change your life, right?
Leno: I root through and try to find a peanut without the urine.
Depp: Yeah, the clean one.
Leno: Would you use the pay phone?
Depp: Yeah.
Leno: Or would you go like this – pulls coat over hand to protect it
Depp: Well, I might now.
Leno: I’m giving you a lot of good tips! You’re not one of those Purell guys, squirt the thing in your hand?
Depp: The, the… rubs hands together no, not yet, but… it’s probably coming.
Leno: You dance in this film as well. Are you a good dancer?
Depp: I’m really not. You know, once again I think it’s one of those things that Tim…just to torture me. Yeah, yeah. Because he knows that I, you know, that that’s one of the things I fear most in life – is…is dancing. Oh yeah, it’s just not my thing.
Leno: Would you ever confront your fears? Let’s say they want to do Chicago 2, and they want you – the ultimate challenge – could you learn to dance for that film, if you had to?
Depp: If I could play the girl part.
*everyone laughs *
Leno: Can you explain this clip we are going to see?
Depp: This is the inventing room.
they show a clip from the film
Leno: Did you model this character after anyone in particular?
Depp: Um…you know what I…what I…when I was trying to come up with the…with the character of Wonka, I started, I started thinking about um…these memories of, sort of, children’s show hosts when I was a kid, you know. You know like, guys like Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Green Jeans, you know, Mr. Rogers, all that kind of stuff. And I was thinking about – I mean, my memory of them is, even at the age of 5 or 6 – thinking my god they talk weird, you know, because there’s that whole sort of, ‘Hello children, how are you?’ It’s really unnerving. So I sort of…I kind of took a little bit of that…and um, and then I was thinking about game show hosts, you know…that sort of…
Leno: Kind of like a Bob Lang, Captain Kangaroo thing?
Depp: Yeah, Wink Martindale, you know.
Farewells and thank yous were exchanged amid rabid fangirl screaming, and Depp left the stage.
~ finis ~
This transcript was posted by dasNdanger on the johnny depp-zone.com website. It is unofficial and is not connected with NBC, The Tonight Show, or Jay Leno in any official capacity. Our thanks to dasNdanger and to johnny depp-zone.com for the transcript.
