Depp Dish - Newsweek

"Johnny holds forth on Wonka, Bugs Bunny and why being weird works."


SMITH: You've been in the Bahamas shooting two sequels to "Pirates of the Caribbean." How's that going?

DEPP: You know, quite a bit of traveling and a lot of swashbuckling. But it's good for a man to buckle his swash every now and then.

When you made the first "Pirates," your performance worried studio executives. That happened again when Warner Bros. first saw you as Willy Wonka. What gives?
At the beginning of the shoot we weren't getting phone calls from the studio that said, "We're freaked out." And that freaked me out. It's important to try something new each time out of the gate. So I'm kind of glad they were freaked out.

What was the hardest part about figuring out how you were going to play such an iconic character?
Early on, the hardest part was trying to erase any memory I had of the 1971 film with Gene Wilder. And then you go, "Christ, I can't erase it, so I'll just have to make a very, very sharp left turn."

You and director Tim Burton have made several movies together. Did you assume he'd ask you to play Wonka?
I was stunned. Tim and I have had this long relationship, and he's fought some brave and noble battles [to cast Depp in his movies], but I didn't think they would ever come to me for a project this size. I was ecstatic, man. I was doing Snoopy dances.

But after the success of "Pirates," why wouldn't the studio want you for this?

That didn't even cross my mind. I just don't think in those terms, you know? I'm so used to living the way I've been living—I do what I do, and people get it or they don't. All the little films I've done that were perceived by Hollywood as these obscure, weird things, I always thought could appeal to a larger audience. I mean, box office is such a mystery to me that I can't... you know... I have enough —trouble doing my own gig.

Still, it must have felt good to have your work seen and loved by so many people.

I had never experienced anything like that—where you meet a 75-year-old woman who had seen "Pirates" and somehow related to the character, and then five minutes later you meet a 6-year-old who says, "Oh, you're Captain Jack!" What a rush. What a gift. That's the challenge with Wonka, too—to be, in a sense, like Bugs Bunny. I find it magical that a 3-year-old can be mesmerized by Bugs, but so can a 40-year-old or an 80-year-old. It's a great challenge to see if you can appeal to that huge an age range.

Years ago, when you first became famous on the TV show "21 Jump Street," Hollywood wanted to make you into the next pretty-boy star, and you rebelled.

I was not a dummy. That show put me on the map, and I realized the opportunity that I had been given, but I couldn't... I just couldn't be what they wanted me to be. It ran against every cell in my body. It was killing me. I had to say, "F—- it. I'm going to go in this direction, and if I fail, I fail."

Since you and Tim have been friends for so many years, I'd imagine that the two of you must be able to complete each other's sentences.

Oh, yeah. Tim will say, "And then we went, and there was that, you know, whatever, so what could I do?" And I go, "Yeah, I know exactly what you mean." [Laughs]

When you're working together, do you ever think, "This is too weird, even for us"?

Definitely. Things get weirder and weirder, then one of you says, "Let's try that!" And then you look at each other and go, "I don't know, man, maybe not."

Did your kids come to the "Charlie" set?

They went crazy. They tried on the hat and the glasses and wanted to play with the candy cane. They loved seeing the giant chocolate waterfall. Every day it felt like walking onto the set of "The Wizard of Oz."

Has the studio talked to you about doing "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator"?

No, but it should be done. There's a lot more fun stuff in there, and I'm certainly game.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

© 2005 MSNBC.com