Close up... Johnny Depp

Depp talks in his own inimitable, mystical way about ‘Finding Neverland’, his kids, Marlon Brando and how to master a Scottish accent.

Oct 26 2004

Girls go weak at the knees when they see him and boys are just plain jealous. We caught up with the ever-youthful (41-year-old) Depp at the Venice Film Festival, where he was talking in his own inimitable, mystical way about ‘Finding Neverland’ (see online review), his kids, Marlon Brando and how to master a Scottish accent.

It’s an impressive Edinburgh accent you’ve locked down for this film.
Oh boy, Scottish is a fascinating accent, and I was always a little afraid of attempting it because one little slip up and you’re busted.

You’re playing JM Barrie in ‘Finding Neverland’ and also filming Tim Burton’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. Why are you so attracted to children’s stories?
I think we’re children for too brief a time. We’re exposed to too much too soon. I have very intense and solid memories of being a little kid in the early ’70s, not even ten years old, and watching Vietnam on the television, but watching it like it was another TV show. People being blown to bits. I don’t want that for my kids.
My main objective as a parent is to protect them from that. How can any one of us explain the massacre in Russia to our children? [Our interview takes place on the same day as the tragedy in Beslan.] How could you? All they want is love and happiness. And then you grow up and the world fucks it up for you. Excuse my language, but it’s a miracle that any of us can smile.

Do you feel a special responsibility to a historical character like Barrie?
You definitely do. With ‘Finding Neverland’ there’s so much information you want to put into the film, so many issues you want to deal with. But you only have an hour and a half. There were a lot of nasty rumours about Barrie. I don’t know where they came from, it was really ugly. I thought it was a nice opportunity to clean it up a little bit.

You had a good friendship with Marlon Brando.
He was a lot of things to me. He still is a lot of things to me. As a friend, he was unbelievably generous. He gave me the gift of long conversations and riotous laughter, the two of us giggling like children, weeping, crying, laughing… He was so generous with his wisdom and knowledge, I’ll carry that with me until I turn into smoke.
I think about him every day, I miss him every day. And I’m just a guy who knew him over the last ten, 11 years. He was a great friend, a great hero, a great teacher, a great human.

Do you find it easy to pick projects when reading scripts?
For me, it’s almost instant. I open the thing and I normally know within three or four pages– maybe ten pages max– if it’s for me. I can tell right away. ‘...Neverland’ was pretty quick. If you just hear the basic premise of that story, it could easily be misconstrued as some kind of manipulative or sappy film. And it wasn’t. The writer was somehow able to weave his way around all that false sentimentality. And Marc Forster had a built-in alarm system for anything false or forced. He’ll just tell you: I didn’t believe that.
You’re now a family man, living most of the time in France.

Did you consciously flee the Hollywood circus?
Yes, but my daughter is five and becoming more and more aware that daddy’s an actor. For a while there, she just thought I was a pirate. I was happier with that. My youngest, my son Jack, is two. When they see me on TV, they both scream, ‘There’s Papa!’ They’re used to that now.
It’s strange…

And you’re on a roll professionally, with ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and now Willy Wonka.
I feel completely like I’m exactly where I need to be. The majority of that is due to the fact that I’m blessed with my girl and my kids. Purely, they have given me life. I’m pretty fulfilled.
Years ago, I was at this party and there was this older, very aristocratic English woman who was standing there with a gin martini. Someone said something to her, grumbling, and these words came out of her mouth that I thought were so brilliant. She said, ‘Oh, darling, one must just bash on regardless!’ Bash on regardless! That’s really it, isn’t it? That’s everything. Bash on regardless!

‘Finding Neverland’ opens on Friday October 29.

• 
•