Interview: Johnny Depp

Jul 3 2009 by Shereen Low

Johnny Depp tells Shereen Low about following in a gangster’s footsteps

“That was the dig – how do I find this man, what does he sound like? John Dillinger was born in Moorsville, Indiana, which was two hours’ from where I was born and raised in Kentucky.

“At that point, I thought, ‘I hear his voice now’. Now I know him. He was my grandfather who drove a bus in the day and ran moonshine by night, he was my stepfather who did time at Statesfield penitentiary.”

Depp spent time in some of the haunts frequented by the ‘Gentleman Bandit’ and handled the same weaponry.

“To be able to fire my Thompson submachine gun out of the same window John Dillinger fired his Thompson out of in the gun battle at Little Bohemia was – you can’t put a price on that sort of thing,” he says.

“To literally be able to step into and walk into the same footsteps that he took, to walk the walk outside the Biograph theatre and land exactly in the tiny millimetre where his head fell (when he was killed) was magical.”

He admits there were times when he felt “his presence” around him.

The close connections made it hard to put Dillinger aside once filming ended.

“Saying goodbye to John Dillinger was tough because it was like saying goodbye to a relative,” he admits.

Despite dabbling in music in his spare time, Depp – who flexes his vocal chords in one scene in the film – has little interest in a career change.

“I sang the one time in Sweeney because basically I had no choice. No, better stay in your own arena,” he says.

As well as the fourth instalment of Pirates Of The Caribbean, Depp’s upcoming projects include playing the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland and American journalist Paul Kemp in The Rum Diary, which he also produced.

“I’ve never felt particularly ambitious or driven. Everything I’ve done has happened because it’s happened. I’m just an actor and if I can leave something behind that my kids will be proud of, then that’s what I want,” he says.