In Public Enemies Johnny Depp plays legendary bank robber John Dillinger in a film about the gangster whose Robin Hood adventures made him a folk hero of the Great Depression. He talks to Michele Manelis
Who better to play America's beloved outlaw than Johnny Depp? The Depression era's subversive pinup boy, John Dillinger, who famously robbed banks across the US, and like Robin Hood, refused to take money from the average Joe, is immortalised in this adaptation on his life.
Depp, 46, is promoting the
movie at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills.
Arriving without the fanfare appendage of his movie star peers Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, he is softly spoken and apologises for being two hours late. "I'm so sorry for my tardiness. I can't help it. It's always been a problem of mine," he smiles, shrugging his shoulders.
Unlike his usual, left-of-centre ensemble which would include worn shoes with holes in them, and an old hat, today he looks almost conservative in dark jeans, a shirt, and a red scarf tumbling out of one of his jeans pockets - which looks like a remnant from his Captain Jack Sparrow days in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Depp, who has earned three Academy Award nominations, took to the role of Dillinger like a second skin. "He was the ultimate common man existentialist hero. I have an admiration for him. Yes, he robbed banks but he tried not to hurt anybody in the process."
Directed by Michael Mann, the cast includes Christian Bale as Dillinger's arch-enemy, FBI agent Melvin Purvis, French Oscar winner, Marion Cotillard, as his girlfriend Billie Frechette, and a particularly inhumane Edgar J. Hoover, played by Billy Crudup. Exemplary cast notwithstanding, the movie is definitely riding on Depp's shoulders.
It's not the first time he's played a morally ambiguous character - he has often taken roles which explore the dark side of humanity, including Edward Scissorhands, From Hell, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and of course his blockbuster franchise in Pirates of the Caribbean.
"It's not like I only like playing the bad guy. It depends on the bad guy or what we perceive as the bad guy. For example, if I was given the choice to be in a room with either Dillinger or J. Edgar Hoover with my back to them, I would choose Dillinger. J. Edgar Hoover was a vicious, vicious man," he says.
"But fascination with bad guys, you've got people like Dillinger who was like Bonnie and Clyde. The common man who came up and said, 'I'm going to stand up against the establishment and do what I have to do for me and mine.'
"Then you've got the Charles Mansons of the world, who I suppose it is easy to be fascinated with because of the savagery that can exist in man. So I think they are very different things. People like to slow down to look at car accidents too, don't they? Haven't you always found that to be kind of obtuse?" This Kentucky-born farm boy has a few geographical elements in common with Dillinger which he had to lean on due to the lack of research material in terms of actual footage or audio tapes.
"The closest thing I had were the recordings of his father, Dillinger senior. When I heard his voice and I started to do the math and think, well, he's raised a farm boy in southern Indiana, and I was born and raised in Owensboro, Kentucky. It's roughly 80 miles from where Dillinger was born. That clicked for me. I started hearing him speak and I knew how he moved and how he walked. He was not different from my grandfather, who back in the 1930s also took the bull and ran with it," he says, proudly. "By day, he drove a bus, by night he drove Moonshine into dry counties. He was providing a service," he laughs. "And my stepdad had spent a couple of years studying at the Statesville Penitentiary in Illinois, - so with those ingredients, that's how I came to find John Dillinger."
Depp divides his time between a small village in the south of France, Los Angeles, and an island he owns in the Bahamas. Very much the family man, he spends all his time with longterm girlfriend Vanessa Paradis, 36, French pop singer/actress/Chanel spokesmodel; and their two children: Lily Rose, 10, and Jack John Christopher, 7.
With his wild days behind him (you may remember back in'94, he trashed a New York hotel room in the days of dating Kate Moss), these days, a calmer, peaceful Depp lives a privileged life, by anyone's standards. His only regret is his inability to take his kids on a normal outing.
"I'd love to wander the streets with them. It would be fun to take my kiddies to a store or a restaurant or Disneyland and not be looked upon as some kind of freak. That would be excellent." It's for this reason, he retreats to his own private island when he needs to decompress.
The 18-hectare island, Little Hall's Pond Cay, has six beaches named after his family members, as well as Heath Ledger, "Heath's Place," and mentors Hunter S. Thompson and Marlon Brando. Not too shabby.
He stiffens a little. "You say that in a way that turns it into an extravagance. In certain worlds it is an extravagance but when you live the kind of life that I got, which is pretty great, there are moments where you want to take a breath.
"There are moments when you don't want to be looked at, you don't want to be asked anything, you don't want to talk about movies or fame or whatever that stuff is. You just want to sit there and drool and not have anyone take your photograph."
LOWDOWN
Who: Johnny Depp
Born: June 9 1963, Owensboro, Kentucky
Key roles: Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), 21 Jump Street (TV series, 1987-89), Edward Scissorhands (1990), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Ed Wood (1994), Donnie Brasco (1997), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Chocolat (2000), Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
Forthcoming: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Alice in Wonderland
Latest: Public Enemies releases July 30