Johnny Depp: The Playboy Interviews (50 Years of the Playboy Interview) (2 page)

Playboy:
Do you remember the first time you saw yourself on-screen?

Depp:
I got sick. I went to see dailies of
Nightmare on Elm Street
. I was 21, and didn’t know what was going on. It was like looking in a huge mirror. It wasn’t how I looked that bothered me, though I did look like a geek in that movie. It was seeing myself up there pretending.

Playboy:
And you heaved?

Depp:
I didn’t actually vomit, but I felt like vomiting.

Playboy:
These days when Hollywood makes you sick, you and Kate Moss run off to London or Paris. What are you escaping from?

Depp:
Fame, celebrity—it’s not such a big deal in Europe. People seem to understand that you just have a weird job. They’re not running after you trying to carve chunks out of you. It’s strange in the States. Most fans here are great, but there’s a handful who have seen the movies and feel they know you. They think it’s all right to touch you and ask personal questions.

Playboy:
Like we’re doing now.

Depp:
But I’m selective about my interviews. I may quit doing them, too, because I always feel violated afterward. And stupid, for talking about myself for hours and hours.

Playboy:
You want the job but not the flashbulbs.

Depp:
Look, I used to work construction. I’ve pumped gas and sold T-shirts in my adult life, and there’s nothing worse than some rich actor saying, “Oh, my life is so hard.” I’m lucky to have this job. And celebrity, fame, whatever that stuff is, is a hazard of the job. Maybe I should do what Brando did 30 years ago. Buy an island. Maybe take my girl and some friends and just go there and sleep. And read and swim and think clear thoughts. Because you really can’t do that here. You can’t be normal, not with people hitting you up at any given moment with bizarre requests. You can’t just hang out and have a cup of coffee and pick your nose or [
reaching for his crotch
] adjust your package, you know?

Playboy:
You should be a baseball player.

Depp:
Right. I could spit and grab my crotch. Like that lady who sang the national anthem—what’s her name?

Playboy:
Roseanne.

Depp:
I liked that. It was ballsy of her.

Playboy:
So there’s an island on your Christmas list?

Depp:
If there’s anything I really want, it’s privacy. It’s the island idea. You do get to where your money can help your family, and that’s a great thing. You can buy that wristwatch you want, too. But mostly you now have to pay for simplicity. You use your money to buy privacy because during most of your life you aren’t allowed to be normal. You’re on display, always looked at, which puts you at a disadvantage for the people looking at you know that it’s you. They say, “It’s you!” But you don’t know them. That’s bad for an actor because the most important thing you can do is observe people. And now you can’t because you’re the one being observed.

Playboy:
Some of it must be enjoyable.

Depp:
It’s very nice when people come up and say, “I really liked
Don Juan DeMarco
, please sign my napkin.” What gets to me is being watched, whispered about. Would you ever walk up to someone on the street and say, “Can I kiss you?” No, you’d get smacked. “Can I look inside your wallet?” “What size is your shoe?” “Can I have your hat?” Some requests are too fucking surreal. On
Dead Man
I was hanging out with Jarmusch and the crew, smoking cigarettes, and there was a guy lurking, checking me out. He looked normal enough, but his eyes were a little too open. So I knew he’d come up to me, which he did. “Hi, Johnny! Wanna go have a drink?” I said, “Thanks, I’m OK.” He said, “Listen, you could really help me out. My wife and I are separating, but I want to get back with her. She’s a big fan of yours.” He wanted me to go home with him and mediate his divorce. I wouldn’t, so he said he’d call her on the phone and we could talk it out. Now, that stuff goes too far. You want to say, “Can’t we just kiss? Could you just shove your tongue down my gullet and be done with it?”

Playboy:
Some female fans love you enough to send you highly personal mementos.

Depp:
Nude pictures in the mail, yes. Tons of them. Some are beautiful—nicely lit, black-and-white, mysterious. Some are out-and-out primitive. Then there are the pubes. I’ve gotten a lot of pubic hairs in the mail. I don’t save them. I guess you could get ritualistic about it, burn the pubes in a fire, but I’m not sure I want to touch them so I throw them away.

Playboy:
How does it feel to be so handsome that women yank out their pubes for you?

Depp:
I have no control over that. It’s demeaning when people talk about my looks. I think I usually look like shit, and most people would probably agree.

Playboy:
You once said you feel more comfortable dining in a movie than in a restaurant.

Depp:
Calmer, anyway. In a real restaurant you may notice people talking under their breath, staring. It builds up in your head and you want to run.

Playboy:
Do you and Kate have techniques for avoiding bad scenes?

Depp:
If we run into a gaggle of paparazzi I’ll avoid eye contact. I’ll also put on my sunglasses. That way they don’t get paid as much for the picture.

Playboy:
Are you and Kate going to get married?

Depp:
I love Kate more than anything. Certainly enough to marry her. But as far as putting our names on paper, making weird public vows that signify ownership—it’s not in the cards.

Playboy:
Are you monogamous?

Depp:
I’m very true. I wouldn’t hurt her and I expect she wouldn’t hurt me. Fidelity is important as long as it’s pure. But the moment it goes against your insides—if you want to be somewhere else, if she wants to dabble—then you need to make a change. I’m not sure any human being is made to be with one person forever and ever, amen. My own parents didn’t do it; my dad left when I was 15. And maybe in some of my public relationships…maybe I was trying to right the wrongs of my parents by creating a classic fairy-tale love. Trying to solve the fear of abandonment we all have. Anyway, it didn’t work. That’s not to say I didn’t love those people. I have been with some great girls and I certainly thought I loved them, though now I have my doubts. I felt something intense, but was it love? I don’t know. So now I can’t say I can love someone forever, or if anybody can.

Playboy:
According to a recent story, you and Kate had set a wedding date. She wanted engraved invitations, but you wanted to send out a riddle so your friends would have to guess where to show up.

Depp:
It’s fiction. I can guarantee you that if I woke up one day with a wild hair up my ass to get hitched, there wouldn’t be invitations. We’d run out and do it.

Playboy:
What do you think when you see Kate’s picture on a billboard?

Depp:
I think she’s beautiful. Calvin Klein is lucky to have her. If we’re apart and I see her picture I’ll miss her, not because of a billboard but because she’s always on my mind anyway.

Playboy:
What’s something she does better than you?

Depp:
Modeling. And she’s great at games. She beats the shit out of me at gin rummy. Kate is a great girl, very smart. We’re a good team because she’s a light sleeper. You could hit me with a baseball bat and I wouldn’t wake up. But she’ll wake up: “Was that a pin dropping?” So I get some protection.

Playboy:
Does all the gossip bother you?

Depp:
It’s part of the game. You know that the tabloids—from the obvious ones to the subtler ones such as
Time
and
Newsweek
—will print anything to sell those fuckers. But you hear it and it can be stressful. Suppose you and I are at a bar, and you say hello to a girl. That’s innocent. For me the same thing becomes:
They were dangling from the St. James Hotel with hairbrushes sticking out of their asses.
That can cause a strain.

Playboy:
You mean that it wasn’t the St. James?

Depp:
Sorry, never happened. Here’s another one: Kate and I had a huge fight at a hotel in New York, a real screaming match in the lobby. It was in the papers. I thought it was pretty magical of us, for we were in France at the time.

Playboy:
What happened on September 13, 1994, when you smashed up a room at New York’s Mark Hotel?

Depp:
Another instance of not being allowed to be normal. I was having a bad day. I think we all have those, but if somebody else does what I did it’s not usually in the news. A security guy came to my door, and I said, basically, “I’m sorry, I broke some things. I’ll repay you.” But that’s not good enough. I go to jail. And the next day this gets equal billing with the invasion of Haiti, me beating up a hotel room. Imagine if I had hit somebody.

Playboy:
That clearly bothered you.

Depp:
[
With an Ed Wood gri
n] It’s all in a day’s work!

Playboy:
Don’t you invite it, though, by dating famous people? How come celebs fall in love only with other celebs?

Depp:
Probably because you have mutual friends. You move in the same circles. It’s like working in a factory—you strike up friendships with other employees. Also, you’ll go to a restaurant or a bar that caters to other people who know what it’s like to be exposed. So maybe they’re not after you so much.

Playboy:
With the Viper Room you’ve bought your own hideout.

Depp:
It’s easier here. I’ll have a couple beers or a glass of wine, get up and play my guitar with some friends. Every Thursday is martini night, a good time. One of the best nights for me was when Johnny Cash played here.

Playboy:
He must have matched the black decor.

Depp:
Yeah, he was brilliant
and
he blended in. He was just a head floating up there—beautiful.

Playboy:
The tabs have linked you with other celebrities, including Madonna.

Depp:
I read that I was in bed with her, which is a ton of shit. I have met her and it went like this: “How do you do?” “Hello, how are you?” Now when anyone asks about my affair with Madonna I say no, wrong—it was the Pope. He swept me off my feet.

Playboy:
For the record, how did you get under the robes of John Paul II?

Depp:
Well, he’s shy. I didn’t want to push too hard, but we shared a bottle of wine and I can tell you, the man is a great kisser. Watch him when he gets off a plane. He’ll really give that runway a good one.

Playboy:
You’re known for dodging attention by using fake names when you check into hotels. But your pseudonyms make good copy. Mr. Donkey Penis?

Depp:
It’s just that if you register as Mr. Poopy, for instance, you get a funny wake-up call. I used to use the name Mr. Stench; it was funny to be in a posh hotel and hear a very proper concierge call out, “Mr. Stench, please!” I never really stayed under the name Donkey Penis. That was an example I mentioned to a reporter once. But I have been Roid, Emma Roid.

Playboy:
You’ve said journalistic “fictions” bother you. What has been the worst?

Depp:
When something heavy happens and nine out of ten magazines turn it into a fucking vulture fest. They turn
you
into something sick.

Playboy:
You’re talking about River Phoenix.

Depp:
When River passed away, it happened to be at my club. Now that’s very tragic, very sad, but they made it a fiasco of lies to sell fucking magazines. They said he was doing drugs in my club, that I allow people to do drugs in my club. What a ridiculous fucking thought! “Hey, I’m going to spend a lot of money on this nightclub so everyone can come here and do drugs. I think that’s a good idea, don’t you? We’ll never get found out. It’s not like this place is
high profile
or anything, right?” That lie was ridiculous and disrespectful to River. But aside from River, and his family trying to deal with their loss, what about people who work in the club? They have moms and dads in, like, Oklahoma, reading about the place where their daughter tends bar and thinking, Jesus, she’s out in Hollywood swimming around with these awful creatures!

Playboy:
Meaning you.

Depp:
It was awful for my nieces and nephews to read that stuff, to have every two-bit pseudojournalist speculating viciously…viciously. And it hurt.

Playboy:
How did you cope?

Depp:
I closed the club for a few nights. To get out of the way so River’s fans could bring messages, bring flowers. And I got angry. I made a statement to the press: “Fuck you. I will not be disrespectful to River’s memory. I will not participate in your fucking circus.”

Playboy:
Is it haunting to walk past the spot where River died?

Depp:
At first it was. I couldn’t go to the club without thinking of it. Later I came to terms with the fact that it had nothing to do with the club. He was here a very short time. It had nothing to do with anything, really, except that what he ingested was bad, and now there is nothing we can do.

Playboy:
Did you shed tears that night?

Depp:
That’s a weird question.

Playboy:
You don’t have to answer.

Depp:
Yes. I shed tears when I heard someone had died. It wasn’t until later, four or five in the morning, that they told me it was River. It’s so sad to see a young life end. And now I’m starting to feel like I’m on
The Barbara Walters Special
. Are you going to make me cry?

Playboy:
No, we’ll even change the subject. Let’s talk about your boyhood. What’s your earliest memory?