Bootstraps' Bootstraps
Secrets & Sparrows
From MTV.com
He may have lost the Oscar to Sean Penn, but Johnny Depp hasn't lost his ability to captivate and charm an audience with his decidedly offbeat film choices, from his neurotic detective in "Sleepy Hollow" to the Keith-Richards-like Captain Jack Sparrow in last summer's "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." This week's "Secret Window" is a Stephen King adaptation served up by filmmaker David Koepp, who wrote the screenplay for "Spider-Man," and it's far more "Christine" than "Pet Sematary" thanks to the picky actor's presence. MTV's Ryan J. Downey caught up with Depp to talk about his impending reunion with the similarly eccentric Tim Burton, his new tattoo and what turns him off when someone hands him a screenplay.
MTV: When it comes to Stephen King movies — there are really good ones and really bad ones. When you heard they had a Stephen King movie they wanted you to check out, what were you looking for to make sure that you did a good one?
Johnny Depp: Well, it was weird, because my mind was sort of made up about four or five pages into the screenplay. It was that well done, that well written. David Koepp did an amazing job of adapting the novella. And by about page five, six, I had a huge emotional investment into the character, into the story and into the plot, and I allowed it to take me on this journey where I was sure it was going to end up one way and it went the complete opposite. I was so shocked and surprised by the story that there was no way around it. I had to do it.
MTV: You have a reputation for being choosy with your roles. What are some of the things that a Johnny Depp movie cannot have — what are some red flags that when you see them in a script, you immediately say, "I'm not doing that"?
Johnny: That's a good question. ... I guess you know you're in bad shape when you're like on about page three and the guy's gonna rip his shirt off or something. Anytime they start necking with several women, you're in trouble. I don't know, for me, I like to be surprised. It's nice to be surprised and it's rare that you are surprised.
MTV: You've still got the tattoo of a sparrow on your arm that we saw in "Pirates of the Caribbean." That wasn't just a fake tattoo for the movie?
Depp: This guy here? That's my tattoo I got for my boy, for my son, Jack. This was the tattoo that I wore in "Pirates of the Caribbean" for Captain Jack Sparrow, except in the film he was flying the opposite way. He was flying away from me, so I turned him around [when I made it permanent]. You have to have it flying towards you. He's gotta always fly back to you.
MTV: He'll probably like your next movie, Tim Burton's remake of "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory."
Depp: Yeah, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." It's Tim's version of Roald Dahl's classic book and it's gonna be a wild ride. Tim and I have had a couple of meetings, sat down and had some talks about where he wants to go, where we need to go. And I think it's gonna be great, you know? Big shoes [to fill], though. Gene Wilder did such an awesome job in that film in the early '70s, so I mean, taking that character of Willy Wonka and going somewhere completely different is ... he sort of made the job infinitely more difficult for me.
