Johnny Depp on His Role as Dad: Have his children seen any of his recent movies? Depp said, “Well, Jack was real little when 'Pirates' came out. He was sort of in the Neanderthal stage. Lily Rose was there and she loved it.
It's interesting because they had come on the set of 'Pirates' so they were sort of used to seeing poppa as this weird, greasy, pirate guy and then when they knew that I was going to be playing Willy Wonka, they were of course very excited about it because they knew the original film with Gene Wilder. My daughter is pretty familiar with the book, the story. So they came to visit me on the set and, like I said they're pretty used to that sort of thing, but they came to the set and they walked into my trailer and there I was decked out in the top hat and the Prince Valiant hairdo and the cha-cha heels and the eyes and the teeth and the rubber gloves and they just kind of froze and just stared at me for what felt like an eternity, about two minutes. And then they sort of got over it and wanted to try everything on, the top hat and glasses and stuff.
I was so scared when they were going to see 'Charlie,' and way more than the idea of being reviewed by a movie critic. I was so in fear that my kids were going to not react well to the film. So I was sitting at home waiting for them to come back and they arrived back and my son of three years old, Jack, walks in and looks up at me and quoted Wonka. He went, 'You're really weird.' [Laughs] I felt suddenly liberated.”
Johnny Depp on Returning as Captain Jack Sparrow in “Pirates 2 and 3:” “What happens for me, and I can only speak for myself, but what happens to me is that with every character once you've clicked into that character and you really know the guy, you become very close with him and you love him. You enjoy playing him. So it's always very, very difficult at the end. There is that week to 10 days before wrap where you can feel and hear the clock ticking, and then you go through sometimes a really nasty kind of depression afterwards. There's an odd separation anxiety because you've just been this person for a pretty good length of time and then they're suddenly gone.
For me, with Captain Jack, I had a sneaking suspicion that I'd see him again. And when they said, 'We'd like to do two and three together,' I was all for it because I just wanted, selfishly, to be the guy again, just to see him again, play him.”
On Keith Richards: Depp hasn’t worked with Richards yet. “It's sort of not totally official yet. It might be. Everyone is trying. He's got a little tour to do.”
The Changes to Jack Sparrow in “Pirates 2 and 3:” “I don't know. I think that there's some kind of fun plot stuff that they're planning on."
Johnny Depp on Saying Good-Bye to His Characters: “It's weird because sometimes separation is more emotional than others. I remember after 'Scissorhands,' and I really feel like a dunce having to say this, but it's the truth – I remember the last day of that movie, it had been 89 days or something, and I remember after we did the makeup I looked into the mirror and thinking, 'Well, this is it. This is the last time I'll see you.' So it becomes very emotional. It's a weird, weird thing. I don’t think that it's normal and I don't think that it's particularly good for you. But it's sort of what I got.”
Johnny Depp Evaluates His Work: Asked if there are any performances that, looking back, now make him cringe, Depp said, “Oh, I cringe at all of them. That's a subject that's so far away from me. I have no idea. I'm not a particularly good judge of my own work because I honestly do my best to avoid seeing the things, and with all due respect to the writers and the filmmakers and the technicians and the artists involved – it has nothing to do with them. I'm really proud of the experience most of the time, but I just can't stand seeing myself up there because you start to second guess yourself. You start to go, 'Why didn't I do this? Why didn't I do that? God. Look at my nose. I hate myself.' That kind of thing. You just start thinking about yourself and that's where you don't want to be because you were playing a character. So I have a tendency to really just take the experience with me and that's plenty. So I feel like once they wrap me it's none of my business anymore.”
