GQ magazine latest issue has a fantastic, not-to-be missed article / interview of Johnny Depp, unleashed and talking about the three years from hell he went through. Johnny also talks about Disney's now famous reaction when they saw the rushes of the first Pirates of Caribbean movie:
“Disney hated me. [They were] thinking of every way they could to get rid of me, to fire me. ‘Oh, we’re going to have to subtitle him.’ ‘We don’t understand Captain Jack Sparrow. What’s wrong with him?’ ‘What’s wrong with his arms?’ ‘Is he drunk?’ ‘Is he mentally fucking stupefied?’ ‘Is he gay?’”
I ask Depp directly: did Disney ask if Jack Sparrow was being played as openly homosexual in Pirates? “They asked me, ‘Is he gay?’ and I answered the question over the phone. It was a lady called Nina Jacobson from Disney at the time [Jacobson is herself gay, it should be noted, and has long campaigned for greater diversity within the all-male club of old Hollywood boardrooms] and she asked me a couple of questions and then said, ‘What is it, Johnny? Is he gay?’ My tendency, of course, is to be irreverent so I said, ‘Nina, didn’t you know all my characters are gay?’ That was a pretty abrupt end to the conversation. And I just continued shaping Jack the way I believed was best.”
Was Depp angry at Disney for its lack of vision? Its lack of trust? “No. I told them, ‘Look, you don’t like what I’m doing, fire me. You hired me to do a job and play the character and this is what I want to do.’ This is the work. I mean, hadn’t they seen any of the work I’d done previously? You might want to take a look at that before you hire a motherfucker, you know?”
Did he feel vindicated once it was clear his treatment for Jack was going to work, when audiences fell in love with him? “I knew I was right. Even the very first time when they came back to me saying, ‘No, no, what is this?’ it felt right. Even when the other actors were looking at me like I was an absolute menace, I stayed with it. I mean, the older actors were probably thinking, ‘Jesus Christ, he’s wrecked.’ Because I would tear up the script on set. I’d go rogue. I’d fly for a little bit to see where things went. And not everyone appreciates this way of working. Oliver Stone didn’t appreciate it when I changed all the lines he wrote for me in Platoon and that’s no doubt probably why most of my stuff ended up on the cutting-room floor.”
Definitely don't miss the full amazing GQ article HERE in which Johnny Depp even reveal that his front fee for Pirates 5, released last year, was an astounding $45 Million!
Pictures: copyright GQ magazine
