Posted on 6/30/06 at 04:03 PM
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Source:
thecouriermail.news.com.au
Eye of the storm
Johnny Depp had his share of high seas drama on set and off, writes Audrey Smythe-Jones
June 29, 2006
PERHAPS the most dangerous stunt Johnny Depp, as Captain Jack Sparrow, performed in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was eluding hurricanes during the treacherous tropical storm season in the Bahamas.
"We were evacuated on a daily basis," he reveals. "There was a daily monitoring of the National Hurricane Centre when we were down there in Grand Bahamas.
"You would be watching them closely and you'd see them turn and there were memories of what happened during Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi."
Shooting Dead Man's Chest – the third Pirates instalment set for release next year – back-to-back in the Bahamas and West Indies with a combined budget of $300 million, involved more than 600 people.
"It was really strange," Depp says, "sitting there with (director) Gore Verbinski and (producer) Jerry Bruckheimer and the rest of the producers, watching for the storm. It was really scary, especially shooting in the Bahamas in the middle of hurricane season. Why schedule it then? Is it cheaper during hurricane season? I don't get it."
When the company was ordered to evacuate, they fled the archipelago of 700 islands southwest of Florida, which has been featured in five James Bond films as well as Into The Blue with Paul Walker and Jessica Alba and After The Sunset with Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek.
"I went straight to Los Angeles, back to see my kids," Depp says. "Glad to get out of there in time."
But when Depp returned to Los Angeles, he discovered the view from his $5.4 million Hollywood Hills estate would be impaired by a retail development – and decided to fight City Hall.
Depp's attorney filed a lawsuit claiming the West Hollywood City Council violated environmental quality laws with the $10 million project.
Depp lost the case and appointed his sister, Christi Dembrowski, to launch an appeal.
Hurricanes weren't the only disruption on the Pirates of the Caribbean set. When swaggering Captain Jack Sparrow was supposedly captured and roasted alive on a skewer with fruits and vegetables in a cannibal scene, outraged residents, members of the Carib tribe on the island of Bataka, Dominica, accused Disney of insinuating that their ancestors practised such inhumane rituals.
Charles Williams, chief of the 3500 remaining natives, told the Los Angeles Times he was furious the film perpetuated the myth that the Caribs were cannibals, stating: "Today, Disney wants to popularise that stigma one more time, this time through film, and film is a powerful tool for propaganda."
Disney hired about 400 locals to work as extras on Dead Man's Chest for $95 a day, but Williams insists: "A good name is better than riches. Shame on us that for a few dollars we are betraying our flesh and blood."
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer tried to downplay the uproar by insisting the scene is light-hearted and in no way reflects the history of Bataka because in Dead Man's Chest, in addition to the cannibals, there's an interrupted wedding between blissful lovebirds Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and bloodthirsty Scottish sea captain Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), ruler of the ocean depths and captain of the ghostly Flying Dutchman.
The hurricane-prone location was chosen because the Bahamas Film Studios at Gold Rock Creek offers one of the few huge water tanks in the world. Described as the size of four football fields, the tank is a V-shaped enclosure accessible to the ocean on a decommissioned US Air Force base in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island.
Along with the tank, there are nine soundstages, production offices, even a 110-room resort hotel.
As for Captain Jack Sparrow, Depp has the last laugh. Apparently, Disney film producers were convinced that his bizarre interpretation of the swashbuckling pirate would ruin the film after he based the slurry-voiced character on Rolling Stones star Keith Richards and laughed off the movie bosses' concerns because he was convinced that children would fall in love with his portrayal of Sparrow.
"Disney gave me such a hullabaloo about what I was doing with the character, the gold teeth, all the beads hanging and the dreadlocks," Depp chortles. "I would get these phone calls from upper echelons, Team Disney, and it would be like, 'OK, OK, what are you doing with your hands? Is he drunk? Is he gay? What is he?'
"Michael Eisner hated it so much the words actually came out of his mouth, 'He's ruining the film'. Which really made me laugh."
Eisner is no longer chairman of Disney – and the new regime is said to be enthusiastic about Depp's characterisation, citing both the $305 million the corporation banked for Curse of the Black Pearl and Depp's Oscar nomination.
It's no secret Depp based the outrageousness of Captain Jack Sparrow on Richards, but what's up for conjecture is whether Richards will pop up unexpectedly as Sparrow's father in a sequel.
With Mick Jagger, 62-year-old Richards has been the backbone of the Rolling Stones since the 1960s, and Depp is such an admirer of Richards he even "breaks in" his shoes, wearing them on film sets before handing them over so they don't look so new when the Stones tour. "Keith doesn't like things to be too new or obvious," the Stones tour manager Robert Cary-Williams says. "Johnny idolises Keith, so he's happy to oblige."
What Depp does reveal is that the upcoming sequels will see more comedy than the first.
"It occurs to me that Captain Jack Sparrow can be very funny," Depp says. "So I'm just going to try to be funny. The idea of sequels and stuff like that was a very odd notion to me. I never quite understood it all."
And the Caribbean's unpredictable weather didn't discourage Depp from paying a reported $3,600,000 for the 16 ha Little Halls Pond Cay, located about 100km south of Nassau.
His slice of paradise lies in the protected Exuma Land And Sea Park and is accessible only by seaplane, boat or helicopter.
Privacy is so important to Depp that he credits his decision to set up home in the tiny French village of Plan de la Tour for allowing him to lead a normal life when he isn't making movies.
"France has given me the opportunity to live a basic and simple life with my kiddies, a life of normalcy," he explains, carefully rolling a cigarette and lighting it.
"I love the simple things: the sunrise, the trees, the countryside. The nearest village has 1500 people.
"I can take a ride into the village and go to the local bar and have a coffee with my girl. I'm not looking round the periphery for the paparazzi. There's no ambulance-chaser mentality, that thing that makes me ill at ease.
"You drive back home and walk in the vegetable garden with your kids and have a nice lunch, some good wine, some pate."
Depp's "girl" is French singer/songwriter/actor Vanessa Paradis, whom he met while he was making The Ninth Gate.
"I met my wife in a bar in Paris. I wasn't brave enough to go over and ask her to join me, so I got a friend to do it for me.
"I have profound respect for her as an actress. When you see Girl on a Bridge, you cannot deny this fact. Her performance was just perfect," he says. "Now we share this incredible life together with our children: Lily Rose Melody Depp and Jack John Christopher Depp III.
"I want to be sure there's never too long a time away from family. The most we've ever gone is 17 days and, by then, I was chewing my hand off.
"When I'm working, she comes with me and brings the kids. When she's working, I go with her and bring the kids.
"My daughter has already visited more countries than I did in my first 25 years, seen more hotel rooms than I have in my entire life," he continues.
"Fatherhood has given me great strength, great calm, great sleep deprivation, and a great perspective of how life should pan out."
Depp – or, officially, John Christopher Depp II – was born on June 9, 1963, in Owensboro, Kentucky, the youngest in a family of four siblings. His father, John Christopher Depp, was a city engineer and his mother, Betty Sue Palmer, was a waitress and homemaker.
Raised in Florida, Depp rebelled early. "School was a torment," he remembers.
"We moved often, lived in more than 20 houses in my first 15 years, and I never felt accepted."
When he was 15, his parents divorced, and he was raised by his mother whose name is tattooed on his left arm.
At age 17, he delved into the world of experimental drugs and became a rock musician.
Depp joined a rock band called The Flame, with whom he toured the Florida nightclub circuit. The Flame evolved into The Kids and that band was hired as the opening act on an Iggy Pop tour.
After the band broke up, Depp decided to try his luck at acting after visiting Los Angeles and marrying make-up artist Lori Allison, who introduced him to Nicolas Cage, who saw star potential.
Thanks to their encounter, Depp made his screen debut in the slasher film, A Nightmare on Elm Street. He then shot to fame in the role of a slick undercover detective on the popular TV series 21 Jump Street.
Up next for Depp is the screen adaptation of Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram. Directed by Peter Weir (Master and Commander), it's the story of an Australian addict who escapes from prison and reinvents himself as a doctor in the slums of Bombay.
Then there's The Rum Diary, still in pre-production with a projected 2008 release. That's the follow-up to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, based on another of cult writer Hunter S. Thompson's novels.
"It's a tangled love story of jealousy, treachery and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boom town that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s," Depp says.
"Bruce Robinson, who wrote and directed a film called Withnail and I is adapting the book and is going to direct it, which is very, very exciting."
The Ginger Man is rumoured to be a future Depp project, one in which he would play one of the most famous characters in Irish fiction: Sebastian Dangerfield.
Writer J.P. Donleavy has repeatedly rejected Hollywood's attempts to make a movie out of his novel, but he was impressed by Depp during a meeting in New York.
"Mr Depp is something else," Donleavy said, "bright, extremely intelligent and knowledgeable."
Considered pornographic on its publication in the 1950s, The Ginger Man tells the tale of a feckless, womanising American soldier, supposedly studying law at Trinity College after World War II.
It sparked controversy after being turned into a stage play which was halted after three performances in 1959 due to opposition from the Catholic Church.
That role in the eye of the storm has Depp written large all over it.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest opens Thursday.