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PRE-INTRO
Narrator: Coming up on “Famous”……. (show opens with JD on the Pirates Premiere Red Carpet) Johnny Depp: (in an interview from 1990) I’m gonna keep going for the diversity, I don’t want to be stuck in one mold, I don’t want to be stuck playing sort of the leading man type of thing which is, to me very mundane, you know, really boring. Narrator: (over a montage of Johnny scenes from his movies) Sometimes irreverent and often unique, Johnny Depp makes his mark by choosing unusual characters; from Edward Scissorhands to the swaggering Captain Jack Sparrow, Depp proves to audiences why he’s not your normal leading man. (Pirates clip: “Everyone stay calm…”)

INTRO:
Al Pacino: He’s got a lot of likability and that always helps a movie you know? He’s fun to watch.
Christopher Walken: In between takes, he’s.. you know he’s a lot of fun and we had… we really laughed most of the time. Heather Graham: It’s amazing to work with Johnny Depp. He’s a really incredible actor and he’s also a really cool person. Narrator: Actor’s admire him and director’s seek him out. But Johnny Depp also has a bad boy side with a few arrests on his record. However, he finds piece of mind by living in France and avoiding the spotlight whenever he can.
Johnny Depp: (at premiere of From Hell) The only thing that keeps me as together as humanly possible is just not having to be a part of this kind of thing everyday, you know? I don’t do this sort of thing much, I don’t get out much, in fact. Narrator: Premieres make him uncomfortable and Depp is shy according to his friends. But US magazine’s Thelma Adams says that’s part of what his fans love.
Thelma Adams: He’s an attractive, attractive guy. He has those cheek bones, he has teen idol looks. But that’s not enough. I think what’s attractive about him is a combination of two things: he has that outsider/bad boy vibe, but underneath it there’s an endearing quality to him. (scene from Blow, George meets Penelope Cruz’s character). If you look at his major roles like his breakthrough role in Edward Scissorhands.. that modern fairy tale is about an outsider who at heart has like the best heart and that quality is what makes Johnny Depp such a star.

FAMOUS FACTS
Narrator: Johnny Depp grew up in Kentucky, he was born John Christopher Depp on June 9, 1963, but his family including two sisters and a brother called him Johnny. At 15, his parents divorced and shortly there after, Johnny quit high school, joined a band called The Kids and got married. At age 20, Depp moved to Los Angeles with his wife where she introduced him to actor Nicholas Cage. It was Cage who convinced Johnny to audition for his first movie role. [another montage]

Narrator continues: Depp made his film debut in 1984 as an ill-fated teen in the horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Legend has it that director Wes Craven’s 15 year old daughter saw Depp’s audition and convinced her dad to give him the part. For Depp, the $1200 a week paycheck was enough incentive to continue acting. Next he landed a co-starring role in the teen comedy Private Resort. It was around this time his first marriage ended. In 1996, Johnny spent 10 weeks in the Phillipines as part of Oliver Stone’s Vietnam war drama, Platoon. Unfortunately, his role was edited down to a minor character, but the next year, a new television role on the fledgling Fox network would turn Johnny into a teen idol. 21 Jump Street.
Thelma Adams: At, 21 Jump Street, he was really the star – he was the attractive one, he was there you know, one can’t forget, he was on.. he was in.. a part of that series for 4 years, playing an undercover cop who goes undercover in one after another high school that has trouble. He wasn’t interesting in doing that. It wasn’t enough for him.
Narrator: Johnny’s restlessness during his 21JS run manifested itself in some bad boy behavior. He was arrested for fighting with a security guard. When the series ended in 1990, Johnny was anxious to put the show far behind him. That’s when director John Waters’ comedy Cry Baby came along.
Johnny Depp: (in an interview from 1990) Well it was real important to me to not, to not do the sort of expected mainstream type of movie. It was more important to me to do something as far away from 21JS and anything else I had done, you know, it was… it was really important to be able to make fun of that image that people had been sold.
John Waters: A lot of actors take themselves very seriously. They would never dare mess with an image that’s been already sunk into the American public, and he wanted to screw it up.
Narrator: The same year, Depp began his long running collaboration with another off-beat director, Tim Burton. The movie: Edward Scissorhands, co-starring Vincent Price. Johnny plays the title role which he won over Tom Cruise.
Johnny Depp: Edward Scissorhands is about .. it’s sort of like a classic fairy tale, ah.. sort of like Beauty and the Beast, ah… it’s one of the most beautiful stories I’ve ever read, ever, it’s great.
Thelma: First cross-over movie was Edward Scissorhands because it was the first movie he did with Tim Burton and I think when you look back over time and over Hollywood movie history, the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaboration is going to be one of the great director star collaborations in Hollywod.
Narrator: Edward Scissorands earned Depp a Golden Globe nomination and the National Association of Theater Owners named him “the male star of tomorrow”.
Johnny Depp: (from acceptance speech) I want to thank the theater owners and everybody for giving me thing, and uh, it’s great to be in Las Vegas and see Wayne Newton and Tone-Loc on the same stage (waves), see you later, thanks.
Narrator: When Depp and his Edward Scissorhands co-star Winona Ryder became an item, he had Winona Forever tattooed to his arm. But after they broke up, he had it changed to Wino Forever. Now a bonafide star, Depp payed homage to his roots by making a cameo in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. He also made the first of several music video appearances joining Faye Dunaway in Tom Petty’s Into the Great Wide Open. (clip airs). He and Dunaway re-teamed in 1993 for the May/December romance Arizona Dream. That same year, Depp played a silent movie fan named Sam in the kooky love story, Benny & Joon.
Johnny Depp: (from 1993 interview) What was really attractive about Sam to me was that, uh, there was always the possibility that he really did think he was in a silent movie, or that he really did think he was Buster Keaton; and for me, I mean selfishly, it was an opportunity just to kind of experiment with that kind of physical comedy.
Chris O’Donnell: Johnny Depp is so funny in this thing. He’s awesome. I don’t know where he thought of all that stuff but it’s great.
Narrator: Although B&J wasn’t a major money maker, critics liked it and Depp earned his second Golden Globe nomination. It was at this time that Johnny got involved with a new venture: he bought a Hollywood nightclub on Sunset Boulevard And named it The Viper room. The venue would later gain notoriety as the place where actor River Phoenix died of a drug overdose. Depp reportedly wasn’t in the club at the time, he was likely busy with What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, a drama directed by Lasse Hallstrom. Depp plays a small town boy who takes care of his mentally challenged younger brother, a then 18 year old Leonardo DiCaprio.
Johnny Depp: Working with Leonardo as Arnie, it has all those elements of the younger brother/ older brother relationship.
Leonardo: Obviously I knew who Johnny Depp was, but I had never met him before. What we wanted to do was sort of make it the unspoken brotherly relationship where we didn’t necessarily have to say a lot of things to each other – you just knew by certain looks, and certain movements, and certain ways of touching each other (Leo giggles here at his own comment), that Johnny and I were brothers that have been together for a while. Johnny Depp’s offbeat movie choices will win him praise from the critics and a loyal following – something his next character could only dream of. (poster of Ed Wood shown).
Narrator: Johnny Depp’s second project with director Tim Burton was a biography of the worst director of all time, Ed Wood. Playing the infamous cross-dressing filmmaker for Burton was an opportunity Johnny couldn’t pass up.
Johnny Depp: You can really experiment with Tim. He likes to just sort of dive in and flop around.
Narrator: The movie chronicles the making of Plan 9 From Outer Space with Martin Landau turning in an Oscar-winning performance as the legendary Bela Lugosi.
Johnny Depp: (interview from 1995 on Golden Globe red carpet) I was, uh, very excited to work with Martin Landau cause he’s, he’s one of the greatest, one of the greatest actors around. I think he’s uh, one of the masters, so I was very excited to work with him and uh, I just, I watched him like a hawk, you know, so I could learn.
Martin Landau: There’s something very mature about John, uh, I mean in spite of what you’ve been reading in the newspapers, which, you know, is nice stuff to talk about but – he’s one of the nicest kids I know and an incredibly professional actor – he comes in prepared and ready to work and works hard.
Narrator: Landau was referring to newspaper reports about Johnny’s latest brush with the law. He’d been charged with two counts of criminal mischief for trashing a hotel room he was sharing with then girlfriend model Kate Moss. But the incident wouldn’t overshadow Depp’s triumph in Ed Wood which earned him a third Golden Globe nomination.
Johnny Depp: (also from interview from 1995 on Golden Globe red carpet) It’s a nice thing, it’s, it’s a nice thing to be acknowledged, uh, for, for some work that you did, which you know, that’s very nice but, uh, the whole shindig aspect of it is a little surreal.
Narrator: Johnny followed up with the romantic drama Don Juan DeMarco co-starring his old friend Faye Dunaway.
Faye Dunaway: I met him, um, on the Kustarica movie, Arizona Dream. He’s really genuine and he’s a great friend and very supportive. His acting is quite phenomenal, it’s very fluid and very effortless.
Narrator: Depp plays a mental patient who believes he’s a descendent of the world’s greatest lover. He only agreed to star in DJDM if the producers cast Marlon Brando as his psychiatrist. Depp had met Brando when they worked together on a movie that was never finished.
Johnny Depp: (interview from 1995) It’s a very deep and important relationship between doctor and patient and I, I uh. just keep seeing him. I felt real strongly about it.
Narrator: Johnny rounded out 1995 with Dead Man, a strange art-house western co-starring Robert Mitchum, and the more conventional thriller, Nick of Time.
Johnny Depp: I was on an airplane and I started reading the script and found myself getting closer and closer to the edge of the seat, really like you know (gestures hands clenched) my hands clenched around it. I just thought it was a great story.
(Behind the scenes clip of Johnny’s character saying, ‘Now you see honey, that’s why you always want to where a helmet and kneepads with these things because you never know when you’re gonna fall down and go boom.’ plays) Playing Gene Watson for me was also an opportunity to veer off, away from the labels of “oddball”, or you know, “strange character”, you know, I’ve sort of been accused of only playing a certain type of character so I decided to (gestures veering off) try something else.
Narrator: Depp’s venture into the mainstream didn’t catch on with audiences. He’d have better luck two years later with Donnie Brasco, the crime drama about a real life FBI agent who goes undercover in the Mafia; co-stars Al Pacino.(clip: Behind the scenes from DB with Al Pacino taking Johnny’s hand and dancing with him across the room, )
Johnny Depp: (1997 inteview) It’s people like Al, it’s working with people like Al who remind you of how much you love what you do and why you do it.
Al Pacino: I think he’s a very likeable guy, I think the audience feels his personality, and I think he’s got a lot of likeability and that always helps a movie, you know? He’s fun to watch.
Narrator: While DB was a modest hit, Johnny faced some harsh criticism for The Brave – his debut as a director (for some reason a clip of JD in that pool by the waterslides plays but I’m not complaining, lol). Depp wrote the drama and Marlon Brando agreed to co-star with him. It debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 where it was loudly booed during one press screening. The audiences were more polite at a later showing and The Brave earned an nomination for The Golden Palm award.
Johnny Depp: (1997 interview) It was a, uh, big job. But I had no idea it was going to be like it, I mean what it was, I mean it’s an enormous undertaking to, to decide to direct a film first of all, I mean that’s huge; and then to direct and act in it having written the thing – it’s a little too much to bite off.
Narrator: Johnny left the directing duties to Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The movie is based on the Hunter S. Thompson novel about the American dream.
Johnny Depp: (1998 interview) Terry was always somebody I wanted to work with, first of all, having been a huge fan of Monty Python and uh, you know, obviously his films, you know. Baron Munchausen and Fisher King, and so on. Yeah, he’s somebody I’ve always wanted to work with and I was not disappointed. Terry Gilliam: He was already involved with the film before I got involved and that was one of the reasons that I joined up because I wanted to work with him for a long time cause I think he’s rather astonishing. I don’t think there’s anything he can’t do, he’s an extraordinary actor.
Narrator: In 1999, Depp worked with another of his dream directors, Roman Polanski in The Ninth Gate.
Thelma Adams: He continues to work with directors and other actors who are doing interesting things. He’s taken, in a way, if you want to be snobby, a very European approach to his career – he’s followed his bliss, he’s followed what’s interested him and so he hasn’t gotten bored with being an actor and I think that makes him very interesting and very different and that’s why Johnny Depp has legs.
Narrator: The Ninth Gate is a supernatural thriller about a book dealer hired to find a rare book with by the devil himself. Depp’s next film, The Astronaut’s wife, is about an astronaut who may be possessed by an alien.
Johnny Depp: (1999 interview looking very Caesar like – yum!) The leading man – it’s really a detestable notion, I really hate the idea of, you know, playing that sort of leading man guy. So I, I just try to find stuff that, that will make the character interesting or, or try to do something different that hasn’t been done a million times before if it’s possible, you know.
Narrator: The Astronaut’s Wife couldn’t find an audience but Johnny’s final movie of 1999 certain did. Sleepy Hollow took in more than $100 million in the U.S. It was Depp’s third movie with director Tim Burton. The story is adapted from the classic novel, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Depp stars as Ichabod Crane with a 19 year old Christina Ricci playing his love interest.
Christina Ricci: He’s such an amazing actor, and um, he’s so kind and really generous and really cares about how you are and how the scenes going for you and he’s also a lot of fun. Like we would just joke around and we’d do uncomfortable things like weird sex scenes and be able to laugh at them and just have a good time.
Narrator: This was a very happy time for Depp, both personally and professionally. He and his girlfriend, French singer Vanessa Paradis, celebrated the birth of a baby girl and Johnny was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Tim Burton and Johnny’s parents were on hand for the dedication.
Tim Burton: He deserves it, he’s a great actor and, uh, now people can just walk all over you (laughter), for real.
Johnny Depp: (acceptance speech) Certainly an incredibly great honor having been awarded with this star on Hollywood Blvd, as Tim said allows people to walk all over you but it also – well, it’s been happening for years anyway – it also – the great thing is it’s a beautiful sort of old Hollywood tradition that I’m really, I’m really thankful is still alive and I’m honored to be a part of that.
Narrator: Depp starred in three pictures in 2000. He reunited with Christina Ricci for The Man Who Cried, played both a transvestite and a police lieutenant opposite Javier Bardem in the Oscar-nominated Before Night Falls, and took the role of a romantic gypsy in the best picture nominee Chocolat.
Johnny Depp: (2000 interview as Roux) I just thought it was a nice story, you know. It was a nice change and it wasn’t uh, it’s not the sort of usual Hallmark card that you get sent.
Narrator: Johnny’s next role was a complete about face. He plays George Jung, a real life drug dealer in 2001’s Blow. Depp had a lot of input into the role and improvised many of his lines. Johnny Depp: I felt like I was doing it for George, I was trying to be George for George as much as possible and stay true to his truths and his honesty.
Narrator: Next Depp turned his attention to the Jack the Ripper thriller, From Hell. The movie, based on a popular comic book, was directed by twins, the Hughes Brothers.
Hughes brother: We just try to mainly bring the atmosphere from the graphic novel into the movie and we tried to definitely do our own thing because we thought It’d be boring to just go see the movie and it’s exactly what the comic book is, so we definitely put our own spin on it and took more of the atmosphere and the characters from the comic book.
Johnny Depp: (at From Hell premiere) It’s a pleasure to see guys who are really out there to do the work and it’s not about anything other that, just real filmmakers, you know?
Narrator: Depp stepped out of the public eye in 2002. He didn’t appear in any movies and was living in Paris with Vanessa Paradis, where they celebrated the birth of their second child, a boy. But Johnny would be back the next year with a blockbuster, an Oscar nomination, and a scandal.
Narrator: After a brief vacation from the big screen, Johnny Depp was back in 2003 with a critically acclaimed performance in Once Upon A Time in Mexico, co-starring Antonio Banderas and directed by Robert Rodriguez. But the good reviews from Mexico were nothing compared to the raves Depp received for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. It was a surprising choice for Johnny who normally steers clear of big-budget blockbusters of the type produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
Johnny Depp: (2003 interview): I was actually shocked (he says, hand in hair) initially when, when Jerry, you know, came and met with me about doing the film because it didn’t seem like maybe I was his flavor, you know.
Jerry Bruckheimer: He’s a unique actor, ah, he researches his parts, he creates his characters, ah, he created a look for himself with the beads and the braids and the bandana and the slurring of his words, and the eye makeup, and the gold teeth, and that’s all Johnny.
Narrator: Johnny’s take on Captain Jack Sparrow was unconventional, basing the look and manner of the swaggering pirate on rock star Keith Richards. Johnny Depp: Keith was the guy that came to mind in terms of you know, using - not in the sense of imitating him or anything like that – but just using him as an inspiration. He’s a man of mystery in many ways, he is this kind of, yeah, he had this wisdom, this grace. Yeah Keith’s, to me, the coolest and greatest rock star of all time.
Narrator: Depp earned his very first Academy Award nomination for the unique approach. But while Pirates was riding high at the box office, Depp found himself on the defensive after being quoted in a German magazine saying America was like a dumb puppy. Johnny denied any anti-American sentiment, saying the comment was taken out of context and he was merely saying the U.S. was a young country that is still maturing. Meanwhile, Johnny was busy with another film. Secret Window, a thriller about a writer being stalked by a man claiming Depp stole his story idea, gave Johnny plenty of scenes on screen by himself.
Johnny Depp: The idea of getting in there and, as opposed to just you know, whatever, you know, reacting which is what acting is, uh, just being, you know, being and behaving in that skin, in those circumstances, so that was a great challenge.
Narrator: Johnny Depp has shown he knows how to pick a role, but it maybe his children that exert the most influence on his choices from now on. He’s signed to play the Gene Wilder role in Tim Burton’s remake, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie in Neverland; and he’ll be back for Pirates of the Caribbean 2.
Johnny Depp: All you wanna do is just spend time with your kids, you know, you just want to hang out with them, do stuff with them, you know, so if you end up playing Barbies for 12 hours, O.K. that’s cool, why not. Narrator: Thanks for watching this Johnny Depp edition of Famous.