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Johnny Depp is running late. Very late. Don’t get me wrong though. He’s late, not because stars can, and usually do, take their sweet time, especially when it’s only the press who await them, but because he’s so attentive. Depp is different. Quite different. On the way to our meeting, he’s stopped in the lobby by fans. And, being the man that he is, he just can’t say no to having a chat with them. His large and faithful following have known from day one that beyond the hypnotic, soulful brown eyes and handsome physique beats the heart of a true artist. A simple man with simple tastes, whose love of family seems as natural and necessary as breathing, John Christopher Depp was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Ky. He now makes his home in France with singer/actor Vanessa Paradis and their daughter, Lily-Rose Melody Depp, who turned two earlier this year. Papa Johnny has said that his daughter didn’t change his life, but gave him life. If you missed him when he was in Montreal en famille (with his family) for the Montreal World film festival, you can catch him on the big screen now, in From Hell, which has made its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

Dagmar Dunlevy: You’re a devoted father. What did you learn from your parents?
JD: I remember my brother telling me two things when I told him that Vanessa and I were going to have a baby: ‘number 1, congratulations. It’s the greatest thing that will ever happen to you. You will never have another clam day for the rest of your life. Number two, just do everything the opposite of what mom and dad did.’ [Laughs] Although we have great parents who did their best with what they knew and what they learned from their parents, I kind of understood what he meant.

Dagmar Dunlevy: You’ve described your life as a father as some sort of awakening.
JD: Well it was like being in a fog for 35 years. More like existing, but not, in fact, living. Or at least living to the extent that I know what it is now. I don’t really believe I had anything solid to live for until I met Vanessa and my daughter. More than the fact that we gave birth to her, I think she gave birth to us. I think she chose to come to us.

Dagmar Dunlevy: You’ve done quite a bit of work in Spain and with Spanish actors. What have you learned from that culture?
JD: They are very, very funny people. It’s such a distance between the cultures that I didn’t expect them to get my sophomoric kind of obtuse, perverse sense of humor. But they got it in spades and were able to deliver back the most absurd things. I learned that Jordi Molla (who Depp stared with in Blow) is certifiably insane and Penelope Cruz is not far behind [Laughs]. Javier Bardem (they starred together in before night falls) has a great sense of humor. Very funny, very talented guy.

Dagmar Dunlevy: He also said you have a great ass.
JD: That’s very kind of him.

Dagmar Dunlevy: You’re often featured in magazines’ most-beautiful-people issues. What your definition of beauty?
JD: Boy! I’m such a sap. What’s beautiful? May daughter is beautiful, my girl is beautiful, my life is beautiful, my family is beautiful. There are a lot of beautiful things.

Dagmar Dunlevy: But back to beautiful you.
JD: I’m not particularly good at that kind of image thing. I think it has a lot more to do with the makeup person or lighting - and much less to do with me.

Dagmar Dunlevy: Your peers have remarked that you make them feel relaxed on a film set and how amazing it is to watch you go into the darkest places of the human experience though the characters you play. How do you get there?
JD: I can just as easily feel very close to the light and feel very close to happiness. For a lot of years, I was confused about life, confused about growing up, not really knowing what was right and wrong, what was important. Kind of miserable and abusing myself and feeling very angry and having a rage that was really close to the surface. I can’t say that it has gone away. It’s still there - anger, darkness, whatever - but I’ve never been closer to the light than right now.

Dagmar Dunlevy: What triggers anger for you?
JD: I think it’s just ignorance. Ignorance, greed and nastiness. That pretty much covers it for me. I hate injustice. That makes me angry.

Dagmar Dunlevy: You go back to dark themes with From Hell, Don Quixote and Marlowe. Talk about those projects.
JD: With Don Quixote, I guess everyone is waiting for the smoke to clear. We’ll see what happens. From Hell is about Jack the Ripper, one of the more complicated theories. I think it’s going to be a good one. I hope so! I love the Hughes brothers. Marlowe, we’ve been talking about for probably five years. It’s a really radical spin on what people believe as being Shakespeare’s plays: the possibility that Marlowe wrote them. There have been questions forever and a day of who was Shakespeare.

Dagmar Dunlevy: Has a movie ever made you cry?
JD: I cry at the drop of a hat. I really do. I’m a real sucker, and, as I said before, I’m a sap. I can cry at the sappiest things.

Dagmar Dunlevy: Chocolat?
JD: Nah…

Dagmar Dunlevy: Edwards Scissorhands got to me.
JD: Before I saw the film, I remember going to the scoring stage where Danny Elfman and Tim Burton were working and there was a monster orchestra. I mean, it couldn’t have been less intimate. It was a sea of musicians and they went into the theme from Edward Scissorhands. And within a tenth of a second, I was in tears. They were just streaming down my face. The music destroyed me and I can’t hear it still.

Dagmar Dunlevy: Does marriage have a place for you?
JD: Ahhh… I consider Vanessa and me already married really. We just haven’t gone through the formalities- signing the papers and all that. To me and to her, we’re husband and wife, I believe.

Dagmar Dunlevy: Your parents’ marriage didn’t work out. What did you learn from that?
JD: That I didn’t want that. That’s for sure.

Dagmar Dunlevy: What were the effects on you?
JD: When I was 15 and my parents split up, it was something you saw coming for years and years. I can remember being probably as young as 7 or 8 and thinking ‘Come on already. Just split.’ And they stuck it out until I was 15. I thought it didn’t affect me too much. My mom got very ill when my father left. It’s a heartbreaking thing when two people split up after all that time. She got very ill, so all the attention, all the focus went to her, making sure that she was OK and getting better. I didn’t realize until later that I didn’t have time to mourn the loss of that sense of family, that sense of security, that strong foundation. I did later. Vanessa, for me, has been kind of a miracle.

Dagmar Dunlevy: How long have you been together?
JD: We’ve been together now for 3 years and I feel as though I’ve met the one who you think about as a child, searching the world over and finding the one, the right one. I feel very blessed to have her. She’s incredibly understanding. I mean, she has dealt with me for 3 years, which is no easy task, I imagine. I feel like I’ve been given my destiny.

Dagmar Dunlevy: how much does your personal life affect your career?
JD: It’s funny, because I moved away without really ever deciding to move away. I still live here [California], but I live mostly in Europe these days. And it all happened because I went over to do a movie, The Ninth Gate with Roman Polanski. The math just worked out incredibly in my favor: the distance that I’ve been able to have from Hollywood and the negative effects that it can have on you, escaping the feeling of being thought of as a product and getting involved with a woman who makes you feel like life is not negative and that everything is OK. Vanessa and the baby have inspired a lot of this creative exposition [within me].

Dagmar Dunlevy: You work purely for the love of the art?
JD: I haven’t been working for the dough, that’s for sure [Laughing]. You can go through my bankbook if you want to. It’s pretty apparent.

Dagmar Dunlevy: How’s your French coming along?
JD: [Smiling] I have been spending quite a lot of time over in France and I’m still struggling with the language. My daughter speaks it more than I do. I’m looking forward to my time off so I can go and be Papa for a while.

Dagmar Dunlevy: In what way do you think you can inspire others?
JD: Boy, I’m not sure I’m capable. If there is any message to my work, it is ultimately that it’s OK to be different, that it’s good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color. We should question ourselves and that again falls into what I said before: ignorance. Ignorance it hating someone because they’re from Africa, Israel or Kentucky. I would aspire to be able to continue even on the most minute level what John Lennon was able to do. If I can just get people not to hate each other, that would be great.