"PLEASE DON'T CALL ME A MOVIE STAR..." Johnny Depp can't help being an object of the media, regarding the women in his life (Kate Moss, Vanessa Paradis). But he hardly ever does interviews. BUNTE succeeded in talking him into one.

Johnny Depp, 35, very rarely does interviews. However much he seems to hate his bad boy image, he doesn't try to correct it. BUNTE-author Daphne Barak was able to persuade him to do an interview with her - and was surprised to meet a strange man: self-critical touching on the masochist, without big illusions, sexy in an intelligent way, astonishingly nice and very discreet. He never utters the name of the woman he left (top model Kate Moss), and he calls the woman who is now carrying his child (singer Vanessa Paradis) his close friend in France. The interview was done in England where Johnny Depp is currently filming his new movie "Sleepy Hollow". Shortly after this interview he flew to Paris and the south of France, for a weekend with Vanessa Paradis. What, for you, is the difference between an actor and a movie star?
A movie star is a person like Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart, who were good actors - but Marlon Brando, for example, would jump at you if you called him a movie star. This term, applied to him as the excellent actor he is, would be an insult. For you as well?
I'm earning my money in the business. No, I'm definitely not a movie star. I lack the taste of show, glamour, glitter. I'm the guy in the ditch, not the general at the top of the hill. I'm uneasy in the glare of the lights.
You've been a musician for years. How did you enter the movie world?
I was walking around with a friend in LA who was an actor, and I was trying to get a job. Making music didn't pay the bills. I'd written an application and I showed it to him and he said: I think you'd make a good actor. How about talking to my agent? ...who then sent me to an audition with a director who took me on straight away. Just like that.
Do you remember what it was?
Yes, it was Nightmare on Elmstreet. And suddenly I was a musician making movies to pay his rent. But for a long time this just remained a hobby for me.
That sounds as if you hadn't been taking your hobby very seriously.
Well, as seriously as you can take acting! There is nothing more embarrassing than a actor who calls himself a serious actor. Let's be honest, more than anything else, actors are liars. The better they are at lying, the better they are as actors. Now, I'm asking you: is lying a serious job?
Is there anything in your life that you seriously regret?
Not really. Whenever something was about to happen that I might regret I quit. For example, the TV series 21 Jump Street. I felt like meat turned into a hamburger to be thrust into the mouths of an unsuspecting audience at 7 p.m. No, if there is one thing I regret, it is that I haven't punched more people in their faces in my life.
Now we've touched on your image as wild boy who cares about nothing.
That's what I'm branded as but it's not true. However, every star needs to be labelled, so I was given the label of wild boy - perhaps it was free at taht moment. Really, I'm a totally normal guy, with a strange job.
And what's going to happen if, like some of your colleagues, you are dropped from one day to the next?
I've already been through that. I had to make music and dance in order to survive, and if they didn't want me there, I worked at a gas station or on a building site. That wouldn't bother me, I'd do that again any day.
Well, you're still rolling in money from your movies. But what do you really think about taking ten million dollars for a role?
That's sick! But when they throw it at you, you'll take it won't you? But it is dangerous: the more you earn, the more you're the centre of attention - and then there's no more private life, no more anonymity. This is a prize too high to pay, that's when I feel I've been "bought".
Do you have strong emotional ties to your family?
Oh yes, I have two sisterss and a brother, their kids, and my mother. We meet as often as possible.
And then your mother says: hey Johnny, why are you the only one not married yet?
Exactly! And I say: Mom, give me more time, I'm only 35.
Who would you like to meet?
God. Wouldn't it be great to have a smoke with him and talk about evrything and anything?
Do you think of yourself as a sex symbol?
Really I don't! And if that should ever happen, I hope someone will stand behind me with a hammer and hit me on the head with it. It would be very embarrassing to be a sex symbol.
You're always on the move - where do you feel at home?
In Los Angeles, with my books and my easel.
You paint?
Always did. It's my way of escaping from the world.
And what or how do you paint?
Portraits, at the moment. But again and again, elephants - don't ask me why. Of course, I'm not a good artist, more like a hyperactive three-year-old. But it's fun.
What will you do when this interview is done?
I'll drink some liters of coffee, and then I'll go away for the weekend.
Where?
First to Paris, then to the south of France to meet a close friend. And to sleep, sleep, sleep.
Sleep?
Of course. Don't you know that sleep is the greatest luxury of our modern time, which hardly anyone can afford?

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