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David Letterman : ????? actor, he stars in a brand new film entitled Sleepy Hollow opening November 19th. Ladies and Gentlemen, here's Johnny Depp.

D : Howya doin?

Johnny Depp : I'm all right. I'm good. How are you?

D : I'm pretty good. Congratulations. Have you just had a child, a baby, a son...? Or have you had a...?

J : A little girl.

D : A little girl? Congratulations.

J : 6 months ago.

D : Well that's great.

J : Thank you.

D : Do you like that?

J : Do I like it?

D : Yeah, did you always want kids. Did you want...

J : Oh yeah, sure. Yeah. I love it.

D : Did you come from a big family? A small family?

J : Yeah, 4 kids, 4 kids, I guess it's sort of normal sized family.

D : When you... now that you are a parent. Do you remember does it immediately connect you to what your parents were trying to when they were rasing you?

J : No.

D : Really?

J : No. Not remotely, no.

D : Are you good at being father?

J : I am, in fact. yeah. I do all of the stuff, you know, diapers, vomit, yeah, all of the stuff... burping.

D : Do you change the diapers on a regular basis or you did once just so you can tell people, "oh, no I change the diapers"

J : I try to do it at least once a week, so that you don't... you don't want to lose your ah...

D : Well, that's just about all a kid needs change, doesn't it? About once a week?

J : Yeah. Twice at most.

D : That's the way it goes. Where do you live now?

J : Still pretty transient. I'm all over the place between Europe, France and Los Angels.

D : How did you end up living part of the time in France? Sounds very exotique.

J : Exo... Very good.

D : Exotique. It's a little French. I thought I'd slide a little French in on you.

J : I'm starting to sweat. I went over there in fact about 2 years ago to do a film with Roman Polanski, and...

D : What was the film?

J : It's called The Ninth Gate.

D : Yeah. He can't come to make film to the United States anymore.

J : So they say.

D : He had to run because there was trouble. There was some trouble.

J : That's what I've heard.

D : So you went over there and you fell in a love, I bet. You met a woman and fell in love.

J : Yes, I did.

D : Good.

J : And then, we had a baby and fell in love again.

D : Are you comfortable? (The audiences sighed.) Isn't that sweet? Are you comfortable with the French, with the cultures, with the people?

J : Yeah. They're terrific. Yeah, the French are amazing. The language is not real easy.

D : It's different than English.

J : It is, different than English. I'd glad you picked up on that one, too.

D : Here is all I know in French. I just learned the other day, "grand vitesse"

J : Is that water? What is it?

D : No. It's supposed to be high speed, isn't it?

Bing

D : Well.

J : And exotique.

D : Tres exotique.

J : Very nice.

D : And, do you speak French?

J : I have learned a bit. I can understand more than I can speak.

D : You know what we hear in this country. And people who travel sometimes, they come back and they say, "Well, the French, they are aloof, they're snotty. We are uncomfortable around the French. Have you had that experience?

J : I have not, in fact. The stories that you get are the Parisians, have a tenddancy to be a little bit rough, but however I mean if you were, you know, a waiter in a restaurant in Paris, you know, some guy in mouse ears with a polaroid camera and Bermuda shorts, you know, wanted to take your photograph, "Hey, let's take a pictures of the French guy," you know, you'd get mad, too.

D : Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you something just between you and me. It will be lights-out.

J : Lights-out?

D : You know what I'm saying?

J : I understand.

D : Adios, I would stamp their passport. You know what you mean?
How were the fries?

J : French.

D : We will be right back here with Johnny Depp, ladies and gentlemen.

D : Johnny Depp is with us tonight ladies and gentlemen. The movie Sleepy Hollow opens November 19th. I can remember maybe this is still going on, you would know better than I, the stuff about busting up hotel room and beaten guys.

J : I've heard about that stuff.

D : You still do that? You don't beat up people that's somebody else? Do you beat up people or not?

J : It depends on the situation, I guess.

D : Somebody needs a beating, you are there. Right?

J : Yeah, yeah. I have a couple of incidents, yeah, where guys were begging for it.

D : But, is there any way to explain it? Is it over blown? Is it inaccurate? For example the hotel... Was there truth that you just ruined a hotel?

J : Well, not the entire hotel. The room.

D : But, like, your room. Was that true or not true?

J : Oh, yeah. That's true. Yeah.

D : I see.

J : I brutalized a hotel room.

D : And what was the... Can you... It's none of my business, but I think we are all curious. What had the room done the piss you off?

J : Well, bad taste in decoration. Hideous taste. Yeah.

D : But I mean....

J : Bad day. You know, just a bad day.

D : Frustrated.

J : Just a bad day.

D : You weren't... hadn't been drinking? You hadn't been into the mini bar? Were you in the mini bar?

J : No. No. That's the only thing that was left untouched.

D : But now as you grow older and you mature. And you have a daughter now. You don't... Do you do that now?

J : Well, it depends. I mean you know, if I have to.

D : But nobody really has to destroy a hotel room.

J : How do you know?

D : Well, you're right. I don't know. But I'm 52, and I've never had to destroy one.

J : Oh, your day may be coming.

D : All right.

J : You never know.

D : But, photographers now. Is... There's trouble with you and photographers. Is that right or not right?

J : At times.

D : How do you handle that? Because you are besieged as an international superstar. They are always after you.

J : I wouldn't call it that. I had an incident in London last year, while I was making Sleepy Hollow, in fact. I was in a restaurant with my girl, Vanessa, and we were celebrating, you know, the fact that we were going to have a kid and all that.

D : Very private. Very intimate moment.

J : Yeah, special sort of a night. And, as we leaving the restaurant, there was a gaggle of paparazzi outside. And, I approached them, you know, as gentlemanly fashioned as I could. "Listen, I don't want to be novelty boy tonight. I'd rather, you know, sort of skip all that. So let's just say take this photograph some other day."

D : Well, see now that seems fair enough. To me, it seems like they would have to respect you on a gentlemanly-basis.

J : I had hoped that they would, but in fact they didn't they were pretty aggressive and I was speaking to them through an opening in a doorway, about like this. Just to my right, there happened to be a large chunk of wood. About yea big. Kind of a 4 by 4. Almost like a bed post.

D : Debris from a hotel room?

J : Very very possibly.

D : Could have been.

J : It might have slipped out of my pocket or something, just dropped out of my jacket. Yeah, you know just coincidently, it was there, kind of a kismet thing. They were pretty aggressive, as I said. So, I just... I smacked a guy on the hand.

D : Just tapped him on the hand.

J : Yeah. Just, you know, kind of like that. Sort of woke him up, you know, got to his attention, and then I went outside with my plank of wood. And, I said, "OK. Now, let's have our photo session. You take the photo." And amazingly, when you are holding a plank of wood, they don't want to take your photograph. So, I marched them down street backwards. Made them walk backwards, which was really nice. And, I like those little touches. Had them for around ten minutes until the police arrived, they didn't take a photograph.

D : The police arrived to help you or to help them? Who needed the police in this case? Was it you or them?

J : Yeah, I think that they called the police. I have a sneaking suspicion that they called the police. And, they took me to, what is called, a custody suite. That's what they call it. Yeah, I spent about 5 or 6 hours there.

D : You know Johnny, Paul and I have been doing this show for a long time, almost 20 years. I think I'm safe in saying without a doubt, you are the coolest guy we've ever had on this program. Isn't he cool?

J : Haha. WOW! That's amazing!

D : How cool this guy is, huh?

Paul Schaeffer : Can't get much cooler.

D : You know, what I wanna do. Let's show people some of the movie, This is a classic story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. You play...

J : Ichabod Crane.

D : Ichabod Crane, the headless horseman? Is that... Do I have that correct?

J : Yes, sir.

D : And do you know what we're gonna see in this scene here?

J : I think this is a sort of part of an action sequence, where we are running away from the headless horseman, as one should.

D : Here you go. Johnny Depp in the Sleepy Hollow. Take a look.

(a scene from Sleepy Hollow.)

D : There you go, ladies and gentlemen. The film opens November 19th. Johnny, pleasure meeting you. Conglatulations to you and your family. I'm very happy for you. We'll be right back, folks.