Ein sehr langes, aber interessantes Interview, dass vielleicht das ein oder andere "warum" beantwortet.
Johnny Depp's latest film, The Rum Diary, is an adaptation of a semiautobiographical novel that was written in 1959 by a thentwenty- two-year-old, pre-Gonzo Hunter S. Thompson, but not published until 1998. In the film, directed and written for the screen by Bruce Robinson (Withnail and I, How to Get Ahead in Advertising), Depp portrays novice journalist Paul Kemp, a new addition to the staff of The San Juan Star, who struggles to develop his journalistic skills and writing style amidst the sex, booze, drugs, social turmoil, and political corruption in Puerto Rico during the late Eisenhower era.
As Depp describes it below, The Rum Diary represents for him a longdelayed labor of love, one that he initiated with the author in 1997, but which was not completed until six years after Thompson's 2005 suicide, and released nationwide in the United States last October. "It's a special little film," said Depp, who committed himself to an international promotional campaign, in particular making personal appearances (often accompanied by writer-director Bruce Robinson) at college campuses to screen and discuss the film.
In November 2011, before an audience of students at La Fémis (formerly L'Institut des hautes études cinématographiques)-France's national film school in Paris, housed in the former buildings of the Pathé studios, one of the birthplaces of the cinema-Depp was interviewed by Antoine de Baecque, French film critic, biographer, and historian.
Cineaste: What was the genesis of your new film, The Rum Diary?
Johnny Depp: It began when Hunter S. Thompson and I accidentally located the manuscript of the book. We were sitting cross-legged on the floor of what he called his "war room," which contained all his manuscripts and letters and everything else, and I unearthed this manuscript and started to read it. It was not only amazingly, beautifully written but it was also incredibly cinematic. I told him that and he said, "Well, damn, then we should make a f***ing film out of it." I said, "Yeah, but maybe you should publish the book first." So he did. He published the book and then the two of us went on the road, trying to get financing for the film.
It was ridiculous because it was basically Hunter and me, two guys drinking whiskey, sitting in front of another guy with a lot of money, trying to get at his wallet. It wasn't really the best move but that's what we did for several years. My motivation, basically, was that Hunter wanted it done as a film, he wanted me as his partner, and he wanted me to play Paul Kemp. So, after all these years, and after Hunter's expected/unexpected exit, we got it done. Ultimately, the film is a love letter to Hunter.
Cineaste: How important was Thompson for you? What sort of a man was he?
Depp: Hunter was someone I became very, very close with in a very short period of time. He was, without question, one of the best friends I've ever had in my life. He had a constant work ethic, twenty-four hours a day. Hunter was never anything other than the observer or the writer. He was very generous with me. I moved into his house and lived with him for months on end. He was completely insane, incredibly funny, incredibly smart and quick-witted. There were moments I spent with him when I didn't really know, "Will we live or die in this situation?" He was a guy that once called me up at three o'clock in the morning and asked, "What do you know about hairy black tongue disease?" I didn't know much, but he swiftly explained it to me. He was one of the most important writers of the twentieth century-someone who invented his own language, his own style-and for me he was one of the most important writers of all time.
Cineaste: To what extent, artistically or financially, did you take a risk on The Rum Diary?
Depp: The Rum Diary was never meant to be something that could become a franchise. But I suppose that because of my involvement with the Pirates films, there were some commercial expectations. But the film flopped. It hasn't made that much money. But The Rum Diary was always meant to be true to Hunter and true to Bruce and that artistic vision. In terms of risks involved, I never considered the idea of boxoffice success as success. All I know is that in 1997 Hunter and I found a box, I pulled the manuscript out, and we decided to make it into a film. Hunter was my partner, my partner took himself out in 2005, it's now 2011, and the film is done. We fulfilled what Hunter wanted, so to me that's an enormous success.
Cineaste:Are there risks involved?
There are risks involved in anything. There were huge risks involved in things like Pirates of the Caribbean. There are huge risks involved in the things that you decide not to do that are more important, much more defining, than the things you do. Ultimately, you choose your battles. In any case, I think whether The Rum Diary makes ten dollars or ten million dollars, we won. We won for Hunter.
Cineaste: How faithful is your film adaptation of The Rum Diary to Thompson's novel?
Depp: Having written the book in 1959, and then stuffing it into a box for thirty-something years, Hunter was very well aware of, let's say, its flaws. Translating it for the screen was a huge dilemma because Hunter had split himself in two-there was a character called Kemp and another character called Yeamon. Bruce knew that he either had to integrate these two characters, mash them into one, or slice one out. I think Hunter was well aware of that. Hunter also used to speak about his ideas for making The Rum Diary work, which were infinitely more radical. For example, he said, "Let's change the location to Cuba." He was really all for going outside the book.
Cineaste: Did you discuss the film of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with Thompson? Why did you subsequently want to do The Rum Diary? Do you think that film is closer to his personality, his style?
Depp: It was Hunter who asked me if I would be interested in doing what he used to refer to as "the Vegas book." He asked me if I would play the part, and, knowing him-at that point we were pretty good friends-I said, "Listen, if I do even a remotely decent job of playing you, if I come close to who you are, you might end up hating me for the rest of your life. This could really be the end of the friendship." And he said, "Well, that's the chance you must take, isn't it?"
So I did the film and, in the interim, getting to know him to the degree that I did was very helpful in the sense of turning back the clock and playing Paul Kemp in The Rum Diary. The Raoul Duke of Las Vegas is a kind of fully realized Hunter S. Thompson and the Paul Kemp character of The Rum Diary is still Hunter in the kind of innocent stages of his journalistic endeavors and also living in a more innocent period of U.S. history-pre-Kennedy assassination, pre-Vietnam, pre-psychedelia, pre-hippie movement, and so on. So it was the idea of stripping away layers, taking layers off the man you knew, in order to bring it down to a sort of base level before Hunter found his voice, before he found that avenue for the rage, the anger.
Cineaste: What would you say is the most important aspect of the relationship on the set between the director and the actor?
Depp: Trust is the key-the idea of really being able to trust that director or really being able to trust that actor. I've certainly been in situations as an actor where I felt nothing for the director, and other times I've felt maybe even some degree of rage and hatred for the director. On The Rum Diary, Bruce and I were always on the same page, both working toward the same goal. And with Bruce's dialogue, there was no reason to improvise. I'm usually a psycho in terms of that. I go off page all the time just to try to liven things up, to shock the other actor, to drop the bottom out of a scene, to create a moment that might not otherwise have been there. I think it's important to do that. With Bruce, the bottom is already out, he's written the shocking bit, and it's a pleasure to work with someone of his caliber.
We made a pact before we did the film-because he likes a bit of a tipple and I'm not so far from that myself-that we wouldn't drink because that would be the easy thing to do. I mean, we're making a film called The Rum Diary, we're going to Puerto Rico, there's going to be rum and other booze. So we made a pact not to drink for the first couple of months, and we did that really well...for a while.
Cineaste: In France, where his books have now been translated and have developed a cult following, Hunter Thompson is celebrated as a leading figure of the counterculture. How important has that relationship to underground culture, the counterculture, been for you?
Depp: I'm much more interested in the counterculture, the subculture, the bohemian aspect. I was on a TV series, 21 Jump Street, for a few years and it was strange because I felt imprisoned and very limited. When I got out of that, I swore to myself that I would never, ever deviate from the road that I chose. Doing Cry- Baby with John Waters was a very important move for me, and having Tim Burton bring me into Edward Scissorhands was really the moment when I felt myself on solid ground for the first time, and then I just continued on that road. Having now infiltrated the enemy camp, so to speak, with things like Pirates of the Caribbean- which was a complete accident-it's been kind of interesting to see both sides.
Cineaste: Who are the people you feel have been most important in your development?
Depp: Well, Tim Burton is someone who instantly became a brother. We somehow saw things in the same way, we understood the absurdities of life and the perversities of the business of cinema. Tim was the guy who initially put me on the road, but I've also known and become very close to people like Marlon Brando, Hunter S. Thompson, and Keith Richards. These are people that are many things to me. Marlon was a father, a mentor, a teacher, a friend, a brother, and the same goes for those other guys. You just sponge up as much as possible, take as much knowledge as you can, because they're giving it. I've been very blessed in that sense.
Cineaste: In terms of the importance of trust between an actor and a director, you seem to have that relationship with Tim Burton. Would you accept any proposition from him?
Depp: We've worked together for over twenty years now. Edward Scissorhands was a very personal and very risky film for Tim to do. He'd done his first Batman film, which was very successful, but Edward Scissorhands was really a risky project. I was the last person in the world in line to receive that role, and the opportunity to play the part came about only because of Tim's belief in me. He saw something in me that he related to personally, because Edward Scissorhands is Tim, was Tim when he was a kid. That role is still to this day the most important thing I've ever done in terms of where I was going and where I ended up.
A few years later, Tim called me up one night, very frantic, asking, "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm just sitting around." He said, "Can you meet me at the Formosa Cafe? I'll be at the bar. When can you be here?" So in twenty minutes I was there and he said, "I've got this idea to make a film about Ed Wood, a cross-dressing filmmaker in the Fifties, and I want to shoot it in black and white." I was instantly in, of course. Anything that Tim ever proposed to me I did, basically, because there is a comfort zone there. The best description I can use is that it's like going home. I'm working with my brother. He doesn't have to finish his sentence and I don't have to finish my sentence. All this is really to Tim's credit because up until Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he had to fight with every studio he was working with to get me into his movies because I wasn't on the A-list of actors. I was the guy who made these weird movies that no one ever saw.
We've done nine films together at this point, so there's an element of trust that's just built in somehow and it works incredibly beautifully. Even his wife doesn't understand it, and I think she gets a little jealous sometimes.
Cineaste: What do you see as the relationship between the creation of art and drug addiction or drug consumption? [Both Depp and audience laugh]
Depp: I think there's certainly a correlation between the idea of wanting to create, whether it's Charles Baudelaire, Hunter S. Thompson, or Keith Richards, and a certain amount of selfmedicating that they felt or feel is required due to a hypersensitivity. Hunter was a very sensitive man and people made the mistake of reading his words and thinking that they were filled with hatred and rage. The rage did not come out of hatred, the rage came out of caring too much. So if there's any relationship between art and drugs or inebriation, it's most definitely due to trying to desensitize everything that you feel. I think we've all done it, haven't we?
Cineaste: You mentioned Baudelaire and earlier spoke of François Villon. Is poetry like a drug for you?
Depp: Most assuredly. There are things that you can't live without: being able to find a line of Rimbaud or Baudelaire, or Ginsberg for that matter. Certain words out there can give you a sort of foundation and help you move forward, to make you believe everything will be all right.
Cineaste: In 1997 you both acted in and directed The Brave. How do you direct yourself as an actor? And would you like to direct another film in the future?
Depp: I did enjoy The Brave-I mean, I liked the film. But you and I and maybe five other people saw it. What I didn't like about The Brave was having to direct myself because there were so many different sorts of energies going on at the time. The idea of playing a part, of being an actor, means to some degree being out of control- to be unaware of your surroundings, but at the same time to be hyperaware of your surroundings, to just be in the moment. Being a director, however, means having to be in control of the moment. I really found those two opposing forces unpleasant. I also had to go home at night and rewrite the scene for the next day, which was odd. But the worst of it was that I had to watch myself in the dailies, the rushes, and it made me sick. I hated it!
I spoke with one of my great friends, Marlon Brando, and I told him, "I'm f***ing killing myself watching these dailies. I can't stand it." And he said [imitating Brando], "Well, f*** it, don't watch 'em. What's wrong with you? Just stop, because you're going to see the rushes in the editing room anyway. Don't worry about it, man. Just get your takes and split." That was the best advice in the world because I was then able to at least maintain some semblance of my role as an actor. And believe me, I did see the rushes in the editing room, far too much.
As for the idea of directing again, I'm actually doing something now, but it's a long process. I'm working on a documentary about Keith Richards. He's been very generous and allowed me to document his life and his words, his brilliance. But in terms of making a movie, directing a film, I honestly prefer doing things that don't have to make sense. I would rather that the mathematics didn't have to be there, that one thing didn't have to lead to the next, if that makes any sense.
Cineaste: You've been involved in several disastrous projects, which were never completed, most notably Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote film. What is that experience like?
Depp: I've had a couple of those, yeah. We had been shooting for about two weeks, or something like that, on Terry Gilliam's film when I saw the sky literally open up and wash equipment away, and saw technicians screaming and running after things. I watched Terry-a great, old friend of mine-as he literally shrank before my eyes, and got smaller and smaller. I saw Jean Rochefort, whom I also adore, trying so hard to do the right thing, but he was very ill at that time. That project was absolutely cursed. It was a nightmare. But the only thing you could do, really, was to laugh, because it was so nuts, so insane.
At one point there was nothing we could shoot because Jean had returned to Paris. But we had sixty German dentists coming to visit the set that day because they were huge investors in the film [audience erupts in laughter]. Yes, sixty German dentists, that was where the money was coming from. Terry said, "Quick, we need to shoot something! What can we do?" I said, "Well, what's the scenario, what's the location?" So he showed me this location, kind of a cliff and a waterfall and a horse, and I said, "Look, I don't care how you do it, but get me a dead fish, I just need a dead fish." So I can remember literally improvising a scene with a dead fish as sixty German dentists were standing nearby, watching and laughing, thinking we were doing a great job. That was shortly before the film fell apart.
Another time, Marlon Brando-this was after we'd done Don Juan DeMarco together-asked me if I would go to Ireland with him and do a film called Divine Rapture down in Cork, in a place called Ballycotton. I said, "Yeah, sure, give me the script." He said, "Nah, you don't need a script. You're playing a reporter from New York who comes down to interview Debra Winger, playing this part, and I'm going to play a priest." I said, "All right, I'll do it." So I arrived in Ireland on a Friday night and on Saturday morning I met the director, whom I didn't know, and he asked me, "How's your accent?" I said, "What accent?" He said, "Your Dublin accent, your Irish accent." I had no idea what he was talking about, so I went to see Marlon and asked, "What's the deal with the Dublin accent?" He cracked up laughing because it was his practical joke on me. By then it was Saturday night and by Monday morning I had to learn a Dublin accent. We did that film for about ten days, maybe two weeks, and the money evaporated. I got a phone call from Marlon who just said [imitating Brando], "Don't come back, kid."
Sometimes these things just go away. You know, The Brave almost went away. It was very close. Emir Kusturica's Arizona Dream almost went away. You're always kind of teetering on the verge of total disaster with some of these films. When it's not a huge-budget situation, there's always this worry that, "Christ, it might go away tomorrow."
Cineaste: Can you explain your approach as an actor to creating characters? Do you begin with the psychological or physical aspects?
Depp: It's always been the same for me. A couple of things happen when I'm reading a screenplay-and generally about ten pages into it you can tell whether or not this is something for you. Number one, what do I have to offer this story, this character, that might be different from somebody else's interpretation? How can I make it different? Then, number two, what happens when I'm reading the screenplay, and I like it, is that I get flooded with images or memories that somehow correlate to the character. What I do is then incorporate them. It's sort of like gathering ingredients, like a shopping list, when you're making a soup. You gather the ingredients and then incorporate them. You try them out and perhaps find that one doesn't work, so that gets eliminated, and ultimately you end up with the three, four, or five main ingredients that end up defining the character.
Cineaste: Would you specifically discuss that process in creating the character of Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? It's fascinating how you can create a character primarily with your face.
Depp: For me, with Willy Wonka, a couple of things were going on. I thought about some of the hosts of children's television shows I remember watching as a kid. These guys had kind of hyperrealistic personas-just far too much, you know-the kind of children's show host that you just didn't know if you could trust. So that was one element, or ingredient. Another thing that somehow came into my mind was the idea of George Bush and what it would be like if he were incredibly stoned on marijuana. [audience laughs]
Cineaste: Was Michael Jackson another ingredient?
Depp: No, actually I've been accused of that, but Michael Jackson didn't enter the equation at all. It was much more a very, very stoned George Bush.
Cineaste: What ingredients went into the creation of Captain Jack Sparrow?
Depp: It started when I spent an unpleasantly long period of time in a sauna, to the point where I was on the verge of delusion. At that time, luckily, I had been spending some time with Keith Richards, and I thought, "Well, that's it. Rock 'n' roll stars are the kind of pirates of today." You know, the reputation of their myth, especially someone like Keith, precedes them long before they arrive in town to play the show. So it was kind of a combination of Keith, certainly, and the idea of being affected by intense heat for lengthy periods of time, because it does fry your brain a little. Another character that came into my head was a guy named Pepé le Pew. He was a skunk who reeked, who smelled very bad, but he always thought that this female cat was in love with him. So that kind of delusional behavior, that self-confidence even though you smell like a trash can, was another element.
Cineaste: When you mentioned Marlon Brando earlier, it reminded me of how as an actor he often related to objects, to props. I see a bit of that in your approach to acting as well. Do you agree?
Depp: I have always enjoyed the idea of what is known in the trade as "available stimulus"-props, sets, costumes, and so on. I always regard them as a kind of aid. There are things you might see on the set that put something else into your mind-not necessarily something that you're going to do the same in every take, but a particular object might inspire something in that particular moment. That's the key, I think-just to live within that moment. Marlon had one of the finest moments of that sort I've ever seen, in the film Reflections in a Golden Eye, when he is looking at a spoon that has ties to his emotions about an unrequited homosexual relationship he was unable to face up to. Everything, all the energy in the scene, comes from his moment with that spoon, and I'd never seen anyone do anything like that before.
Cineaste: In today's age of digital cinema, of course, you are often called upon to react to things you can't even see at the time. What do you think of CGI and digital cinema?
Depp: I must say I'm not a huge fan of digital cinema. I think it's great in creating a wonderful sense of immediacy, but if you give someone like Michael Mann a digital camera with a fifty-two minute chip, as an actor you're in big trouble. There's something about digital cinema that I can't quite get my head around, which is to say that 35mm or 16mm has a mystery, some sense of distance or poetry, that digital just doesn't have, and cinematically I don't think it works yet. But that's me, I'm an old-school guy in that sense.
Cineaste: Would you discuss your love of old movies, especially your relation to silent-film stars such as Lon Chaney and Buster Keaton? Is that one of the "ingredients" you use to make your soup?
Depp: Silent cinema is still the most important cinema to me. I'm not really interested in watching most of contemporary cinema. With rare exceptions, I can't really deal with anything beyond about 1980-after that, it's over with for me. But silent-cinema stars- especially Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Lon Chaney, Sr.-those are my absolute heroes. I'm fascinated watching their performances and seeing what they were capable of, especially when you acknowledge that they did not have the luxury of dialogue. It's very easy to say the words, "I love you" or "I hate you," but to express that without words, that's the key. What I admire about those guys is what they were able to do with just their eyes and body language. I mean, Keaton would tilt his head a certain way and it would just slice you in half. What Chaney did in films like The Penalty is virtually impossible to do today, because everything now is CGI, but Chaney actually went through the pain of strapping his legs behind his back. He could stand it for only twenty minutes at a time, because it was like hideous torture, but that's what he did for the character.
Cineaste: Did you have Chaney in mind when you played Lord Wilmot in The Libertine?
Depp: Not so much, no, at least not that I was aware of. But that's the thing, you see, these people still haunt me to this day, the Chaneys and Keatons and Chaplins haunt me because I've filled myself with them, and I worship and adore them. The Libertine was a quick shoot, it was forty-five days, and I knew it was going to be intense and semipainful, so you just commit yourself during that period. You embrace it and then just dive in. All I was thinking about then was John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, who was somebody I thought and still feel needs to be celebrated, so I was trying to give back to him. That was a weird one, you know, because you finish the film and you think, "Ahh, it's finally over," and then suddenly you're down for two weeks, you're on the couch, feeling ill.
Cineaste: Do you think there is a link between all your characters?
Depp: That's a difficult question. I think there may be some kind of strange link between all the characters. I seem to have some obsession with injustice, with what is or isn't considered normal-because it's the things that are considered normal out there in the world that I find the most bizarre and confusing-and with the idea of who's in and who's out. I seem to have an obsession with the underdog. I suppose those are the sorts of notes that play with regard to the characters I've chosen. I guess that's the link. But I'm sure somebody could answer that question much better than I can.
Cineaste: Here at La Fémis, more than two hundred young film students are preparing for careers in the cinema. What advice would you give them?
Depp: More than anything else, I would tell them not to think in terms of molds, or if there is a mold, to break it. Go far away from what is expected of you. Always try something different. Don't allow yourself to get caught in the trap of an accepted formula.
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Sowas....
Ich kann jetzt zwar auf dem Link den du gepostet hast nix erkennen,aber ich glaub´s dir mal 
Ich dacht mir auch erst was will er denn in Nashville^^ naja wenn es eine Ente ist,ist es eben eine Ente 
*quack quack* und 
für die Info! 
vielleicht stimmt das ja,wenn nicht halt ich die Klappe mit Neuigkeiten 
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wenn ich Keira Kneightley/ Jude Law jetzt "Anna Karenina" promoten sehe.
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