Johnny Depp: The Playboy Interviews (50 Years of the Playboy Interview) Read Online Free PDF Page A

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?
    Depp: In Lima, Peru I bought an enormous, beautiful bat and two dozen lacquered, stuffed piranhas. Coming home through Customs was funny. “What’s in the box?” “Oh, 24 piranhas and a bat.” “OK, strip-search this guy!”
    Playboy: Do you own anything that is ordinary?
    Depp: I have a lot of pictures that kids have sent me. They are some of the best things—little kids really identify with Edward Scissorhands, and they send me great, pure-genius pieces of art. Paintings of Edward, some of Sam in Benny & Joon —kids like Sam, too. They like the fairy tales. I frame some of those and put them on a wall in my house.
    Playboy: You also had a painting by serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Why?
    Depp: I’m fascinated by the dark and the absurd. I’m drawn to what’s behind that. And don’t we all have a bit of the ambulance chaser in us? The Gacy painting is one he did in prison. It’s of Pogo the Clown, a character he used to play at neighborhood get-togethers, family functions. Now, most people believed that Gacy was a pillar of the community, a normal businessman, even as he committed those horrible murders. I suppose what intrigues me is that even after he was caught and put in prison, he