Source: The
Guardian, May 24 2001
Johnny be good
By Danny
Leigh
He's hardly a stranger to class A
drugs. But as he takes the lead in a movie about a cocaine
baron, Johnny Depp says he has put his 'years of confusion'
behind him. He talks to Danny Leigh.
The first
time Johnny Depp went to prison, all he could think was how
harmless it looked. How benign. "It all seems so anonymous," he
says. "Just concrete blocks, you know? Of course, that's just
the facade. Then you notice the razor wire. And you go in past
the metal detectors, and then you're right down in the belly of
the beast. And then it's . . . " His face lights up, his palm
raised. "Hi George!"
By
George, he means George Jung, the drug trafficker who first
introduced cocaine to a thrill-hungry America during the
mid-70s, and whose misbegotten career forms the spine of Depp's
new movie, Blow. The jail that Depp was being guided through
(strictly for purposes of research) was Otisville Federal
Correctional Institution, a medium-security facility in upstate
New York where Jung is serving 25 years without parole. And so
the two shake hands. "At first it was almost too weird," says
Depp now, sitting in scarf and stetson on a sweltering London
afternoon. "All I could think of was, 'What if I don't like him?
What if he doesn't like me? What if he doesn't want me to do the
part?'"
Not that Depp
should have worried; his reputation had preceded him. Having
embraced the idea of a biopic detailing his life, the
dilapidated Jung reportedly expressed concern over who would be
playing him. At the mention of Depp's name, he drew a blank. The
next day, however, after consulting with his fellow inmates, he
called the director Ted Demme. "So, this Depp guy . . . the boys
say he's OK." Lighting the first of half a dozen hand-rolled
cheroots, Depp beams at the memory. "Yeah, I was happy with
that. It's nice to know I'm liked in
prison."
Yet, if Blow is
ostensibly the story of Jung's ill-fated journey from small-time
pot dealer to lynchpin of the Medellin cartel, it also belongs
to Depp, an occasionally great actor whose performance - all
subtle tics and sad-eyed understatement - reminds you just how
good he can be. While the resemblance between the two is
non-existent (Depp a high-cheekboned leading man, Jung a ravaged
cartoon of narcotic hangover), the line between them all but
disappears on-screen. "You know," he says, finally removing the
hat, "George speaks in these obtuse . . . riddles. And
apparently, he accused me of being a witch. Because I only had
two days in prison with him, after he saw the film he accused me
of being, you know, some kind of strange witch that took his
brain out and stole part of his soul." A beat. "Which was
another nice compliment."
But the flattery Depp receives from all corners of the US
prison system has not been echoed elsewhere. To play any of the
esoteric roles he has made a career of - transvestite
film-makers, men with scissor hands et al - is, it seems, just
peachy. In the drug-soaked States, however, to play a coke baron
(and sympathetically at that) appears to be a moral faux pas.
You can argue, of course, as Depp does, that Jung was simply an
all-American entrepreneur who did "what 95% of the US population
would do in that situation". You could also point out the
hypocrisy of the drugs war, and the "bajillion dollar" medical
industry that "doles out pills without giving half a fuck why".
But, if you wanted to be literal-minded about it, the suspicion
would remain that Depp - co-owner of LA's Viper Room, where his
friend River Phoenix died from an OD in1993 - is not, let's say,
anti-drugs.
The ellipses
that litter his conversation grow longer. "Well . . . it would
be difficult to argue that I was anti drugs. I'm for, ah . . .
being smart about the subject. I mean, does it make me sad when
I see kids strung out on dope? Yeah. I've had a lot of friends
die because of drug abuse. Or go completely sideways, you know?
But what we should be asking is why kids need to anaesthetise
themselves."
There's an
especially pregnant pause. For a second, I'm convinced he has
forgotten what he was talking about. "I don't know . . . I went
through so many years where I medicated myself. "But ultimately,
all you're doing is postponing the inevitable. Which is that
you're going to have to acknowledge your demons." Another
cheroot, rolled and lit. What were you into? "Oh, you know . . .
anything I could use to make myself feel better. Or to make
myself feel what I thought was feeling better. But cocaine is a
strange one. A really strange one. I mean, I hated it. You get
this synthetic happiness, and then you're just panicking and
grinding your teeth, and . . ."
He trails off. So, was getting clean the result of some
wasted epiphany? Or simply growing up? "I guess . . . I mean, I
drink, so I still have that form of escape. But for years, the
whole thing was, 'Ah, fuck it, I'll deal with it tomorrow.' And
then you realise that you're hurting the people around you, and
you're scaring the people around you, and it just seems . . .
dumb. So you stop."
While Depp is nothing but candid about his "years of
confusion", his problem now would seem to be workaholicism.
Recently, for example - having settled in Paris with girlfriend
Vanessa Paradis and their two-year-old daughter - rather than
entertain the tabloids, Depp has instead kept busy with role
after role, film after film. Some have been accomplished, some
woeful, and some plain baffling (specifically Chocolat, in which
he sported an inexplicable Irish accent). All, however - as
always with Depp - appear driven by a wilful attraction for the
odd. Having spent much of his career ducking beneath the
commercial radar, you wonder how he feels about his peers, with
their blockbusters and $20m salaries? Before he can answer, an
assistant brings him coffee. Asking if I want one, Depp
immediately hands his to me.
"No, really, have mine . . . I mean, those guys who are
doing well for themselves, I wish them luck. But I don't see too
many movies, and I'm real comfortable not knowing what other
people are doing. I will say that, over the last couple of
months I watched a couple of these huge action movies, just to
sit and absorb some mindless entertainment. And I was truly . .
." he searches for the language, ". . . stupefied . I mean, I
was shocked at their badness. They were amazing!
Surreal!"
And, you can't
help thinking, exactly the kind of project he could easily have
been doing himself. After all, back in the mid-80s, with a
starring role on the teen-cop TV show 21 Jump Street, his route
to Hollywood as a generic "hunk of the week" appeared assured.
Instead, he blew out his contract and walked. Where would he be
now, had he stayed put? He looks genuinely appalled. "Oh, God .
. . oh, Jesus . . . I mean, I'd be disappointed. Disappointed in
myself. So I'd probably be bloated and drunk and . . . doing a
bad soap opera."
Except,
of course, he's not. Rather, he is a guy with a ferocious work
ethic and an image somewhere between amiable kook with a taste
for the unexpected (whether a brief dalliance with buying art by
serial killer John Wayne Gacy or appearing on the Fast Show)
and, by the blindly careerist standards of the American film
business, professional rebel. Neither of which, it must be said,
seems to have much in common with this gentle, softly spoken 38
year old.
"Well," he
says, "I guess I still feel a little bit outside it all . . .
ish. I mean, not so much outside as just not inside, you know?"
Does he know that the director Mike Newell, who worked with him
on the immaculate mob drama Donnie Brasco, describes him as
"someone you could take home to your mother? Depp laughs, hard,
at this. "That's very sweet of him. He never did, but . . . I
don't know . . . I mean, we all have to go out and peddle our
asses, but those things are just sticky labels people use to
sell you. Because I'm not projecting anything. I'm just me. And
you know, you feel kind of naked when it's just you. I mean, I
still remember, when I first got thrown into the soup bowl, they
tried to turn me into some kind of poster boy for teenybopper
magazines. And I still remember how insulted I was by that. But
you know, I lived through it, and now I'm a hundred, you know?
Approaching Methuselah."
And is he OK with that? He rolls a last cheroot and peers
into the middle distance. "You know, I kind of like it. I mean,
you get older and suddenly you don't have to go out and do all
that shit you do when you're young and dumb." The stetson
returns to his head. "Because now you're old and dumb
instead."
The Guardian, 2001
