Actually, IMDB says that Depp and Pitt were both born in 1963 (so yeah, they’re both 40). Norton was born in 69, so he’s a whole lot younger.
I agree that being 40 hardly qualifies you as a “young actor” anymore. But he just still looks so darn young, and I think that in the eyes of many people, that gives him somewhat of a lack of credibility. And the fact that’s he’s constantly being voted “most beautiful person in the world” and such doesn’t help either. A lot of people still think of Depp as a “pretty boy” who made good career choices (to an extent, that is what he is) and it will still take ten years or so for him to achieve a Tom Hanks status. That’s what I think anyway…
The Depp slimeball CIA agent character has his eyes gouged or cut out. Then has at least one gunfight scene as a sort of blind gunslinger. or something.
Like I said before, the photos from the official site look fascinating, I’m up for some mindless mariachi entertainment, but I don’t think I could handle this.
I think Depp is one of the best actors around. As already mentioned, You simply cannot find a bad role that he is played. I’d even go so far to say that I can’t think of a bad movie he has been in – some were “feh” but no outright stinkers.
Also, as Diogenes mentioned, his choice of roles earns him extra points in my book. Kudos to him for not making any shitty, contrived romance movie with Jennifer Anniston/Penelope Cruz/whoever the new Meg Ryan is. I’m sure he’s had to have gotten offers like that.
Just an offhand observation - I read that Depp modeled his Jack Sparrow (excuse me - CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow after…Keith Richard. It sounds bizarre, but when you think about it, you can see it. And that it works!
I saw a trailer for this yesterday (before SWAT) and it looks great! Of course I loved the two previous movies in Robert Rodriguez’s “trilogy,” El Mariachi and Desperado. Should be a stylish and fun action movie that owes a lot to John Woo and Sergio Leone.
My favorite Johnny Depp story of all times incidentally- it’ll come as no surprise to the 3 people who don’t already know it that Depp is one of the weirdest actors in the business and he’s had more drugs pass through him than the Isthmus of Panama (though I understand he’s cleaned up a good bit since becoming a father). In an interview I read with him in GQ many years ago when GILBERT GRAPE first came out (an interview in which he also mentioned being stoned out of his mind on coke while a guest of honor at a Nancy Reagan “JUST SAY NO” fundraiser during his JUMP ST. days- the same fundraiser had a cash bar but wouldn’t serve coffee because caffeine’s a drug), he mentioned his nervousness at flying. Once he got stoned in order to get on a plane and once on it was still nervous as a pregnant nun. Wanting to do something or say something to break the tension he stood up and yelled
I FUCK ANIMALS!
He said the flight attendants and other passengers all looked at him in stunned disbelief and like they were trying to decide how best to surround and restrain him. A nerdy, balding steretypical “accountant” type (no offense to accountants- I’m a librarian so I know that we don’t all fit the occupational stereotype) proved that still waters can run deep when he turned around in his seat and very calmly asked
CRY BABY is about to be made into a major B’way musical, incidentally, by the producers of HAIRSPRAY .
FROM HELL is one of those movies I couldn’t enjoy because it was at such variance from the book. Depp’s character in the movie was based on two characters in the graphic novel, both of them historical and neither of whom died at the end.
Thanks for the spoiler, well he’s back. I hadn’t read anything about this yet, but it still won’t stop me from seeing it.
Bad movies? Well, I thought “The Astronaut’s Wife” wasn’t all that great; it’s low on my list. Johnny was good in it, but the story was so damn meh and I didn’t care for Charlize Theron at all.
“Depp” is his real name and I believe it means something like “village idiot” in German. Kind of fitting ;).
Interesting trivia from the DVD commentary on CHOCOLAT: in real life Depp ** hates** chocolate with a passion and he had to eat pounds of it during the continual shooting and reshooting of his scenes. He says that the best acting he has ever done was the look of delight on his face whenever he has to taste Julianne Moore’s latest offering (though he very much hit it off with one of the old ladies who plays one of Leslie Caron’s friends and they’re still friends).
When he first moved to Hollywood he lived in a car with one of his friends incidentally. He’s implied that he supplemented his income with drug dealing and prostitution, neither of which would surprise me. He also owns one of Bela Lugosi’s mansions (purchased obviously before Bela’s ED WOOD phase).
My favorite Deppism is when he explains that living around addicts and alcoholics trained him to be a parent. The similarities are amazing: the rages, the delirious happiness, then the defecation, and vomit. Children are like midget drunks.
