Post by Haley on Mar 25, 2006 19:07:08 GMT -5
Here's Johnny
If you don't love this guy, something is wrong with you.
By Fred Topel
Movie: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Directors: Tim Burton & Mike Johnson
Starring: Voices of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Tracey Ullman, Emily Watson, Albert Finney, Christopher Lee
Studio: Warner Bros.
You can't interview Johnny Depp these days without seeing Captain Jack Sparrow. After the first Pirates of the Caribbean, he left his gold teeth in for months. Now that he's doing a sequel, he's back with the teeth, the goatee, the rags wrapped around his wrists, and beaded necklaces dangling from his neck. But only Johnny Depp could pull off the horn-rimmed glasses he wore with all the pirate getup. He looked like Bizarro Jack from some parallel universe where Captain Jack reads to senior citizens on the weekend. In his new movie, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, you don't get to see Johnny Depp at all; it's just his voice in an animated figure. He plays a nervous groom who accidentally drops his ring onto a rotted skeleton's finger, so she comes back from the dead to be his wife.
The Wave: Do your kids think it's cooler that you're a cartoon or a pirate?
Johnny Depp: I don't know. I'll ask them. My daughter's six and my boy is three. My daughter, she's quite calm and ladylike and princess-y, so she can sit there and watch a movie and not get real antsy. Normally, my boy will watch for about three-and-a-half seconds, then sprint as fast as he can across the room to go and break something. With this film, we watched Corpse Bride together. My boy sat on my lap and watched the entire film, didn't move, just riveted. Loved it. Which says a lot. It's pretty full, this movie.
TW: How do you bring a Johnny Depp-ness to an
animated character?
JD: I think with any character, it all starts from some place of truth within you and then I don't know. It's weird. When I read a script, I get these sort-of images and ideas come to me. And then sometimes the images of people come to me, like with Sleepy Hollow I kept seeing a Roddy McDowall/Angela Lansbury kind of thing. So that became the inspiration. [For] Captain Jack, Keith [Richards] became the inspiration because I started thinking of pirates as rock stars of the time, the idea that their legend arrived months, maybe years before they did. So you just start taking little tidbits of things and storing them up to use later.
TW: Are the inspirations always from the media or performing arts?
JD: Not necessarily media, but for example, one of the primary responsibilities and luxuries of an actor is the art of observation, being able to watch people and watch their behavior. Which is fascinating because people are really nuts. I've really enjoyed that over the years, just stealing little bits from people, incorporating them into characters.
TW: What happens when you run out of ideas?
JD: As long as I can observe people, I feel like I'm always going to be able to store these little tidbits and gems that people give me, or that I steal. But there was a moment years back when I was sitting and having a conversation with good old Marlon Brando, bless him, and he said, "How many movies do you do a year?" And I said, I don't know, sometimes two, sometimes three." And he said, "Watch yourself." I said, "Why is that?" He said, "Because we only have so many faces in our pockets." After all this time later, I'm starting to realize how right he was. He was very, very wise.
TW: How do you and Tim Burton work together?
JD: Most of the time, at least for me, all I'm trying to do is make him laugh. Even in the scene, you can have all these motivations and objectives as an actor and stuff, and then when I get in the ring, it basically all goes out the window and I'm just trying to make Tim laugh. I just want to see in my peripheral vision his hunched-over giggle where he's trying to not make noise.
TW: What do you think the afterlife is like?
JD: It's a complete mystery to me. I think it would be great if you one day just went to sleep and woke up and it was 1920s Paris. That would be excellent.
TW: Why 1920s Paris?
JD: It seemed a more innocent, wholesome time. There were possibilities. People were having a ball, feeling sort of liberated. I don't know, it's just a time and a place I've always been attracted to.
TW: Pirates 2 will be your first sequel. What made you want to do the same character again?
JD: I never quite understood the idea of doing sequels and stuff like that until as an actor you think, "I've played this character for months and months and I really got to know the guy, I really got to love the guy." And then the clock starts ticking and you know the end is coming. You go, "Jesus, I'll never see him again, I'lll never feel this again." So you start to get depressed and all that. I just wanted to be him again.
If you don't love this guy, something is wrong with you.
By Fred Topel
Movie: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Directors: Tim Burton & Mike Johnson
Starring: Voices of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Tracey Ullman, Emily Watson, Albert Finney, Christopher Lee
Studio: Warner Bros.
You can't interview Johnny Depp these days without seeing Captain Jack Sparrow. After the first Pirates of the Caribbean, he left his gold teeth in for months. Now that he's doing a sequel, he's back with the teeth, the goatee, the rags wrapped around his wrists, and beaded necklaces dangling from his neck. But only Johnny Depp could pull off the horn-rimmed glasses he wore with all the pirate getup. He looked like Bizarro Jack from some parallel universe where Captain Jack reads to senior citizens on the weekend. In his new movie, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, you don't get to see Johnny Depp at all; it's just his voice in an animated figure. He plays a nervous groom who accidentally drops his ring onto a rotted skeleton's finger, so she comes back from the dead to be his wife.
The Wave: Do your kids think it's cooler that you're a cartoon or a pirate?
Johnny Depp: I don't know. I'll ask them. My daughter's six and my boy is three. My daughter, she's quite calm and ladylike and princess-y, so she can sit there and watch a movie and not get real antsy. Normally, my boy will watch for about three-and-a-half seconds, then sprint as fast as he can across the room to go and break something. With this film, we watched Corpse Bride together. My boy sat on my lap and watched the entire film, didn't move, just riveted. Loved it. Which says a lot. It's pretty full, this movie.
TW: How do you bring a Johnny Depp-ness to an
animated character?
JD: I think with any character, it all starts from some place of truth within you and then I don't know. It's weird. When I read a script, I get these sort-of images and ideas come to me. And then sometimes the images of people come to me, like with Sleepy Hollow I kept seeing a Roddy McDowall/Angela Lansbury kind of thing. So that became the inspiration. [For] Captain Jack, Keith [Richards] became the inspiration because I started thinking of pirates as rock stars of the time, the idea that their legend arrived months, maybe years before they did. So you just start taking little tidbits of things and storing them up to use later.
TW: Are the inspirations always from the media or performing arts?
JD: Not necessarily media, but for example, one of the primary responsibilities and luxuries of an actor is the art of observation, being able to watch people and watch their behavior. Which is fascinating because people are really nuts. I've really enjoyed that over the years, just stealing little bits from people, incorporating them into characters.
TW: What happens when you run out of ideas?
JD: As long as I can observe people, I feel like I'm always going to be able to store these little tidbits and gems that people give me, or that I steal. But there was a moment years back when I was sitting and having a conversation with good old Marlon Brando, bless him, and he said, "How many movies do you do a year?" And I said, I don't know, sometimes two, sometimes three." And he said, "Watch yourself." I said, "Why is that?" He said, "Because we only have so many faces in our pockets." After all this time later, I'm starting to realize how right he was. He was very, very wise.
TW: How do you and Tim Burton work together?
JD: Most of the time, at least for me, all I'm trying to do is make him laugh. Even in the scene, you can have all these motivations and objectives as an actor and stuff, and then when I get in the ring, it basically all goes out the window and I'm just trying to make Tim laugh. I just want to see in my peripheral vision his hunched-over giggle where he's trying to not make noise.
TW: What do you think the afterlife is like?
JD: It's a complete mystery to me. I think it would be great if you one day just went to sleep and woke up and it was 1920s Paris. That would be excellent.
TW: Why 1920s Paris?
JD: It seemed a more innocent, wholesome time. There were possibilities. People were having a ball, feeling sort of liberated. I don't know, it's just a time and a place I've always been attracted to.
TW: Pirates 2 will be your first sequel. What made you want to do the same character again?
JD: I never quite understood the idea of doing sequels and stuff like that until as an actor you think, "I've played this character for months and months and I really got to know the guy, I really got to love the guy." And then the clock starts ticking and you know the end is coming. You go, "Jesus, I'll never see him again, I'lll never feel this again." So you start to get depressed and all that. I just wanted to be him again.