Johnny Depp: The Playboy Interviews (50 Years of the Playboy Interview) (3 page)

Depp:
Catching lightning bugs. Beautiful, fascinating bugs. There was a little girl who lived next door who had a brace on her leg. We used to play on the swing set, and the night the astronauts landed on the moon, her father came out and looked up and said, in all seriousness, “When man sets foot on the face of the moon, the moon will turn to blood.” I was shocked. I remember thinking, Geez, I’m six and that’s a little deep for me. I stayed up watching the moon. It was a big relief when it didn’t change.

Playboy:
Didn’t you have an uncle who was a Bible-thumping preacher?

Depp:
Yes. That gave me an odd sense of religion. He was theatrical in the pulpit. He would start crying, praising the Lord. Pretty soon the adults were screaming hallelujah, getting on their hands and knees, crawling up to kiss his shoes, and I just didn’t buy it. I’m not saying my uncle was full of shit, because he was a good guy. I just didn’t like the duality—seeing him behave normally at home and a whole different way in the pulpit. It was too convenient. Why did the Lord strike you only in church? Why didn’t he hit you in the bathroom or when you were barbecuing hot dogs?

Playboy:
As a boy, did you think you were headed for big things? Did you ever want to be a movie star?

Depp:
At four or five I fancied myself a Matt Helm, the spy Dean Martin played. I also wanted to be Flint—James Coburn. Those guys got all the women.

Playboy:
Were you geeky as a kid?

Depp:
I’m geeky now. I sure don’t look around and say, “Hey, isn’t this great?” I’ve never felt that and probably never will.

Playboy:
Did you like your name? It’s a great movie name, but a kid might rather be Johnny Jones.

Depp:
It spawned nicknames. I was Johnny Dip. Deppity Dog. Dippity-Do. I didn’t mind it, and didn’t really think about it until my first movie, when they asked how I wanted to be billed. John Depp? It sounds pumped up. I was always Johnny.

Playboy:
You were a kid when the family moved from Kentucky to Miramar, Florida.

Depp:
We moved like gypsies. From the time I was five until my teens we lived in 30 or 40 different houses. That probably has a lot to do with my transient life now. But it’s how I was raised so I thought there was nothing abnormal about it. Wherever the family is, that’s home. We lived in apartments, on a farm, in a motel. Then we rented a house, and one night we moved from there to the house next door. I remember carrying my clothes across the yard and thinking, This is weird, but it’s an easy move.

Playboy:
Were you a bully? Ever beat up anyone?

Depp:
The guys I hung out with in my early teens were bullies, kind of, so I did a little of that. Picking on someone, pushing people around. I didn’t like it. It got me so angry that I’d be on the poor guy’s side.

Playboy:
Meanwhile, you hated school—

Depp:
I wasn’t learning. I felt the teachers were there to kill eight hours and get paid. I had more fun playing guitar. I was playing in a band in nightclubs at an early age, and that was an education.

Playboy:
How old were you when you lost your virginity?

Depp:
I was about 13, playing guitar at a club, and this girl who was a little older had been hanging around listening to us. She was a virgin, too. That night we just…partook. It was in the bass player’s van, a blue Ford. I knew what to do—I had studied the subject for many years. And I remember us laughing, having a good time together. It’s a sweet, sweet memory. She became my girl for a while, but then we lost touch. I haven’t seen her in a long time, about 19 years.

Playboy:
You were 15 when your parents split up. Were you crushed?

Depp:
There wasn’t time. It was too traumatic for my mom.

Playboy:
Betty Sue—her name is on the heart tattoo on your left arm.

Depp:
She got very ill. Her life as she had known it for 20 years was over. Her partner, her husband, her best friend, her lover, had just left her. I felt crushed that he had left, but when you’re faced with something like that, it’s amazing how much abuse the human mind and heart can take. You just get past what you need to get past. Sure, on some level I was thinking, Wait a minute, what happened to my family? What about stability, the safety of the home? But my feelings were secondary to thinking about my mom. All the focus was on her getting through that time, which she finally did, and now everyone is pretty OK. I’m even on good terms with my dad.

Playboy:
At the time, though, you were subject to various fears.

Depp:
Oh, yes. My sister Christi had a baby when I was 17, and I had just heard about crib death. The horrible thing was that it wasn’t understood. For some unknown reason the baby would stop breathing. So I would sneak into where the baby was sleeping and put my hand in her crib, hold her little finger, and I’d sleep on the floor like that. It was stupid, I’m sure. But I thought the warmth of my hand might help, that maybe if she felt my pulse it would remind her to breathe.

Playboy:
You were sensitive.

Depp:
A total paranoid.

Playboy:
You dropped out of high school about that time. Did the other Depps try to talk you out of it?

Depp:
No, they were supportive. It was other people, family friends, who thought I was a shithead. They figured I was proving them right by dropping out of school to play guitar in nightclubs. And I thought maybe they were right. My main feeling when I left school was one of insecurity. It was, What the fuck am I gonna do? I’m nobody. I’m a fuckup, just like those outside voices say. I seriously considered joining the Marines because I didn’t want to be a fuckup. I thought that if I joined the Marines and learned to deal with authority, maybe I could be a normal guy.

Playboy:
Then why aren’t you crewcut Colonel Depp today?

Depp:
My band had some success.

Playboy:
You were 17. Your band, the Kids, rubbed shoulders with major acts when they toured Florida. There’s a famous tale about you and Iggy Pop.

Depp:
We opened for the Ramones, the Pretenders, the Talking Heads. One night we opened for Iggy. It went great. After the show I was pretty drunk, and in the Iggy tradition I wanted more, so I started screaming at him. Just sophomoric insults: “Iggy Poop! Who the fuck are you? Iggy Slop!” He got in my face and said, “You little turd.” And walked away. So of course I was delighted. I looked over at the bass player and said, “Yeah, that was Iggy. He’s a god.”

Playboy:
A few years later he played a supporting role in
Cry-Baby
. Did he remember you?

Depp:
No. He said he didn’t remember much from those years.

Playboy:
Pretty soon after that you went out west with the band.

Depp:
We got bored in south Florida. We had to move to Los Angeles to make it big. I remember the drive out. Driving 18 hours at a stretch, you hit a kind of hallucinatory state of sleep deprivation that sends you into orbit. You blink and look up and you’re driving into the devil’s mouth. It was a good time. You have high hopes because you’re not thinking of yourself as a self but as a band member, that great camaraderie. Then, before you know it, you’re on your own.

Playboy:
But the band shattered on contact with the big time?

Depp:
We broke up, and I couldn’t lean on the drummer or the bass player anymore. It was all me. I had to deliver.

Playboy:
So what was your first step?

Depp:
I sold pens.

Playboy:
On the street?

Depp:
It was marketing—working the phone from a big stuffy building in Hollywood, near Hollywood and Vine. The best thing about that job was using the phone—I’d call my family in Florida on the pretext of selling them pens. The boss, the pen boss, would circle the room, but when he went by I’d say, “How many pens would you like, 288? Two gross?” After he passed I’d whisper, “Mom, are you there?” The free phone calls were fine, but the sales pitch was a batch of lies. Telling people they could win a trip to Greece or a beautiful grandfather clock. So I learned my pen-selling script—it was really my first acting gig—and then ad-libbed. I actually sold some pens. But I felt so bad lying that I began telling people, “Don’t buy the fucking pens. The grandfather clock is made of corkboard.”

Playboy:
Ending your telemarketing career. Fortunately, you had a friend, Nicolas Cage.

Depp:
We became friends through music when I was in the band. He had already done
Valley Girl
,
Rumble Fish
and
Cotton Club
, so I knew him as an actor. But I wasn’t planning to be one. We just hung out.

Playboy:
At the parking garage of a local mall?

Depp:
That’s the story. We were messing around one night at the Beverly Center, having a giggle. We may have been drinking. We were goofing around, and the story is that we wound up hanging by our fingers five stories up on the parking structure. I don’t remember, but I’m thinking we did.

Playboy:
It seems that there’s something particularly postmodern about daredevil acts at a mall.

Depp:
It was the ultimate death-defying white-trash act.

Playboy:
Cage arranged to get you a tryout for
Elm Street
and you were well on your way.

Depp:
But even after that first movie I never thought that there would be others. I didn’t necessarily want there to be. I wanted to play my guitar. But with the band broken up, I needed rent money. I needed cigarettes.

Playboy:
After
Elm Street
you moved to
21 Jump Street
. You reportedly detested the show that made you famous. Did you really think
21 Jump Street
was “fascist”?

Depp:
Sure it was. Cops in school? I mean, bad things happen in schools, but this was even worse than cops in school. It was preachy, pointing the finger. And it was hypocritical because the people running that show, the very highest of the higher-ups, were getting high. They were getting loaded. And then to say, “Now kiddies, don’t do this” was horseshit. I was miserable living that lie for three years. Mortified. I was getting loaded, too. Am I really the one to say, “Don’t get high”?

Playboy:
Did you try to get out of your contract?

Depp:
I offered to do a year of the show for free. I hate sounding like, “Oh, I’m on television and they’re paying me a load of money, poor me,” but I would have done two years for free to get out of there. They were trying to turn me into Menudo, into the New Kids on the Block. I couldn’t play that game. I would rather shrink back into everyday life than get stuck being that.

Playboy:
You must have enjoyed being America’s dreamboat at least a little.

Depp:
Not for one day. To enjoy lying? Enjoy being a piece of a machine, the product of a huge assembly line? No. And fighting the label of heartthrob is hard, too. By then I wanted to be an actor, and that was impossible on TV.

Playboy:
Jump Street
got you invited to the Reagan White House.

Depp:
Yeah, for a Just Say No event. That was the biggest joke of all. But I took my mom and she loved it. We watched all the people—everyone acting so proper, trying to get close to the president. We were desperate for coffee, but there was no coffee allowed, no caffeine. People were putting away the booze, though. We had a laugh.

Playboy:
Is your mother a movie fan?

Depp:
She doesn’t talk much about my movies, though she knows when I’m real, when it’s me at my most honest. She can sift through whatever horseshit I might have thrown in there and find that. I took her to the premiere of
Don Juan
and we talked later. It was in the anger, the flare-ups, and some of the sad moments when she could see me.

Playboy:
Is she proud?

Depp:
Sometimes she still looks at me and says, “God, can you believe your life? Going from living in a motel to all this?” She’s still a little shocked. So am I. I’m probably more shocked than anyone. Being able to earn money making faces, telling lies! When it all started about eight years ago, she was still a waitress. People, customers, would say, “You’re Johnny Depp’s mom!” and she’d be all proud. Then it took a turn, and now it’s more uncomfortable. Whom can you trust? Who’s real and who’s just smiling? I think she’s getting tired of it.

Playboy:
You’ve publicly ducked questions about you and Brando, saying the two of you have never discussed acting.

Depp:
We have talked about it. I think he feels compelled to tell me about his experiences, to offer advice. He has said I should play Hamlet, for one thing. What I remember are scenes we had in
Don Juan
. There are times when you’re trying to get somewhere inside, but there’s so much stuff going on around you—the guy with the clapboard, the grip over there drinking coffee, the director going “action”—that you’re just not ready. He was there for me then. He helps create an atmosphere that makes those moments easier. Even if it’s just by laughing, talking, looking at you. He helped make scenes between the two of us totally private.

Playboy:
Sounds romantic. Did he moon you, too?

Depp:
[
Laughing
] A couple of times. I mooned him back.

Playboy:
Seriously, Brando-wise—

Depp:
All the feelings are there: teacher and student, father and son. He’s a hero.

Playboy:
Were you jealous when he kissed Larry King on TV?

Depp:
He did kiss Larry King, didn’t he? I think it was sweet. Maybe I should be jealous because I didn’t kiss Larry.

Playboy:
You have another passion: collecting odd things. What’s the latest?

Depp:
There’s a bug store in Paris off the Boulevard St. Germain. I love snooping around in there. I recently bought a gift for a friend, a bug that looks shockingly like a leaf. The veins, the coloring, all perfect. If this guy were in a tree, you couldn’t find him with a microscope—and that, to me, is a miracle. How could evolution attain that disguise? Insects are fascinating. You could never wipe them out. They’re too fucking tough and too smart.

Playboy:
What else? Do you collect shrunken heads?