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Source:  Suntimes, Sept. 25, 2005 (thanks to JohhnyDeppReads)



Depp jumps at chance to work with Burton


By Cindy Pearlman

It always starts with a phone call in the middle of the night. "I'll hear a voice and he will say, 'What are you doing?'" says the actor. "I'll say, 'I'm sleeping, Tim.' Then I'll hear a pause and he will say, 'Can you meet me for dinner next week?' I'll say, 'Sure. Where. New York. OK.'"

That's how the collaboration usually begins with Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton, who have teamed up for some of the best work of both their careers, including "Edward Scissorhands" (1990), "Ed Wood" (1994), this summer's megahit "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and the new "Corpse Bride," which opened Friday.

"When Tim makes that first call, there is no subject. There is no project. There is nothing. It's just that I'm going to be having a salad with Tim in a week -- and it's always been that way," Depp says.

That Cobb salad for two became the new film "Corpse Bride." The animated film revolves around a man who slips a golden wedding band on the hand of a female skeleton (voice of Helena Bonham Carter). The ghost materializes and insists that she really is his Mrs.

Depp voices the male lead, but insists he didn't spend much time prepping. "I was so focused on 'Charlie' and my Wonka character. Somehow, in my mind, I always thought we'd do 'Corpse Bride' in a couple of months.

"Then one night on the set of 'Charlie,' Tim came up to me and said, 'Maybe tonight we can do some 'Corpse Bride.' I was like, 'Sure, but I don't have the character.' So I sat him down and grilled him for about 10 minutes and went from there."

Depp mentions that "he's a character not so far away from other characters that I've played in the past for Tim, like Edward Scissorhands. He's a bit of an outsider -- bumbling, deeply insecure, nervous character.

"A lot like me in life," Depp jokes.
The next step was meeting the puppets. "They were beautiful. Beautiful. Really inspiring," he says.

The film, expected to be a major hit, gives Depp a one-two punch in 2005 since "Charlie" was one of the major hits of the summer. But Depp insists that success is a thing he never expects.

"I've learned to condition myself to not have any expectations in terms of box office," he says. "That kind of thing escaped me for many, many years. So it's relatively a new experience to have more than a few people go and see my films, but it's very exciting."

For Depp, working with Burton is like "going home for me," he says. "It's this place that's very comfortable even with the knowledge that there are a lot of risks that have to be taken, and you have to prepare to explore. But there is also great comfort and great safety there."

Depp thinks that "Bride" was especially comforting because it's not his mug up there. He gets to hide behind a puppet. "Any actor with any ounce of sanity or insanity will tell you that doing the voice of a puppet is much easier," he says. "Our biggest fear is to go anywhere near who you are."

The Florida native sold pens in Hollywood before getting his big break in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984) and then on TV's "21 Jump Street" (1987). His slow rise to stardom gave him time to listen to his elders. In fact, he freaks himself out even more when he thinks of the words his friend, the late great Marlon Brando, told him.

"I do have that voice of Marlon reverberating in there," he says. "One time, he said to me, 'How many films do you do a year?' I said, 'I don't know. Two or three.'

"Marlon said, 'You've got to watch yourself, because we only have so many faces in our pocket.'

"It was good advice," Depp says.

At this point of the game, Depp prefers to get validation from his collaborators. "The thing for me that's most touching is that a couple of the people who have been with me have stuck with me since the early days.

"You can hear the violins starting," he says, laughing.

Depp also gets his reviews from his children (with French actress Vanessa Paradis). "My son Jack was real little when 'Pirates of the Caribbean' came out. He was sort of in the Neanderthal stage. Lily Rose was there, and she loved it.
"It's interesting because they both came to the set of 'Pirates,' so they were sort of used to seeing Papa as this weird, greasy, pirate guy," he says, laughing. "And then my kids knew I was going to be playing Willy Wonka and, of course, they were very excited."

Depp was decked out in full Wonka gear when his kids burst into his trailer for the first time. "I was in a top hat and the Prince Valiant hairdo with the cha-cha heels. The kids just kind of froze and sort of stared at me for like an eternity," he says. "After they got over it, they wanted to try everything on."

And even more nerve-wracking was when his children actually saw the completed "Charlie." "My own children seeing my film was much more scary than the critics. I was so afraid that my kids weren't going to react well. So I was sitting at home, waiting for them to come back. In bursts my 3-year-old Jack, who walks up to me, looks at me and then quotes Wonka. He went, 'You're really weird,'" he recalls. "I suddenly felt liberated."

Depp is currently filming back-to-back sequels for the mega-hit "Pirates of the Caribbean" (2003). He returned to his swashbuckling Jack for a simple reason.

"I clicked with the character and I really know the guy. It was very, very difficult for me at the end of the first film," Depp says. "At the end of that shot, I could hear the clock ticking.

"Sometimes with a character you love like that you even go through a really nasty kind of depression afterwards because you miss the character. There's this odd separation anxiety because you've been this person for a pretty good length of time.

"When they came to me and said, 'We'd like you to do [two sequels] together,' I was all for it because I just wanted selfishly to be the guy again."

But there are other times when he wants to separate from the character. "I feel like a dunce saying this but I remember the last day of 'Scissorhands,' and it had been an 89-day shoot. I remember looking into the mirror, thinking, 'Well, this is it. This is the last time I'll see you, Edward Scissorhands.'

"It became very emotional," he says. "But it was good to part."

Depp won't revisit the face he saw in the mirror by popping in a DVD or heading to the theater.

"Oh, I cringe when I see myself. I'm not a good judge of my own work," he insists. "Honestly, I even do my best to avoid seeing the things. I just can't stand seeing myself up there.

"I'm always second guessing myself. I'll start to go, 'Why did I do this? Why didn't I do that? God, look at my nose. I hate myself.' I'll start thinking about myself, which is where I shouldn't go because I'm not me up there. I'm someone else.

"I feel like once they wrap me, it's none of my business anymore."



Suntimes, sept 27 2005