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HE IS one of the coolest actors in the world, who still carries a reputation for wild living and a taste for the high life.
   But these days, the only hell Johnny Depp raises is in his films. He'd rather spend time in Paris with his partner, French singer Vanessa Paradis, and their two- year-old daughter Lily-Rose.
   The defining moment came three years ago in London when Johnny, whose latest film From Hell is a fresh take on the Jack The Ripper case, had just discovered he was to become a dad,
   Johnny, Vanessa and a few friends were dining at the Mirabelle restaurant, run by celebrity chef Marco Pierre White.
   Two things about that evening made the headlines. The first was the bill - a not-so-small matter of £17,000, including £11,000 for one bottle of a rare 1978 vintage Romanee-Conti burgundy. The second was when Johnny left the restaurant and took a swing at the waiting photographers with a plank of wood. He was arrested and held for four hours.
   "We were celebrating," shrugs Johnny, 38. "My girlfriend was pregnant and we had some friends over from the States. And these sweet little men were standing outside with their cameras."
   He knows it was a foolish thing to do. Even so, you can't help feeling that, for him, the memory of the Battle of Mirabelle is just as sweet as the taste of that wine.
   "The wine was fantastic," he says. "I'm no connoisseur -- just an expensive wino - but it was unbelievable. It really freaked people out. They got mad saying, 'Oh, he could have done this or that with this money'.
   "People spend tons of money on whatever, y'know. I just happened to spend it on a thing that was going to be gone in an hour. That freaks people out."
   Before he fell for 27-year-old Paradis, Johnny's girlfriends included supermodel Kate Moss and actress Winona Ryder, who couldn't stop him freaking people out.
   While with Kate he trashed a hotel room in New York. And once, when asked if he had any regrets, said "There are probably a couple of people I should've hit."
   He has also been accused of having a "too-1iberal" attitude to drugs and still co-owns the Viper Room, the LA club where River Phoenix spent his last hours before dying of an overdose.

BUT Johnny refuses to make excuses for his past excesses.
   "None of that was ever recreation for me," he says. "I wish I could say it was research for my films but it wasn't that, either. No, I went through a period of many years where I was pretty self-destructive and just a dumb ass. Wasting time, trying to numb myself, to try not to feel anything.
   "But I can certainly thank past experiences for walking me through some of the more opiated moments in From Hell."
   In one of his more mainstream films, Johnny plays an opium-addicted detective charged with finding the Ripper -- it's a sort of Scream meets Sherlock Holmes.
   Based on Alan Moore's award-winning "graphic novel" (that's comic book to you and me), the film also stars Heather Graham as lrish-born prostitute Mary Kelly, the Ripper's last victim. And while Graham's accent is decidedly dodgy, Depp manages a flawless Cockney.
   From Hell is a film Depp felt compelled to make, as he's been intrigued by the Ripper story all his life.
   "I was always attracted to things on the darker side," he says. "I watched my first Ripper documentary when I was eight and got hooked. I must have 25 books on the case. There are so many theories and any of them could be correct. It's impossible to know."
   So who does he think was responsible for the slayings? "There's a line of thought that it was an American quack doctor who was in London at the time,"" he says. "That makes sense to me -- an American serial killer."
   From Hell might be fairly accessible but it won't damage Johnny's reputation as one of the most dating actors of his generation.
   The star shuns blockbusters in favour of off-the-wall projects -- such as Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow and Edward Scissorhands - just because they appeal to him.
   Similarly, he tends to avoid Hollywood glitz. When invited to present an award at the Oscars a few years ago, he left the auditorium two hours before the end of the ceremony, borrowing Harrison Ford's limo to get home. His reason? He wanted a smoke.
   It all contributes to Johnny's cool persona, along with the long hair, tattoos and wispy goatee. Plus, he's a fan of British humour, especially The Fast Show. He even got in touch with Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson and filmed a sketch with the "Suits You" tailors.
   But why should a superstar bother with the likes of The Fast Show? "Those guys are my heroes. Every now and then I keep in touch with them. They're so good, so talented. They're the best actor I ever saw in my life."