Johnny Depp made a name for himself in quirky fare like “Ed Wood,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” and “Dead Man.”
Today, he’s far more likely to be fronting a potential franchise than a little film to be seen at the Sundance Film Festival. Depp has made it big, and he’s a tad testy about it.
Depp recently bristled at the notion that he’s a sellout during an interview connected to his latest film, “The Rum Diary:”
The man who played Hunter S. Thompson, Edward Scissorhands and Gilbert Grape is, all of a sudden, accused of selling out. And he’s not happy about it.
“‘Pirates’ was a film I did just like any other one, I made that choice the same way I made every other choice,” Depp tells the Guardian in a new interview. As it turns out, with the ensuing franchise’s multi-billion dollar box office take, the film launched Depp into the world of huge money movie stars, but he doesn’t see how that impacts his authenticity as an artist.
“I wouldn’t change anything, no. Because I think I went into it innocently, and it became what it became,” he says. “And now they want to tear me down. Instantly, as soon as I did ‘Pirates II,’ they say: ‘Oh, he’s selling out.’ What the f*ck does that mean, selling out? What if I did ‘Ed Wood II,’ is that selling out? I mean, it’s not like I was ever looking to become franchise boy, I was never looking to become anything like that. I just latched on to a character I loved.”
Sorry, Johnny, you can’t have your street cred AND keep starring in mindless sequels engineered to make money. You copped to your sellout status the moment during the making of the first two “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequels when you admitted you had no idea what was going on. Yet you and director Gore Verbinksi went full speed ahead rather than fixing the problem.
Selling out isn’t a bad thing, by the way. Those daffy “Pirates” films make plenty of people happy, from audiences to the Disney bean counters.
For what it’s worth, Depp’s next films include big-screen version of “Dark Shadows” and “The Lone Ranger.”