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Translation by Tina

Johnny's Dark Side

Attention: Demons are slumbering in his soul. And they could come out anytime. How exciting! YM met Johnny Depp in Los Angels for a face to face interview.

How has he get in here? His hair uncombed and greasy, his face pale. He is wearing baggy-jeans, a crumpled short sleeved shirt; underneath a washed-out long sleeved t-shirt. Nobody who's dressed in such a way normally makes it through the foyer of this hotel in Hollywood. With a friendly: "Could I help you?" The doorman would stop this person and accompany him as friendly as possible to the exit. But this guy who looks like a mixture of a skater and a homeless person is nobody other than Johnny Depp. He could go whereever he wants to go in Los Angeles, the doors are wide open for him. Also, he was chosen one of the worst dressed men in America from the U.S. "People Magazine". But as hard he may try to prove the opposite: Johnny Depp is handsome. In person, still much more than on the big screen.
"Hello," he said quietly and waves with his filter-less cigarette. "Does it disturb you, if I smoke?" No, if the "non-smoking" sign on the wall doesn't disturb him. Johnny sits down on the couch as he has had a very long, hard day of work. "Aaah", he sighs, "and now we are back to civilization." Civilization? Where does he come from right now? "I've done interviews for television this morning, 17 altogether", he is telling me, rummaging around for tobacco, cigarette paper and matches. "What we are doing here is civilized. We are talking in detail. But interviews for television? You only have three minutes, no the interviewer has three minutes time to press a story, which makes sense, out of this actor who is awfully unable to express his feeling and thoughts. Terrible!
Awfully unable to express his feelings and thoughts that is the way he speaks about himself. Typically Johnny! The 38 year old tends to the opposite of exaggeration, with fewer words maybe for the first three minutes, but if you spend some time, then he turns into a deep- thinking person who formulates very carefully and listens very closely. If you ask him for example, how it is to be at home in L.A., he's not saying "great" or something like other Hollywood stars would answer. "At home?" Pause. "Usually I don't feel at home anywhere. I have a house in Los Angeles, but I nearly haven't been there for three years. I live in France. There I am a stranger, and that is beautiful. I can sit in a café with my girl and nobody disturbs me."
His girl is named Vanessa Paradis. The French singer and actress is the last in the row of women who are the lucky ones who conquer Johnny's heart. These women are not belonging to one of these common "American Beauties". Johnny Depp rather likes women, who are surrounded by a melancholic, easily "not-of-this-world" aura: the actress Winona Ryder, "Twin Peaks" star Sherilyn Fenn or the model Kate Moss. Also a similar type was the lady Lori Allison, who married Johnny when he was 20 years old. He thinks it was his fault they divorced after only two years. "I was a child of divorce too and didn't know how a marriage worked." It isn't in Johnny's character "to air his dirty linen in public" None of his "ex" ladies have ever spoken a bad word about Johnny. Winona Ryder said she felt sorry for being too young for a serious relationship.
What makes Johnny so attractive, Vanessa Paradis was asked of a reporter? "Everything about him", she answered, "including his faults. There are only a few of them, luckily. Sometimes something little is enough to make him explode, but he clam down very quick too." "I think, that those people who seem to be very relaxed, are the most excited people inside," Johnny adds. "Perhaps I should have seen a therapist when I was a child, but that wouldn't have work, because my family moved 30 times in my first 15 years of life."
Johnny never has repressed his dark side: his obsessions with creepy clowns, beetles and dark houses (his house in Hollywood belonged to Bela Lugosi the former Dracula-actor) are well known. Also the role in his new film "From Hell" as Inspector Abberline, who is hunting Jack the Ripper," is another way to deal with my inner demons. Jack the Ripper has fascinated me since I was a child." He laughs and lights himself another cigarette. "Besides that, I finally was allowed to smoke in this movie." So he is. Actors who works with him gets to know the joker besides the thoughtful Johnny. All of his co-stars got to know the joke of his whoopee cushion! There are his extremely opposites that are so fascinating. This type, who is sitting here relaxed in front of me and talking with gentle voice, has destroyed hotel suites a few years ago and has a fight with paparazzi. By paying for every destroying room and every broken camera. That fits to him too. "I was ignorant and angry. Angry about all that stands for America. This greed, this contest-thinking, these TV shows in which one could turn into a millionaire." But these shows do exist in Europe too? "I know. The difference is that part of the culture of the USA is based on this…" he is searching for the right words, "on this…huge greed."
That would surely be a reason for Johnny not to play in great Hollywood productions, but rather works in independent movies. In the meantime it looks like he's becoming a little more conscious about his career. In the last year he made five movies. "Is that so? My agent tells me, I sell myself to cheap. In former days I've said: There is no address to send all these scripts. I was hardly reachable so that I was surprised when someone found me. Now that has changed. Now I have a family." A smile flits over his face. "From now on, I have to look for security. But if I had millions in the bank, I would still go on making movies."
Now Johnny Depp is in his most lucky phase as he puts it himself. The reason: Lily Rose Melody, his two-year old daughter and "Love of my life". She brings a new, unknown Johnny to the surface, one who raves enthusiastically:" Before May 27th, I only existed; now I live! I never thought that I would become a Daddy. Because I thought, therefore, you must be an adult." He sinks into a deep silence. "But must we become adults at all?"