Title: King John
Author: Andrew Collins
Publication: RadioTimes
Issue: 23-29 July 2005
I wish I’d been the one to spot it, but the honour goes to the creature behind ads for a satellite movie channel s few years ago. They montaged clips of Johnny Depp, but treated them to resemble 1920’s film stock: black and white and scratchy. Each showed a wordless facial reaction with piano accompaniment. The thesis: Depp is the great silent star who never was.
That’s Depp in a nutshell. He’s thoroughly modern – trendy, offbeat, rock’n’roll – and yet there’s something deeply old-fashioned about him. He’s a modern classic, combining iconoclasm with a crowd-pleasing populism that’s finally made him bankable as well as cool, thanks to Pirates of the Caribbean.
After achieving cheesy fame in the late 1980s in TV cop show 21 Jump Street, Depp found a more artistic kind under the guidance of director Tim Burton. His fourth collaboration with Burton – they’re a toy-box Scorsese and De Niro – is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It threatens, after Finding Neverland, to make him a Dick Van Dyke with attitude.
So what’s his secret? Dashing good looks aren’t enough (although fans of Chocolate may disagree); nor are the column inches accrued during his wild years smashing up hotel suites and dating Kate Moss. It might be his eternal youthfulness, even in his early 40s, or simply a knack for looking like he’s having a fantastic time.
The only Hollywood actor I’ve ever met who smoked during the interview, Johnny Depp is Errol Flynn and Marlon Brando combined.
It shouldn’t work. But it does.
