Five Minutes With Johnny Depp

A really nice interview with some fun answers. Enjoy!

- How would you compare your own fame with your character John Dillinger's?
Well, there are elements of life before (fame) that you miss, certainly, anonymity being one of them. To be able to wander the streets, to, well, just wander the streets in general and without being recognised would be fun. But to be able to take my kiddies to a store or a restaurant or Disneyland or something and not be looked upon as some kind of freak would be excellent. But now I don't go to Disneyland with my kids. If Daddy goes to Disneyland, things get weird.

- Could you imagine a world where you can walk without being recognised?
Um, yeah. [Laughs.] There's a little island in the Bahamas. I walk pretty good there.

- You live in France — how is it to be an American living in Europe, did it change your perspective? Are you going to stay there?
The fact is, though we do have a place in the south of France, or a place in France, the majority of our time is spent here because our kids go to school here. But what France has afforded me, the luxury it has afforded me, is to be able to enjoy a more simple life because we live in the country and your day is not spent getting calls from agents or executives, you know what I'm saying? It's an infinitely more simple life. We've been here basically the past two or three years almost nonstop aside from where I've been on location. It does do a person good to step outside where you come from, where you live and get some distance on it. It's given me monumental appreciation for not only this country, for the US, but for California, for Los Angeles.

- Apparently you shot around the area you grew up. What did you learn about yourself and about the history of the area and your family as well?
Dillinger was raised basically a farm boy in southern Indiana and I was born and raised in Owensboro, Kentucky. It's roughly 80 miles from where Dillinger was born and that clicked for me. He was not different from my grandfather who back in the 1930s also took the bull and ran with it. By day he drove a bus and by night he drove Moonshine into dry counties. And that is providing a service I think (laughs) so yeah, between that and my family and my step dad who had spent a couple of years studying at the Statesville Penitentiary in Illinois — with those ingredients, that's how I came to find John Dillinger.

- Music is important for you in every role?
Oh sure. In every conversation almost every day there's always some sort of soundtrack going, whether it's the beeping of horns outside or the shuffling of papers.

- You've been listening to Australian band, Augie March — how did you find them?
There's a friend of mine who works with me who turned me on to them. He played me a song and I was instantly hooked. I think they're one of the finest bands I've ever heard. Musically, lyrically, sonically, everything. I just think they're something special and I'm stupefied that a band with that much talent — musicians with that much talent — haven't conquered the entire globe. I'm amazed by it. They're wonderful.

- Your co-star Marion Cotillard said you helped her a lot and that you were very patient with her, especially in the sex scene. How important do you think the love story is in this film?
I think the love story is everything in this film. At a certain point, what Dillinger does for a living almost becomes secondary and Billie was his primary focus and she was in his life. It was fire when they got together and they were perfect for one another. She says that I was patient with her but I thought she was patient with me. She's a very, very special actress, special girl.

- Marion said that during the research on Dillinger she read that he was, well, extremely well-endowed. Did you do some research too?
I did do some research as well. We're the same size. We're exactly the same size, Dillinger and me! [Laughs.]

- She also said she was frightened about the love scene…
Because of that?!

- No, because of being naked on screen. We heard you were a true gentleman and spoke to [director] Michael Mann to make sure the scene wouldn't be nude?
Well, it depends on the situation but most of the time, in the heat of the moment, the audience will instantly stop looking at the character and want to check out the broad's goods, or the guy's whatchamacallit. So yeah, I would have hated it if Marion was in a situation where she felt like if she didn't expose herself in some way she would be letting the movie down or Michael down, and it was important she was comfortable. Nobody needs to see anything to make this film better, to make the scene better. It is what it is. What's important is, I just wanted to make sure she was okay. If she had wanted me to I would have worn an Eskimo suit, parkas, I don't know.

- Back in Dilllinger's day, men were men. Do you feel like you're a real man?
I don't know that I am a man. Well, my sex change made me a man [laughs]. I mean, what makes me a man is, I'm not one to pat myself on the back but if I'm anything at all in life I'm first and foremost a father and I think by my kiddies' accounts a fairly decent father, and that's really all you can hope to be, all I can hope to be as a man. To yourself be true to those you love, be kind to people and be a good dad.

- You've talked before about your hats and how much they've become your friends. You're wearing a lot of them in this film. Have you made any new friends?
I have made some new hat friends. There were so many nice ones. There's a guy in Chicago who was making them for us and he's such an artist. The thing about hats, coats, suits, that whole thing, what it represents is, that everyone made an effort then. Things were so different then, there was still a kind of innocence and there were still possibilities. I've always felt I was probably supposed to be born in that era. Obviously I wasn't, but not far from it.

- Can you imagine living without the possessions and property, like you have now with a yacht and an island?
I mean, you say that in a way that turns it into an extravagance and in certain worlds it is an extravagance but when you live the kind of life that I got, which is pretty great, there are moments where you want to take a breath. There are moments when you don't want to be looked at, you don't want to be asked anything, you don't want to talk about movies or fame or whatever that stuff is. You just want to sit there and drool and not have anyone take your photograph.

- Have you ever fantasised about being a Robin Hood kind of person in real life?
(laughs) That's what I've been doing for the past 25 years. It's true. I've silk screened t-shirts, I sold ink pens, I worked in construction, I pumped gas, worked as a mechanic for a little bit, went down sewer lines… I've had a lot of unpleasant gigs in the past. And ever since about 1986 I've started taking from the rich (laughs).

- Did you and co-star Christian Bale compare notes on fatherhood?
Oh I don't think so. Every time we see one another, neither one of us are the most talkative guys in the world [laughs], so yeah, you always get to this sort of, 'How's the kiddies?' line, you know, 'How's the family?' And no, he appears to me to be a great daddy, which is everything and anything a man would want to be. So I admire him a lot as a man, as a father and as an actor. He's a good guy.

- If you look back on the last ten years of your life has changed a little bit?
My kiddies are getting bigger. My daughter's ten and my boy is seven, but in terms of the work, I mean, there's quite a bit of a learning curve. After Pirates [Of The Caribbean] was released, it certainly changed things. Things started happening a little differently then in my life. Things got weirder, but you just adjust. You just adjust and mostly I consider myself very, very lucky to have been around for as long as I have, so in terms of real change, solid change in the last ten years, I still kind of feel the same, I still do the same thing I always did, the greatest change is just to, is the beauty of watching my kids grow up and become little adults now.

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I love the well-endowed question, nice one!

It's a great interview, i think. <3

thank you Sarah! very niice interview especially the last part when he talks about his kids....soooo cute

OMG, i got that magazine and i was like AWESOME hahah

Aww, thanks for posting that! I love how everything ends up being for the kiddies, he's so cute.

thanks for that sarah.

No problem.