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Despite his 38 years, Johnny Depp keeps being angered with America, provoking with his views, making anything but mainstream movies, surprising with his choices. In his highly confessional interview, he justifies completely his title as the most charming anti-star.

Starring in films made by anti-conformist directors, Johnny Depp was a presence that added lustre to the 58th Venice Film Festival. The boy who dropped out school early because he was fed up with it, preferring to lock himself in a room and play guitar, is perhaps today the most attractive actor of his generation. After a turbulent relationship with Winona Ryder, another with Kate Moss, Depp, who was declared in 1995 by the British EMPIRE magazine 'the sexiest man ever', married Vanessa Paradis, renounced America and settled in Paris where he has been living for 3 years. His latest film, From Hell, by black twins Allen and Albert Hughes, in which he co-stars with Heather Graham, was the closing film of this year's Mostra. And this was the reason he went there. The actor spoke to us about his part in the film, the notorious Jack the Ripper, his life, his views about drugs, as well as about modern America, which still enrages him, and of course, about cinema and his own plans.

I read that ever since you were a kid you've been studying books about Jack the Ripper. What do you believe about the Crown Conspiracy, which is adopted by the directors of From Hell, implying that Queen Victoria was behind the cover-up of the investigation, because the murderer was a member of the aristocracy?

I've read most of the relevant books. As for the Crown Conspiracy theory, I believe that it is possible that something like that might have happened, even though there are so many other stronger theories. There's this book called Lodger by Stuart Evans, which argues that the Ripper was a charlatan American doctor who had come to London. When he left, the murders stopped. It's another strong theory.

Your character in the movie has visions. Do you believe that something like that is possible?

Yeah, I believe that dreams can often disclose something about our future or what's going on in our subconscious mind, something we may be trying to avoid.

Have you ever had such an experience?

Yes, some little weird things that you can't explain easily. We all have in some time in our lives experienced a déjà vu. An experience that can be scientifically explained on the basis that the one eye receives and stores the information one millisec before the other one. This way we think that we've seen and experienced something before. While it's simply an image that's been recorded in our mind and that we've just seen previously. One of the greatest gifts we've been blessed with in our lives is instinct. We don't trust our instinct because we want to be rationalists. If it wasn't for instinct, I'd be dead. I think that my career would've been ruined.

Where is instinct, here in the heart?

Yeah, just a bit above the spaghetti! (laughs)

What attracts you to the story of Jack the Ripper?

I don't know... I've been fascinated as a kid and maybe this wasn't such a really good thing. Now I see that. But when I was 6 or 7 years old I remember watching on TV this documentary about him. I was attracted by the subject. I think that happens because the case has remained an unsolved mystery...

Maybe you see elements of Jack the Ripper within yourself...

No, God, no!

What I mean is we all have an evil side...You tend to choose unusual roles, eccentric, weird characters and work with directors who make films outside what we usually call mainstream, like Burton, Jarmusch, Hallstrom, Kusturica, Polanski. Is that your personal choice?

It's my choice to make films with directors I admire. It's like being a student and choosing the best teachers, the people from whom you can learn, to get some experience. It's a matter of choice.

Lately, you've made another important choice: to live in Europe. Is it business or pleasure?

It's survival. My mind wouldn't handle all the madness of L.A., all this greed. But also to switch on the TV and watch acts of violence going on all the time. You can take that up to a certain point. But for how long? You press the TV button and see little girls going to school and having bombs thrown at them. There's no balance in L.A.

How do you spend your time in Paris when you are not shooting a film? Do you still play music?

I still play, but most of the time I'm just a father, papa...

Really, how much has fatherhood changed you?

It fixed me. Before that I wasn't a complete person, not that now I am a complete human being, but before I wasn't even close to that. It's like being blessed with the gift of life. While, before that, I merely existed, breathed, but I never inhaled deep enough to feel it all the way.

Has fatherhood also changed your attitude towards cinema?

No, not at all. I think it's been the same for years. Ever since I felt that I could make decisions and stick to them. When I refused to accept being treated as a product and could make my own choices regarding my family, for instance. To leave a legacy -perhaps this is a very strong word- for my children, something they can feel proud of someday.

How do you feel about the fact that kids nowadays take drugs? Are you pro the legalisation of marijuana?

Yeah. I believe it could be legal. It's not so difficult to understand that. Alcohol is proven to be far more dangerous. Very few fights have been caused because someone was stoned. With alcohol it's just the opposite. Marijuana should be legalised. Unfortunately people are ignorant. It's because of ignorance that it's not been legalised. When you are a kid and you start experimenting with drugs, you do it for recreation, because it's fun. And then you discover that life is not like this, that you were trying to escape something, but your mind and your body cannot control it. But it shouldn't be like this, to wake up in the morning and not remember what you did the previous night. The thing with drugs is that we should know the reasons why someone wants to take them. Why do kids want to take drugs? This is the real question; that's what we should try to answer.

Would you allow your child to experiment with them?

I hope I'd have taught her well enough about the dangers of drugs and their use and that our relationship would be open enough so that if she decided to do something like that, she would come and tell me. I'm interested in that. When your 16-year-old son or daughter comes and says to you, 'all the kids smoke pot, I have to do the same', then you have to share this experience with them, before they go out in the streets and do it.

In the 60's and the 70's kids had other reasons for taking drugs. It was a kind of rebellion...

Yeah, and mind expansion.

Don't you think that today this has changed?

Yeah, today they are just trying to escape reality. Nine out of ten times it's the coward's way out. They are not bold enough to face the world. But if you look around at what's happening in the world, you can see why. You're hungry, you live in the streets, you go trying to pick up clients, to sell your ass for money... If somebody hands you a drug, you take it...

Do you believe that a reason to leave the USA is that Mr. Bush is the president?

Yeah, now that's a case of vision. Three years ago I had the foresight to leave the USA, before Bush had even become a small sparkle in the eye of 'Uncle Sam'. You really believe that this guy controls the country? I'm not at all sure about it. He looks like a stupid college-boy. He probably has a whole team of advisers. Constantly telling him what his next move should be. The way he was elected seemed in a way suspicious.

Did you vote for these elections?

I don't vote.

Why?

I believe in the process, but I never believed they counted the votes. America is a giant dollar machine, so if you really believe that they'll give the same rights to the baker or the plumber with a guy who runs a huge multinational company, you must be really naïve. I think they've been playing a pretty good game for some time now. Everything is based on money.

So, you don't believe in the American Dream, or at least in...Arizona Dream?

(laughing) I believe that the American Dream is based on greed. It's a gluttonous, greedy dream. It's not so much to do with 'love thy neighbour' as with 'fuck thy neighbour, earn as much as you can and run as fast as you can'.

Some time ago you had directed a weird but very interesting film, The Brave. Would you like to keep doing that?

Yeah, sure, I would like to make another movie. To direct without playing myself or having written the script. Just to be able to direct the film the way I want to, without pressure. To both play and direct at the same time is very hard. I'd rather be at the helm.

Do you have any specific plans?

Yeah, there's a story by Neil Ramirez that I'd like to direct. It's called It Only Rains at Night. I'm waiting to see if somebody gives me the money... It's about a love story. The central character is an executioner. One day while he's going to cremate the bodies of those he's beheaded, he hears a woman talking to him and finds out her head is still alive. And he starts a relationship...with that. They fall in love... It's a really lovely story.

Are you going to play Charles Manson in a movie?

No, although I've been approached. I remember a film called Helter Skelter with Steven Railsback. He did such a good job that there's no need for a remake.

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