Johnny Depp does it better than most

As the saying goes: what a difference an unlikely role as a slightly effeminate kohl-eyed pirate in an unexpected sleeper hit movie makes!

(You haven’t heard that saying? Hmm. Maybe it’s a regional thing.)

Anyway, that’s the exact scenario that has vaulted Johnny Depp from the art-house ghetto to the $20 million club. Most of the ’90s straight up until the early ’00s had him squandering his gifts between terrible big-budget thrillers like “Nick of Time” and “The Astronaut’s Wife” and pretentious quirk like “Dead Man” and “The Man Who Cried.” But everything changed with “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” By appearing in a movie people actually wanted to see, Depp reminded us all that he’s a really great actor. Since then he’s made one fun action film (“Once Upon a Time in Mexico”) and one potentially Oscar-baiting period piece (the imminent “Finding Neverland”).

TARA VS. SARAH Our columnists debate: Jennifer Garner Steven Soderburgh Chick Flicks Ben Affleck Reese Witherspoon Matt Damon Jude Law Johnny Depp Gwyneth Paltrow M. Night Shyamalan Ben Stiller

Will Johnny Depp continue on his current trend of making enjoyable, well-received movies that earn lots of money? Or should we expect him to revert to career sabotage — perhaps in a sequel to “The Ninth Gate”? Is Johnny Depp still Johnny Depp if he’s...maybe a tiny bit of a sellout?

Sarah D. Bunting
You could argue that Johnny Depp started out as a sellout. After all, Depp arrived in the cultural consciousness as a star of “21 Jump Street,” which wasn’t so much a television show as a “Tiger Beat” photo shoot with plots. Say what you want about “Jump Street” — and, having seen almost every episode, I myself can say plenty — but it foisted Richard Grieco on a cowering nation, so...“art-house” it ain’t.

But Depp is also the only “Jump Street” alum who has a real acting career fifteen years later. He went straight from there into a John Waters film (“Cry-Baby”) and then to “Edward Scissorhands,” often considered his signature role, and whenever he’s taken a “sellout” part in the intervening years, it hasn’t hurt him. Directors still want to work with him; audiences still like him.

Elliot Marks / AP Johnny Depp made this silly pirate film a lot more fun to watch. Orlando Bloom, take a lesson.

What’s interesting is that we (read: moviegoers) seem to have this conversation about Johnny Depp every few years. Yes, “Pirates of the Caribbean” reminded us that he’s got the chops, but so did “Donnie Brasco.” So did “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” He takes a higher-profile role, the film does well, everyone raves about his performance, and then he picks a crapfest like “The Astronaut’s Wife” as his next project and shoots himself in the foot.

I don’t think selling out hurts Depp’s credibility at all; I think that if he did it consistently, he’d become a huge star. But some of his choices suggest to me that he’s conflicted — not about the selling-out part, but about the huge-star part.

Tara Ariano

The man has cheekbones you could cut glass with, but he just cannot resist any artifice that will ugly him up.

Oh, I totally agree. I would go a step further and say that he’s not only conflicted about being a huge star, but about his whole persona as a famous person. I mean, the man has cheekbones you could cut glass with, but he just cannot resist any artifice that will ugly him up: dental appliances, stocking caps, every damn thing he did to himself in “Fear and Loathing.”

Although, on the other hand, one could argue that all of that “don’t look at me” stuff is itself a pose. The dude is clearly not the 5-foot-10 he claims to be, and the reason I think so many interviewers seem to catch him in his good old trusty combat boots is that they probably have lifts in them.

FREE VIDEO Trailer: 'Finding Neverland' Johnny Depp is author James Barrie in a movie about four fatherless children who inspire him to create the classic fantasy novel 'Peter Pan' NEWSWEEK

But I don’t know how much he’s actually sabotaging himself intentionally. Of the artsy-fartsy movies, you can say that he responded to their scripts or thought they’d be challenging or whatever, and no one expects freaking “Dead Man” to set the multiplexes on fire. But I don’t think he did “Nick of Time” (to name one mainstream bomb) because he thought it would fulfill him artistically; you don’t do a movie that crappy unless you think it’s going to make a ton of coin. It totally didn’t, of course, because it stank. He probably even thought it stank, but figured he’d take a flyer on it because maybe it would stink in the particular way that attracts many millions of un-choosy moviegoers to see it, like...well, like any number of Jerry Bruckheimer productions, really.

Which brings us back to “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and the point I’m trying to make: I don’t think Depp’s all that good at choosing projects. I think that once he commits to do a movie, he gives it his all and does his best, and sometimes that’s enough to salvage it, and often it’s not. But I don’t think that he just suddenly developed good instincts once the 21st century dawned; I kind of suspect that his current career resurgence is a fluke. There I said it.

Sarah

Maybe Depp is deeply ambivalent about stardom and the Hollywood machine.

Before I address the meat of your argument, a quick sidebar: I stood next to Depp at a bar once and he’s not Stephen Dorff tiny, but he’s not 5-foot-10, either. He came up to my ear.

And this concludes the Famous People: They’re Often Short portion of our program. Where were we?

Oh, yes, Depp’s ability to pick scripts. He does have a few unbelievable stinkers on his c.v., and a handful other films that aren’t all that bad, but only because he’s in them. “Don Juan DeMarco” is kind of dumb and cheesy, but he redeems it somehow. Still, why would he agree to appear in something that fluffy when he’d just come off a triumphant performance in “Ed Wood”? Yeah, yeah, Brando. Ask Francis Ford Coppola if that’s a good reason to take on a project.

Maybe Depp is deeply ambivalent about stardom and the Hollywood machine. On the other hand, maybe he just isn’t that interested in conventional Hollywood success at all — occasionally he does a big-budget pic to bolster his kids’ college fund, but if it bombs, he doesn’t really care. This is a guy who’s on the record as thinking that “the American culture is a disaster,” which has to make you wonder how much emotional investment he’s got in the job.

Tara
Well, who would know more about the pitiful state of “the American culture” than the star of “Secret Window”? I mean, honestly.

Anyway, I guess that brings us to Depp ’04. This “Finding Neverland” thing looks like your standard-issue Oscar bait, and while I am not that excited about seeing him acting all antic opposite some toothy British children, I probably will see it. He’s nice to look at, he’s a good actor, and you’re right that he does have the ability to make otherwise bad movies watchable. I guess there really isn’t anything I want him to do differently in his career. He’s not doing anything really wrong, he’s just uneven. But so is everyone in Hollywood. Tom Hanks made “The Ladykillers” and Tom Cruise did “Far and Away,” so, you know, no one hits a homer at every at-bat.

Really, now that Johnny Depp has moved to France, I should just be grateful he at least still deigns to make movies in English.

Tara Ariano and Sarah D. Bunting are co-creators and co-editors of Television Without Pity

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