John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor known for his portrayals of offbeat, eccentric characters such as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Sam in Benny & Joon.Depp rose to prominence in a lead role on the television series 21 Jump Street and quickly became regarded as a teen idol. Uncomfortable with that characterization, he turned his focus to film roles that he felt were right. He initially came to film prominence as the titular character of Edward Scissorhands, and later found box office success in roles such as Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow, Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series and his role as the quirky Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
He has collaborated with director and close friend Tim Burton in seven films, the most recent of which include Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) and the upcoming Alice in Wonderland. Depp has garnered acclaim for his portrayals of real life figures such as Edward Wood, Jr., in Ed Wood, Joseph D. Pistone in Donnie Brasco and George Jung in Blow. He plays John Dillinger in Michael Mann's Public Enemies.
Films featuring Depp have grossed over $2.3 billion at the United States box office and over $4.8 billion worldwide. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, Screen Actors Guild Awards four times and Golden Globe Awards eight times, Depp won the Best Actor Awards from the Golden Globes for his role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and from the Screen Actors Guild for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
People bio
1970-79: Depp's family settles in Miramar, Fla., when Depp is 7, living in a hotel until his father finds work. Prone to self-inflicted knife wounds – his arms still bear the visible scars – Depp starts smoking at 12, loses his virginity at 13, starts doing drugs at 14 and eventually drops out of high school at 16 to join the garage band, The Kids.
Awards
Quotes
I despise those prick actors who say, "I was in character," and "I became the character," and all that stuff. It's hideous. It's just masturbation at the highest level. (Rolling Stone, 1998)
I see kids who are complete cynics. They're not dreaming. They're out there with high-powered weapons, smoking crack behind the 7-Eleven. They've seen it all. These kids are going to take us into 2000 and beyond. That's scary, man. (Rolling Stone, 1998)
The real movie stars were Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy, Montgomery Clift. How could I put myself in the same category as Clark Gable?...Do I consider myself a movie star? I consider myself a guy with a good job, an interesting job. (Playboy, 2004)
I just don’t quite understand it [the press], really. I don’t understand the animal. It’s a strange, roundabout way of selling something; it leaves a foul taste... The thing that fascinates me is: who cares what an actor thinks? (Vanity Fair, 2004)
Artwork
Johnny Depp is well known for his diverse acting ability. Many are aware that he came to acting as a means of support while he was working to get his career off the ground as a guitarist for The Kids. It is less well known that he is an accomplished artist.
Johnny has painted many famous people including Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Kerouac and Marlon Brando. He also enjoys painting his children and partner, Vanessa Paradis. In an interview with Douglas Brinkley for Vanity Fair (July 2009), he stated, "What I love to do is paint people's faces, y'know, their eyes. Because you want to find the emotion, see what's going on behind their eyes."
photog: Annie Leibovitz__Vanity Fair
photog: Christophe d'Yvoire__doodle: Johnny Depp
CD cover art for Bliss, released November 7, 2000GIVING BACK
When he co-owned the Viper Room in L.A., Johnny Depp was known to hand out 50- and 100-dollar bills to the homeless huddled on the sidewalk near the club. (People.com)
This Academy Award nominated/winner A+ list actor doesn't get much publicity for all of the good he does, and so I thought I would share one of the things about him which he did for no reason other than being a great guy. While shooting a film our actor was introduced to a young girl. The girl had wanted to meet our actor for a very long time. Because she was dying of leukemia, her parents had asked Make-A-Wish to make it happen. For whatever reason they had not. Well, someone on the set heard about this little girl and asked our actor if it would be ok for her to meet him. He said sure, and the girl came. At the time she visited him she had a few weeks to live. When he asked about her medical treatment he was told there really wasn't any money. Our actor paid for all her medical bills and three years later she is still alive and still in touch with our actor. (CrazyDaysAndNights.net - Jne.09)
Johnny Depp Leaves $4K Tip for Chicago Waiter
______________________________________
Johnny Depp's Great Escape
Plunging deep into his roles—from the self-created (Edward Scissorhands and Captain Jack Sparrow) to the painstakingly re-created (Hunter S. Thompson, and John Dillinger in this month’s Public Enemies) — Johnny Depp can drive himself to the edge of the psyche. His decompression is as extreme: a 45-acre private Bahamian island, where he can snorkel among the barracuda. The author joins the 46-year-old star and friends on Depp’s 156-foot yacht, which flies the Jolly Roger, for a stay in this singular paradise.
EXCERPTS
Welcome to Deppville. It’s a place where the off-kilter meets off-road serenity, where pure spontaneity meets fastidiously manicured fantasy. I’ve joined my suave-hillbilly friend for a week in the tropics to escape the bad noise of March. With Wall Street plummeting and Detroit sliding toward the abyss, a seafaring adventure in the Atlantic feels somewhat sinful. But so what? I’d just finished writing a 900-page book on Theodore Roosevelt and needed a spring break. And so, when Depp called to insist that I join him, he had me, hook, line, and sinker. [...]
Depp insists on one rule for his roles: the personalities he plays must be his imaginative creations. Throughout his career, he has brought a string of otherworldly characters to life: Edward Scissorhands, Ichabod Crane, Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka, Sweeney Todd. Next year he will appear as the Mad Hatter in a screen version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (in what will be his seventh collaborative project with director Tim Burton). Each portrayal has sprung from deep within his psyche. Moreover, many of his characters exist at a remove from civilization, in some parallel Little Hall’s Pond, where fantasy, not reality, has the upper hand.
And yet when Depp plays an actual person—such as Ed Wood, George Jung in Blow, Sir J. M. Barrie in Finding Neverland, and the iconic Dillinger—he tries to honor their true biographies, right down to their aftershave brands, believing he might actually summon a semblance of his characters’ souls. “There’s a certain responsibility playing a guy, even Dillinger,” Depp says. “You want to do him right, ya know. You don’t want to let him down. He may be watching. So I don’t want to water down the integrity of the person I’m playing. I want to find its essence. Sometimes (period) music helps me channel.” [...]
As our voyage gets under way, Depp speaks of the need for escapism in a world gone wrong. How does the individualist, he wonders, find dignity and purity in a plastic culture and a polluted world? “Little Hall’s Pond is my decompression,” he says. “It’s my way of trying to return to normalcy. There is a period once you finish a guy—a character—when you’re looking to go back to yourself, and sometimes it can manifest illness. I mean, after I made The Libertine“—in which Depp plays the debauched Earl of Rochester—“I was in bed for two weeks. When you’re working, you don’t get sick, then suddenly it hits you like a two-by-four. After Dillinger, my head was done in. I needed to escape. So being able to get on the boat and move allowed my head freedom again. Escapism is survival to me.
"Somehow", he says, "the mathematics led me here to my island. I don’t think I’d ever seen any place so pure and beautiful. You can feel your pulse rate drop about 20 beats. It’s instant freedom. And that rare beast—simplicity—can be had. And a little morsel of anonymity." [...]
From time to time, the individualist in him gripes about the political correctness of modern-day Hollywood. He pines for the old iconoclasts. “Where is our generation of Dean Martins and Frank Sinatras?” he asks. “And the Georgie Jessels and Walter Brennans?”—referring to two of the town’s arch-conservatives of yore. “I want Tiny Tim and Bix Beiderbecke back.”
But turmoil is hardly the attraction here. Instead, it’s the way present and future, light and distance, space and darkness all bend and blend together. “The truth is,” Depp says, “you want to come here and read Finnegans Wake until you understand it.” [...]
“Nobody is going to ever ruin the Land and Sea Park,” Depp later insists. “It’s like a rare gem, a diamond. I look forward to my kids growing up on the island, spending months out of the year here … learning about sea life and how to protect sea life … and their kids growing up here, and so on.” [...]
“Theoretically,” Depp says, “this place can add years to your life.” Then he quotes the old adage: “Money doesn’t buy you happiness. But it buys you a big enough yacht to sail right up to it.” [...]
At sea Depp wears a blue-and-white-striped Rasta-man cap to hold back his hair. His frayed T-shirt has cigarette burns—souvenirs of a wayward youth. This is his last chance to indulge in genuine scruff before facing the movie cameras. Throughout the passage, Depp is in his element, pleased to be waterborne, choppy or not. [...]
The next morning, an hour before I depart for my flight home, Depp has a fitting send-off. It is 10 a.m., but he sees no reason for us all not to share a bottle of ’89 Haut-Brion. Depp does the decanting. We all raise glasses to our great escape, which is now but a fading daydream. [...]
____________________________________________
RELATED
Shines a light on the rise and fall of South Florida's underground rock music scene from the late 1970's and early 1980's.
Still from God's Gonna Cut You DownUH-OH...
+Johnny Depp Lends His Support to Roman Polanski+Johnny Depp, Vanessa Paradis Have Terrible Hygiene
_____________________________________________
