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INSIDE THE ACTOR'S STUDIO
BRAVO TV - September 8, 2002
Transcript by Heather
James Lipton: Tonight we'll be exploring a career that is unequalled for its remarkable variety. It begins with a popular television series called "21 Jump Street", then moves swiftly and forcefully through a kaleidoscope of film roles, from "Nightmare on Elm Street" to "Platoon", "Cry Baby", "Edward Scissorhands" (for which our guest received a Golden Globe nomination), "Benny and Joon" (for which he received a Golden Globe nomination and MTV movie nomination), "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", "Don Juan De Marco", "Ed Wood" (for which he received a Golden Globe nomination and won the London Film Critics Award as Actor of the Year), "Donnie Brasco", "The Brave" (which he wrote and directed and for which he received a Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm nomination), "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Sleepy Hollow" (for which he won a Blockbuster Award), "The Man Who Cried", "Before Night Falls", "Chocolat" (for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Cast nomination). In the French equivalent of our Oscars, he has received an honorary Cesar for his complete body of work. The Actors' Studio is so proud to welcome ?JOHNNY DEPP!!!
Johnny: Wow! ?. Wow! ?I apologize in advance for the hideous poison I'm about to partake of, so ? (selecting a hand-rolled cigarette from a pouch and searching his pocket for a lighter.)
James Lipton: You may.
JD: Here's to you. Cheers ?(raising the ciggie in salute)
JL: Tell me first, please, about the name "Depp." Do you know its origin?
JD: No, I don't really know the origin, but I do know what it means in German.
JL: What does it mean?
JD: ?Idiot.
JL: Now a question that has come up more frequently than I would have expected on this stage. Do you have any Native American ancestry?
JD: Yeah, apparently, yeah. My family comes from Kentucky. They've been there for many ?you know ?many, many generations. And my grandma ?my great-grandmother ?was ?had a lot of Cherokee blood.
JL: You were born in Kentucky?
JD: Yeah.
JL: What was your father's profession, Johnny?
JD: My pop was a civil engineer and he worked for various cities, you know, Frankfurt, Kentucky, and then he worked ?and then we moved to Florida and he worked for the city down there.
JL: Did your mother work as well?
JD: Yeah.
JL: What did she do?
JD: My mom was a waitress.
JL: She was?
JD: Yeah. She worked in, you know, little diners and stuff.
JL: Your mother's name is?
JD: Betty Sue.
JL: You said, "By the time I was 15 we had lived in about 20 houses."
JD: Probably more.
JL: Why so much moving?
JD: We were like gypsies, you know? We just kept moving and moving, you know ?
JL: When did you get your first guitar?
JD: I think I was about 12.
JL: How did you learn to play it?
JD: I stole a chord book. I'm admitting it now for the first time. I actually ?yeah, I stole a chord book. Mel Bay chord book from a department store. It helped a lot to ?you know, at that age, 12, 13, 14 years old, you know, things are going haywire inside, so ?yeah, the guitar sort of saved me.
JL: What do you mean, "haywire inside"?
JD: Well, you know, you begin to go through puberty, you know? I was so into my guitar, into playing, that I didn't notice puberty. I was sorta like -
JL: Didn't notice puberty?
JD: Not really, no, no.
JL: Just one day ?it was over?
JD: I may ?still be going through it.
JD: No one's told me for sure, so ?
JL: You have said that family is the most important thing in the world.
JD: Yeah.
JL: Why?
JD: Oh, many, many reasons. Millions of reasons, um ?
JL: Two or three?
JD: Well, it's your foundation, it's ?your roots, it's the only ?unconditional love that you will ever get in your life.
JL: Yeah. That brings us to one of the commonest themes on this stage: Parental divorce. Touched my life. Did it touch yours?
JD: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
JL: How old were you?
JD: I was 15.
JL: Affect you?
JD: Yes, yes it did. There was a period where your focus was on your mom, you know? It was on my mom ?to make sure she was okay.
JL: Did you live with her after the divorce?
JD: Yes.
JL: This is how you've described her: "She is the greatest lady in the world, best friend, coolest thing. Her whole life she's been a waitress, but I won't let her wait tables anymore." She's been a major influence on you then, hasn't she?
JD: She's just one of the smartest, funniest, greatest people I've ever been lucky enough to know. I mean, she's ?she is. She's, you know, truly one of my best friends.
JL: What high school did you go to?
JD: I went to Miramar High School.
JL: How did you do there?
JD: Well ? Before or after I left?
JL: How long did you stay there?
JD: I was there until I think I was about ?around 15 I left. I went back two weeks later. I thought, "You know what? This is crazy, I should go back." I went back and I spoke to the dean of the school and he said ?. "Johnny ?. we don't WANT you to come back." Yeah, he said, "Listen, you know ? It was really sweet, actually ? He said, " I know that you have this music thing." He said, "I think you should run with it. You should ?that's your passion, so you should go with that."
JL: I understand.
JD: So I did.
JL: When did your music career begin?
JD: I started playing, you know, like backyard parties, things like that, at the age of about 13. While I was in school I started playing nightclubs with my band and kind of the deal where you'd have to 卼hey'd sneak you in the back door. I'd play a set -
JL: Because you were underage.
JD: Because I was underage.
JL: When and why did you leave Florida for California?
JD: I left with a band. We were in search of the ?you know, the record deal, and all that.
JL: Yeah. How did you do out there?
JD: We ended up doing some very, very interesting sort of opening act stuff. But, you know, you don't really get paid, so we were all, you know, broke ?real lowdown broke.
JL: How did you support yourself?
JD: I sold ink pens over the telephone.
JL: Telemarketing?
JD: Yeah, telemarketing, yeah.
JL: How did you do?
JD: Actually, I think that was my first acting gig, actually.
JL: When and how did the musician and telemarketer become the actor:
JD: I was walking down Melrose, and I was with a friend of mine ?uh, Nicholas Cage ?and Nick said, "I think you could be an actor," or "You are an actor" or something, "so I think you should meet up with my agent and she sent me to meet Annette Benson, who was the casting director ?she was casting "Nightmare on Elm Street," and then Annette asked me to read for Wes Craven and I did and then they asked me to do the film, you know.
JL: What was your role in "Nightmare on Elm Street"?
JD: I played Glen.
JL: And what happened to Glen?
JD: I got sucked into a bed. Not a bad gig, you know, telemarketing to getting sucked into a bed. I did the first few movies just as a way to sort of support my habit of being a musician.
JL: Did "Platoon" encourage you, the fact that you were in that big, big movie?
JD: Well, "Platoon" was like ?yeah ? It was probably the first time I said, Okay, I'm an actor now.
JL: What happened to you when you returned from the Philippines? Wasn't that about the time of "21 Jump Street"?
JD: Yes.
JL: Was the show a satisfying experience?
JD: It was a terrific learning experience, I tell ya ?it was a great, great education, yeah.
JL: How long were you in it?
JD: Three-and-a-half years ?four seasons, yeah.
JL: And it's no secret that Johnny became, during that time, a teen idol. Perhaps to some of the people in this audience. Did you find it easy to shed that teen idol image?
JD: Oh no, they wanted me to stay on that road, definitely. It was so bizarre, because I'd been turned into this project, which, you know, had nothing to do with me.
JL: What dictates your choice of projects and roles, Johnny?
JD: You know, the element of surprise, really.
JL: It's no secret to this audience that tonight we have the biggest crowd we've ever had here in nearly eight years ?It was bedlam for a little while, people trying to get in.
JD: I think there was some mistake.
JL: Not at all.
JD: Maybe a misspelling.
JL: No, I think that it has to do with what we're talking about now. You avoided the path that 99.9% of actors yearn for, which is to go to traditional leading man roles. Was that deliberate? You could easily ?I mean, you're so much better looking than I am ?
JD: That's very kind of you to say.
JL: Which is as delicately as I can put it ?You could so easily have taken that path, and I'm sure you were offered role after role that requires certain male beauty, and you've deliberately taken another path.
JD: Some people call it ignorance!
JL: No ?nobody in THIS room.
JD: I was so uncomfortable being a product and someone else's product, and I didn't ?I couldn't stand it ?it was claustrophobic, um, so I swore to myself that I wouldn't ? I would choose my own path and I wouldn't deviate in any way, and if I failed, I failed but I tried, and I figured I could always, you know, go back to, you know, playing guitar or pumping gas or something.
JL: You've described a unified link between your movies as "being addicted to losers."
JD: I'm interested, deeply interested, in human behavior, you know, and what makes people do what they do and what makes people tick and why they have these little nervous gestures, which I'm absolutely full of tonight, I'm sure. So, losers, I don't know ?the people who are considered not normal or outcasts or are not welcome in society or ?
JL: Outsiders.
JD: Just people who are not deemed normal by society.
JL: You've said, "I'm not even born yet. I'm still trying. I'm still pushing. I don't ever want to get to a place where I feel satisfied.
JD: Yeah. I think satisfaction ?total and utter satisfaction ?with your work is death for an actor.
JL: I would say that one of the clearest and best examples of the way in which Johnny Depp has broken the mold is a remarkable movie called "Edward Scissorhands."
JL: What did you see in the character of Edward that appealed to you?
JD: Oh, I read the screenplay and I was devastated, I mean, I was just devastated, um ?it was one of the most beautiful things ?themes, that I've ever read, not just screenplay. And I knew Edward when I read that, I just knew it, and it was such a universal feeling ? that feeling, you know, of not feeling quite like you fit in, you know.
JL: Is there any Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands?
JD: Yeah, sure. With any character that you approach ?that you're going to play ?it has to be built on that foundation of truth, so it has to come from a place of honesty, from a place of truth within you, so there's quite a lot of Edward in me, and a lot of me in him.
JL: A couple times in your career you have touched on silent films, without question. I mean, there's an impassivity to Edward that is a bit like some of the silent movies stars.
JD: Oh, thank you.
JL: Keaton.
JD: One of my heroes, Keaton. In terms of the silent ?those guys ?the silent film actors, uh, and with Edward, it was a case of everything needing to be said with the body or with the eyes ?
JL: You were embarking on a career with a great director, with Tim Burton ?
JD: Oh, yeah.
JL: How do you two work together?
JD: Oh, God, with Tim it just feels like home, you know, when you arrive back home ?comfort, trust, you know, which is the most important thing between an actor and a director.
JL: For our students here, how do you prepare a role? Where do you start?
JD: I think one of the greatest gifts that we, as human beings, have is our instinct ?that initial feeling you get about something, I think that's a great gift and sometimes we overlook it. Generally, when I'm reading the screenplay, I begin to get flashes, flashes of things, images ?
JL: Images ?visual things ?
JD: Yeah, visual things or people that interest me or something I want to explore in a person that I had seen somewhere. For instance, Edward Scissorhands ?the two things that came to me ?the two initial images were a baby, you know, a brand new little baby was one, and a dog that I had in my ?when I was growing up, and the unconditional love of that dog and the way that that dog ?even when he'd done something wrong and you'd reprimanded him, he would cower away, you know, go to the corner or whatever and the second you called him back he would be there, bright and full of love. Yeah, images. And then, see, I make these sort of notes that become ingredients of the character and then ?essentially, you throw it all away, I mean, you use that as your foundation and then you allow yourself the sort of pleasant surprise of what's going to happen when you're in there, you know, available stimulus ?just living in that moment.
JL: Do you look at dailies?
JD: No, no, no. Devastating. No. No, no.
JL: When the movie is finished, can you sit back in an audience like this and enjoy it as an audience member?
JD: Absolutely not.
JL: Never?
JD: Never.
JL: Are there any of your movies that you've never seen in a theater?
JD: There's quite a few.
JL: Or even in a screening room?
JD: There are some that I haven't seen a frame of. Yeah.
JL: Really?
JD: Yeah. And that's no disrespect to the filmmakers or the people involved, but once my job is done, once they say, you know, "you're wrapped," at that point it's really none of my business what they do with it, so I just prefer to walk away.
JL: We have talked here with Martin Landau ?
JD: Good man.
JL: Yeah. And with Sarah Jessica Parker about an excellent movie about the worst director of all time, "Ed Wood." What was your response when you were offered that role, was it "Yeah"?
JD: Yeah, oh yeah. Tim called me up one night and said, "There's no script," and I said, "Well, I'm in," you know. "I'm in. Of course."
JL: Did you know much about Ed Wood?
JD: I knew of Ed Wood a bit from John Waters and just, yes, over the years I had seen some of his films.
JL: Ed Wood was probably the world's worst director and a man of such passion for the movies, right? He was an alcoholic cross-dressing 厖. incompetent. And, um, you had to cross dress in this ?you played many scenes in a nice little skirt, (JD: Yeah.) angora sweater, (JD: Yeah, yeah.) Was that part of the fun of the movie?
JD: Um ?sure ?you know. Yeah. Dress like a woman and get away with it? Be paid for it? Yeah. Actually, I think I inhaled more angora than I wore.
JL: How much of the Ed Wood in that movie is your creation - how much of it came out of your soul and your efforts?
JD: There wasn't much available footage of Ed being Ed.
JL: There wasn't.
JD: No. So it was a kind of thing where you rely on the instincts and the imagery that came to my ?came to my head as I was approaching it.
JL: What imagery came to mind, for example?
JD: Three ingredients.
JL: What?
JD: The blind optimism of, say, Ronald Reagan.
JL: Okay, Reagan, alright.
JD: The enthusiasm of the Tin Man from "The Wizard of Oz."
JL: Really.
JD: Yeah. And then ?. Casey Kasem.
JL: Okay! Do you normally act - as actors on this stage often like to say - from the inside out, or do you work from the outside ?from pictures, images ? in?
JD: I think that actually the images are inside for me, I mean they're these things that roam around in my brain and affect my emotions so ?I think both, you know.
JL: Either way.
JD: The foundation that you're building for this character, for me, you know, is from the inside out, but then nothing helps you more than to be put into the skin or the wardrobe of the character that you're -
JL: Especially in THIS case!
JD: Yeah, yeah sure. Yeah, brassieres, yeah.
JL: Some of the most effective and touching scenes in this movie are the ones between Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi, which is to say between you and Marty Landau.
JD: The opportunity to go to work with Martin Landau was a great, great gift. Um ?especially after, you know, after coming off of "Gilbert Grape," which, for me, had been a kind of a rough time, you know, inside my own skin and my own brain, and working with Martin restored my ?my faith in the work and the process and ? and he's just so great, he's just so great, he's so pure, you know, he's so honest.
JL: I agree with you.
JD: So I was ?it was a great gift.
JL: Was it your propensity for offbeat roles that led you to the title role in "Don Juan De Marco?"
JD: Yeah. I hadn't seen that character before in that way.
JL: This is a man who THINKS he's Don Juan. Is that fellow that you played sane or not?
JD: My decision is that he was totally sane.
JL: And in the end your psychiatrist came sort of to agree with you.
JD: Yeah.
JL: What is it like to act in scene after scene, as you did, with Brando?
JD: The most important thing that I learned working with Marlon was .. uh ?to keep a straight face. I mean it's almost impossible. That became the objective in a lot of the scenes was just to be able to get through without exploding.
JL: Because the character was funny, or because Marlon was being funny?
JD: Because Marlon is hilarious. He's hilarious, I mean ?he killed me ? he was killing me.
JL: Did you become close in the movie?
JD: He was a great teacher for me, a great ?mentor, a great friend.
JL: What attracts you to odd hats?
JD: Odd hats?
JL: You've been known to wear one or two.
JD: I don't know, maybe I ?I read too many Dr. Seuss books when I was a kid. I hadn't thought about that, actually, the hat thing.
JL: Are you fond, in films, of wearing long hair? Is it something that makes you comfortable, to have your hair long, or does it matter?
JD: No, I'd always thought, probably very stupidly, I thought that, you know, if your hair is down ?you're hiding. So you're invisible, you know? People can't ?
JL: You're invisible at this moment, I'll tell you that. I can't see one of your eyes.
JD: I don't know, that was always part of it, yeah. Now I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter who won't let me cut my hair.
JL: I want to ask you about a marvelous motion picture called "Donnie Brasco."
JL: There are many reasons for the quality of this movie, but two of them without question are Al Pacino and Johnny Depp. In this movie, Al wore the hat.
JD: Yes.
JL: I want to know where the Kentucky-born Florida-raised guy acquired that dead-on New York accent.
JD: Well, I was very fortunate ?I spent a lot of time with the real Donnie Brasco, with Joe Pistone and ?I'm sure he was real sick of me, cuz I haunted him --
JL: It's such a good movie and such a good portrait.
JD: What was most important to me with "Donnie Brasco" was the fact that Joe, the real Donnie Brasco, Joe Pistone, had been so generous with his time and with his past, and so generous that for me, all I wanted ?the result that I wanted was for him to be happy.
JL: I see.
JD: Because he lived it and I played it, but then he has to live with it, and his family has to live with it, for the rest of their lives. So that ?I was very touched that they were satisfied.
JL: Who's idea was it to make a movie of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?"
JD: I knew Hunter Thompson a little bit, and, when I was doing "Donnie Brasco" I got a phone call from Hunter: (in Hunter's voice) "You wanna play me in the Vegas movie?" You know, that kinda thing. I said, "Well, you know, yeah, is there a script? Do I have your blessing?" and he said yeah, and then that was it.
JL: Who brought Terry Gilliam into it?
JD: It was my agent, Tracy Jacobs, my agent of many, many, many, many years ?she's such a brave soul ? she brought up Terry's name and she called him, and that was it.
JL: As you were preparing the film, was Hunter Thompson a big help to you?
JD: Oh, he was a great help. Once again, it was a situation where I was basically ?had no choice but to go and seek him out and move in with him -
JL: You were playing him.
JD: Yeah. I was playing Hunter, so I had to, you know, figure out a way to steal his soul. Heh!!! I lived in his basement, which we called "the dungeon," for a couple months.
JL: No wonder you came out Hunter Thompson!
JD: (Laughs.)
JL: And shaved your head?
JD: Hunter shaved my head, in fact.
JL: Did he really?
JD: Yeah.
JL: The two of you looking in the mirror until it was right.
JD: I didn't look in the mirror at all! I was in mortal fear. Hunter had a mining light on his head and we were in his kitchen, you know, and, and, uh, he shaved my head.
JL: There are several extraordinary drug-fueled scenes between you and Benicio Del Toro.
JD: Yep.
JL: How much of those scenes was improvised between you two? I can't imagine that that was all scripted. The two of you are going absolutely berserk.
JD: The meat of the scene would be the dialogue and then we would just sort of fly around a bit.
JL: You reunited with Tim Burton for "Sleepy Hollow." There have been a lot of Ichabod Cranes. There are a number of character elements that you chose: His bearing, his precision, his elegance ?even a kind of delicacy.
JD: I saw Ichabod as almost ?part, sort of teenage girl, you know? And part Angela Lansbury.
JL: He is SO meticulous!
JD: Yeah. Ichabod Crane, Girl Detective.
JL: A kind of grown-up Nancy Drew.
JD: Yeah, like perpetual puberty for Ichabod Crane. I was sure I was going to be fired off that film.
JL: You WERE????
JD: Absolutely convinced that Paramount was going to give me the boot within two - three weeks. Totally convinced.
JL: Because of what you were doing.
JD: Playing their lead character in a very expensive motion picture as, you know, a pre-pubescent young lady. But, you know, Tim saved me and Scott Rudin saved me, so ?
JL: You were wonderful, and I liked your pre-pubescent lady.
JD: Thank you.
JL: You went back to Lasse Hallstrom for "Chocolat."
JD: Yeah.
JL: What do you play in that film?
JD: I play the guy named Roux, he was sort of ? they explained him to me as a gypsy, but I saw him more as, I don't know, a wandering minstrel. Yeah, just a vagabond, you know.
JL: Tell me about acting with Juliette Binoche.
JD: What a force, you know?
JL: She is a force.
JD: She's a force. She's a ?amazing dedication to the work, to the moment.
JL: Where do you make your home?
JD: I've been living in France for the past few years, well, back and forth between France and the States.
JL: What made you choose France?
JD: I think it chose me! Heh, heh. I went to do this film with Roman Polansky, and while I was there I met my girl, Vanessa, and ?
JL: Her last name is ?
JD: Paradis. And, uh ? it was over, that was it, you know, and I essentially just never left.
JL: To be in love and in France is a ? a blessing.
JD: Equals baby.
JL: What is your baby's name?
JD: Lily-Rose.
JL: You didn't finish it.
JD: Oh ?Lily-Rose Melody Depp? Yeah?
JL: Yeah, Lily-Rose MELODY. Where did that come from?
JD: Melody in fact came from a song by a French, a great French songwriter/singer, Serge Gainsbourg, who, um ?
JL: Melody Nelson?
JD: Melody Nelson, yeah, the Ballad of Melody Nelson.
JL: Several of our guests have talked about the new perspective that a child's birth brought to everything in their lives; it's such a frequent theme. Has Lily-Rose had an impact on you?
JD: It was like this ?having this great veil lifted, you know, from in front of your eyes. This, this ?where everything was ?your entire life had never been quite in focus, you know, and then suddenly it was like -- VOOM -- this sharp imagery and ?you know, one of those moments where you just go "OH, OH!!! That's what it is, that's what life is. I get it, you know.
JL: Now, one of the most important questions in this eight-year series of craft inquiries: And that is the matter of tattoos. Billy Bob Thorton who was in that chair recently has 11. I, for reasons that will not be restated tonight, am not allowed to have one. (Looks with mock indignation at his wife seated in audience.) But we won't discuss that. How many do you have?
JD: I ?boy, I don't know, exactly. I think I've got around, I don't know ?maybe 9 or 10? Something like that.
JL: One little tattoo, Kedakai! No? Maybe? (Wife shakes her head "No," and then mouths "Maybe.")
JL: On your right arm, what does it say?
JD: Up here? Up here it says, "Wino Forever."
JL: But YOU'RE not a wino!!!
JD: How do you know???
JL: I won't pursue it. You have an Indian head. What does that celebrate?
JD: That's a ?for me, it was the first tattoo I got when I was 17, and I got it in honor of my grandfather ?to remember my grandfather.
JL: The Cherokee heritage.
JD: Yeah.
JL: Terrific. On your left arm there's a heart. Whose name is in it?
JD: Betty Sue.
JL: That is so neat. And on your left hand, there's something that looks either like an "E" or a "3". What is it?
JD: It's a 3, the number 3.
JL: And am I allowed to know what that means?
JD: A friend of mine did it, and I sat down at his table and I said, "Would you put a 3 here?"
JL: See? It's so easy, Kedakai!"
JL: Because we're The Actors Studio Drama School New School University and because these students are getting their Master's degrees in the craft of acting and directing and writing, I would like you to review for us what kind of training have you taken as an actor?
JD: Well, the initial stuff, I went to a place called The Loft Studio, which was out in Las Angeles, La Brea, it was, and ?which was Peggy Feury and Bill Traylor.
JL: Was Peggy alive when you were there:
JD: Peggy was alive, yeah. Good woman.
JL: Great woman.
JD: Yeah.
JL: Great member of the Studio.
JD: Yeah. And I studied with a couple ?then I studied with Sandra Seacat for a little bit ?
JL: Who has taught in this program.
JD: There was a great book called "On Method Acting" by, uh, Dwight Edward Easty, is it? [Edward Dwight Easty] which was astounding, you know, it was a revelation. But then I read ?when I read "No Acting, Please" by Eric Morris, it put everything in perspective for me, you know ?
JL: Do you use that work? When you're acting?
JD: Oh yeah, I mean, it's kind of like ?it's sort of ?this is similar to the way I view religion, you know. In religion, you pick and choose the things that work for you, you know, so with the work, I, yeah, sort of took things from Stanislavski, Strasberg, from Eric Morris, the great book by Michael Chekhov "To the Actor" ?
JL: You bet.
JD: I incorporate all of it into my work, yeah.
*******
JL: We will begin our classroom with the questionnaire by the formidable Bernard Pivot:
JL: Johnny, what's your favorite word?
JD: Why? (Audience laughs at Lipton's confusion, who then realizes that Johnny has just answered his question.)
JL: Didn't that sound appropriate to you? It did to me. What is your least favorite word?
JD: No.
JL: What turns you on?
JD: Breathing.
JL: What turns you off?
JD: Not breathing.
JL: What sound or noise do you love?
JD: My daughter's voice.
JL: What sound or noise do you hate?
JD: Vacuum cleaner.
JL: What is your favorite curse word?
JD: Boy ?this is a real opportunity here.
JL: Yes it is.
JD: I don't want to mess this up.
JL: Right.
JD: I think the most expressive would be 卻hit?yeah, works a lot.
JL: Just as good ?maybe even better ?in French.
JD: Yeah, yeah. And it's said a lot, it's said more in France than anywhere.
JL: Yeah. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?
JD: Writing, I think, writing.
JL: What profession would you absolutely NOT like to try?
JD: President of the United States.
JL: Johnny, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
JD: WOW!!!!
JL: I think he would be joined by a choir of angels! Here are your students:
Student: Hi, my name is Kozmin and I am second-year director. I want to ask you something. You mentioned before that you spend some time with a band of Romanian gypsies.
JD: Yeah.
Student #1: I'm Romanian myself. What did you learn from them, in terms of craft as well as in terms of life?
JD: Life. Yeah, great lessons in life. These guys ?um ? really know the definition of living, you know, and I don't mean that in terms of a constant festival or a constant party, I mean I ?I mean these guys live every single moment, and when ?when ? James asked me ?what I, um ?I think it was one of my favorite to do or something, I don't remember, but I said "breathing." We forget what a gift every single breath is, I mean, that we're given. Every breath that we take is a great gift, and we never pay respect to that, you know. And those guys, my gypsy brethren, appreciate every single second of every day, every moment, every breath they take, every ? Well you know the song!!! Um, I learned a lot from them.
Student #2: Hi, Johnny. I'm Pamela, I'm a first-year playwright, and there are a lot of things driving my question. I don't want them to be misleading before they're all out.
JD: Okay.
Student #2: But you played a cross-dresser, you played a transvestite, you have a deep love and admiration for your mother, really sounds deep. Even more intriguing ?
JD: What are you getting at???!!!
Student #3: I write for the tabloids, this is just a cover! Um, more intriguing to me is that Dean Lipton talked about your burden of beauty, and you talked about ?you talked about being someone else's product, of being marketed, and those things struck me as being distinctly female experience, they are very often, and I wonder if you would ever play a female character?
JD: Sure. I mean, why not? You know, listen, yeah, yeah, I would love to play a woman. Certainly, yeah. I mean, you know, the most difficult time I had cross-dressing was ?was really just the stuff that goes on underneath, really. It's a lot of work and I ?and I've developed ?I mean I had tremendous respect for women before I did "Ed Wood," but afterwards, boy, it was ?it was a monumental respect. All that stuff ?the shoes, the bras, the whole thing. But yeah, I'd do it again, sure. You know, when you welcome a child into the world, you know, you witness the birth of your child, and you've been there for that nine-month period, uh, you realize that there's NO DOUBT, there's no question that women are the stronger sex there's no doubt. Any man, you know, who had to carry a child for nine months would cave in about Month Two. And then, delivery, uh, you know, labor? Yeah, no hope. So, yeah, I certainly would like to explore that, yeah. That's it.
Student #3: Hi.
JD: Hi.
Student #3: I'm Tanya. I'm a third-year acting student ?I'm graduating this May ?
JD: Congratulations.
Student #3: Thanks! And a whole bunch of us are ?it's a miracle! Um, is there any advice that you might want to share with us about, just like, you know, not only what to expect but maybe a way to just begin the whole ?the birth of our acting experiences, and, if you don't mind sharing the history of those boots? I'm totally fascinated.
JD: My old friends. These are my old pals. We've been through a lot together. Boy! Getting started. One of the greatest pieces of advice I've ever gotten in my life was from my Mom, you know, when I was a little kid there was a kid who was bugging me, you know, in school. And she said, "Okay, I'm going to tell you what to do." She said, "The kid's bugging you. He puts his hands on you, you pick up the nearest rock, or whatever you can get your hands on, and you lay him out." And I did! And I felt better. And it worked. And ?so, for me, that was a great lesson because someone had invaded my space ?invaded my being, you know ?and was doing something against me that I didn't want to be done, so I took control of the situation and I ran with it, and many years later after being, you know, turned into a product, you know, by a very huge corporation that had their hands all over me and I couldn't escape it, you know, I promised myself that I would continue to move forward and do my best not to compromise in any way whatsoever, you know, not allow anyone to put their hands on me and affect me in that way so, that's the best advice that I could give is just to keep moving forward, and don't give a shit what anybody thinks, you know, just keep moving forward and do what you have to do for you.
Audience member: Thank you very much.
JD: Pleasure.
BRAVO TV - September 8, 2002
Transcript by Heather
James Lipton: Tonight we'll be exploring a career that is unequalled for its remarkable variety. It begins with a popular television series called "21 Jump Street", then moves swiftly and forcefully through a kaleidoscope of film roles, from "Nightmare on Elm Street" to "Platoon", "Cry Baby", "Edward Scissorhands" (for which our guest received a Golden Globe nomination), "Benny and Joon" (for which he received a Golden Globe nomination and MTV movie nomination), "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", "Don Juan De Marco", "Ed Wood" (for which he received a Golden Globe nomination and won the London Film Critics Award as Actor of the Year), "Donnie Brasco", "The Brave" (which he wrote and directed and for which he received a Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm nomination), "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Sleepy Hollow" (for which he won a Blockbuster Award), "The Man Who Cried", "Before Night Falls", "Chocolat" (for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Cast nomination). In the French equivalent of our Oscars, he has received an honorary Cesar for his complete body of work. The Actors' Studio is so proud to welcome ?JOHNNY DEPP!!!
Johnny: Wow! ?. Wow! ?I apologize in advance for the hideous poison I'm about to partake of, so ? (selecting a hand-rolled cigarette from a pouch and searching his pocket for a lighter.)
James Lipton: You may.
JD: Here's to you. Cheers ?(raising the ciggie in salute)
JL: Tell me first, please, about the name "Depp." Do you know its origin?
JD: No, I don't really know the origin, but I do know what it means in German.
JL: What does it mean?
JD: ?Idiot.
JL: Now a question that has come up more frequently than I would have expected on this stage. Do you have any Native American ancestry?
JD: Yeah, apparently, yeah. My family comes from Kentucky. They've been there for many ?you know ?many, many generations. And my grandma ?my great-grandmother ?was ?had a lot of Cherokee blood.
JL: You were born in Kentucky?
JD: Yeah.
JL: What was your father's profession, Johnny?
JD: My pop was a civil engineer and he worked for various cities, you know, Frankfurt, Kentucky, and then he worked ?and then we moved to Florida and he worked for the city down there.
JL: Did your mother work as well?
JD: Yeah.
JL: What did she do?
JD: My mom was a waitress.
JL: She was?
JD: Yeah. She worked in, you know, little diners and stuff.
JL: Your mother's name is?
JD: Betty Sue.
JL: You said, "By the time I was 15 we had lived in about 20 houses."
JD: Probably more.
JL: Why so much moving?
JD: We were like gypsies, you know? We just kept moving and moving, you know ?
JL: When did you get your first guitar?
JD: I think I was about 12.
JL: How did you learn to play it?
JD: I stole a chord book. I'm admitting it now for the first time. I actually ?yeah, I stole a chord book. Mel Bay chord book from a department store. It helped a lot to ?you know, at that age, 12, 13, 14 years old, you know, things are going haywire inside, so ?yeah, the guitar sort of saved me.
JL: What do you mean, "haywire inside"?
JD: Well, you know, you begin to go through puberty, you know? I was so into my guitar, into playing, that I didn't notice puberty. I was sorta like -
JL: Didn't notice puberty?
JD: Not really, no, no.
JL: Just one day ?it was over?
JD: I may ?still be going through it.
JD: No one's told me for sure, so ?
JL: You have said that family is the most important thing in the world.
JD: Yeah.
JL: Why?
JD: Oh, many, many reasons. Millions of reasons, um ?
JL: Two or three?
JD: Well, it's your foundation, it's ?your roots, it's the only ?unconditional love that you will ever get in your life.
JL: Yeah. That brings us to one of the commonest themes on this stage: Parental divorce. Touched my life. Did it touch yours?
JD: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
JL: How old were you?
JD: I was 15.
JL: Affect you?
JD: Yes, yes it did. There was a period where your focus was on your mom, you know? It was on my mom ?to make sure she was okay.
JL: Did you live with her after the divorce?
JD: Yes.
JL: This is how you've described her: "She is the greatest lady in the world, best friend, coolest thing. Her whole life she's been a waitress, but I won't let her wait tables anymore." She's been a major influence on you then, hasn't she?
JD: She's just one of the smartest, funniest, greatest people I've ever been lucky enough to know. I mean, she's ?she is. She's, you know, truly one of my best friends.
JL: What high school did you go to?
JD: I went to Miramar High School.
JL: How did you do there?
JD: Well ? Before or after I left?
JL: How long did you stay there?
JD: I was there until I think I was about ?around 15 I left. I went back two weeks later. I thought, "You know what? This is crazy, I should go back." I went back and I spoke to the dean of the school and he said ?. "Johnny ?. we don't WANT you to come back." Yeah, he said, "Listen, you know ? It was really sweet, actually ? He said, " I know that you have this music thing." He said, "I think you should run with it. You should ?that's your passion, so you should go with that."
JL: I understand.
JD: So I did.
JL: When did your music career begin?
JD: I started playing, you know, like backyard parties, things like that, at the age of about 13. While I was in school I started playing nightclubs with my band and kind of the deal where you'd have to 卼hey'd sneak you in the back door. I'd play a set -
JL: Because you were underage.
JD: Because I was underage.
JL: When and why did you leave Florida for California?
JD: I left with a band. We were in search of the ?you know, the record deal, and all that.
JL: Yeah. How did you do out there?
JD: We ended up doing some very, very interesting sort of opening act stuff. But, you know, you don't really get paid, so we were all, you know, broke ?real lowdown broke.
JL: How did you support yourself?
JD: I sold ink pens over the telephone.
JL: Telemarketing?
JD: Yeah, telemarketing, yeah.
JL: How did you do?
JD: Actually, I think that was my first acting gig, actually.
JL: When and how did the musician and telemarketer become the actor:
JD: I was walking down Melrose, and I was with a friend of mine ?uh, Nicholas Cage ?and Nick said, "I think you could be an actor," or "You are an actor" or something, "so I think you should meet up with my agent and she sent me to meet Annette Benson, who was the casting director ?she was casting "Nightmare on Elm Street," and then Annette asked me to read for Wes Craven and I did and then they asked me to do the film, you know.
JL: What was your role in "Nightmare on Elm Street"?
JD: I played Glen.
JL: And what happened to Glen?
JD: I got sucked into a bed. Not a bad gig, you know, telemarketing to getting sucked into a bed. I did the first few movies just as a way to sort of support my habit of being a musician.
JL: Did "Platoon" encourage you, the fact that you were in that big, big movie?
JD: Well, "Platoon" was like ?yeah ? It was probably the first time I said, Okay, I'm an actor now.
JL: What happened to you when you returned from the Philippines? Wasn't that about the time of "21 Jump Street"?
JD: Yes.
JL: Was the show a satisfying experience?
JD: It was a terrific learning experience, I tell ya ?it was a great, great education, yeah.
JL: How long were you in it?
JD: Three-and-a-half years ?four seasons, yeah.
JL: And it's no secret that Johnny became, during that time, a teen idol. Perhaps to some of the people in this audience. Did you find it easy to shed that teen idol image?
JD: Oh no, they wanted me to stay on that road, definitely. It was so bizarre, because I'd been turned into this project, which, you know, had nothing to do with me.
JL: What dictates your choice of projects and roles, Johnny?
JD: You know, the element of surprise, really.
JL: It's no secret to this audience that tonight we have the biggest crowd we've ever had here in nearly eight years ?It was bedlam for a little while, people trying to get in.
JD: I think there was some mistake.
JL: Not at all.
JD: Maybe a misspelling.
JL: No, I think that it has to do with what we're talking about now. You avoided the path that 99.9% of actors yearn for, which is to go to traditional leading man roles. Was that deliberate? You could easily ?I mean, you're so much better looking than I am ?
JD: That's very kind of you to say.
JL: Which is as delicately as I can put it ?You could so easily have taken that path, and I'm sure you were offered role after role that requires certain male beauty, and you've deliberately taken another path.
JD: Some people call it ignorance!
JL: No ?nobody in THIS room.
JD: I was so uncomfortable being a product and someone else's product, and I didn't ?I couldn't stand it ?it was claustrophobic, um, so I swore to myself that I wouldn't ? I would choose my own path and I wouldn't deviate in any way, and if I failed, I failed but I tried, and I figured I could always, you know, go back to, you know, playing guitar or pumping gas or something.
JL: You've described a unified link between your movies as "being addicted to losers."
JD: I'm interested, deeply interested, in human behavior, you know, and what makes people do what they do and what makes people tick and why they have these little nervous gestures, which I'm absolutely full of tonight, I'm sure. So, losers, I don't know ?the people who are considered not normal or outcasts or are not welcome in society or ?
JL: Outsiders.
JD: Just people who are not deemed normal by society.
JL: You've said, "I'm not even born yet. I'm still trying. I'm still pushing. I don't ever want to get to a place where I feel satisfied.
JD: Yeah. I think satisfaction ?total and utter satisfaction ?with your work is death for an actor.
JL: I would say that one of the clearest and best examples of the way in which Johnny Depp has broken the mold is a remarkable movie called "Edward Scissorhands."
JL: What did you see in the character of Edward that appealed to you?
JD: Oh, I read the screenplay and I was devastated, I mean, I was just devastated, um ?it was one of the most beautiful things ?themes, that I've ever read, not just screenplay. And I knew Edward when I read that, I just knew it, and it was such a universal feeling ? that feeling, you know, of not feeling quite like you fit in, you know.
JL: Is there any Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands?
JD: Yeah, sure. With any character that you approach ?that you're going to play ?it has to be built on that foundation of truth, so it has to come from a place of honesty, from a place of truth within you, so there's quite a lot of Edward in me, and a lot of me in him.
JL: A couple times in your career you have touched on silent films, without question. I mean, there's an impassivity to Edward that is a bit like some of the silent movies stars.
JD: Oh, thank you.
JL: Keaton.
JD: One of my heroes, Keaton. In terms of the silent ?those guys ?the silent film actors, uh, and with Edward, it was a case of everything needing to be said with the body or with the eyes ?
JL: You were embarking on a career with a great director, with Tim Burton ?
JD: Oh, yeah.
JL: How do you two work together?
JD: Oh, God, with Tim it just feels like home, you know, when you arrive back home ?comfort, trust, you know, which is the most important thing between an actor and a director.
JL: For our students here, how do you prepare a role? Where do you start?
JD: I think one of the greatest gifts that we, as human beings, have is our instinct ?that initial feeling you get about something, I think that's a great gift and sometimes we overlook it. Generally, when I'm reading the screenplay, I begin to get flashes, flashes of things, images ?
JL: Images ?visual things ?
JD: Yeah, visual things or people that interest me or something I want to explore in a person that I had seen somewhere. For instance, Edward Scissorhands ?the two things that came to me ?the two initial images were a baby, you know, a brand new little baby was one, and a dog that I had in my ?when I was growing up, and the unconditional love of that dog and the way that that dog ?even when he'd done something wrong and you'd reprimanded him, he would cower away, you know, go to the corner or whatever and the second you called him back he would be there, bright and full of love. Yeah, images. And then, see, I make these sort of notes that become ingredients of the character and then ?essentially, you throw it all away, I mean, you use that as your foundation and then you allow yourself the sort of pleasant surprise of what's going to happen when you're in there, you know, available stimulus ?just living in that moment.
JL: Do you look at dailies?
JD: No, no, no. Devastating. No. No, no.
JL: When the movie is finished, can you sit back in an audience like this and enjoy it as an audience member?
JD: Absolutely not.
JL: Never?
JD: Never.
JL: Are there any of your movies that you've never seen in a theater?
JD: There's quite a few.
JL: Or even in a screening room?
JD: There are some that I haven't seen a frame of. Yeah.
JL: Really?
JD: Yeah. And that's no disrespect to the filmmakers or the people involved, but once my job is done, once they say, you know, "you're wrapped," at that point it's really none of my business what they do with it, so I just prefer to walk away.
JL: We have talked here with Martin Landau ?
JD: Good man.
JL: Yeah. And with Sarah Jessica Parker about an excellent movie about the worst director of all time, "Ed Wood." What was your response when you were offered that role, was it "Yeah"?
JD: Yeah, oh yeah. Tim called me up one night and said, "There's no script," and I said, "Well, I'm in," you know. "I'm in. Of course."
JL: Did you know much about Ed Wood?
JD: I knew of Ed Wood a bit from John Waters and just, yes, over the years I had seen some of his films.
JL: Ed Wood was probably the world's worst director and a man of such passion for the movies, right? He was an alcoholic cross-dressing 厖. incompetent. And, um, you had to cross dress in this ?you played many scenes in a nice little skirt, (JD: Yeah.) angora sweater, (JD: Yeah, yeah.) Was that part of the fun of the movie?
JD: Um ?sure ?you know. Yeah. Dress like a woman and get away with it? Be paid for it? Yeah. Actually, I think I inhaled more angora than I wore.
JL: How much of the Ed Wood in that movie is your creation - how much of it came out of your soul and your efforts?
JD: There wasn't much available footage of Ed being Ed.
JL: There wasn't.
JD: No. So it was a kind of thing where you rely on the instincts and the imagery that came to my ?came to my head as I was approaching it.
JL: What imagery came to mind, for example?
JD: Three ingredients.
JL: What?
JD: The blind optimism of, say, Ronald Reagan.
JL: Okay, Reagan, alright.
JD: The enthusiasm of the Tin Man from "The Wizard of Oz."
JL: Really.
JD: Yeah. And then ?. Casey Kasem.
JL: Okay! Do you normally act - as actors on this stage often like to say - from the inside out, or do you work from the outside ?from pictures, images ? in?
JD: I think that actually the images are inside for me, I mean they're these things that roam around in my brain and affect my emotions so ?I think both, you know.
JL: Either way.
JD: The foundation that you're building for this character, for me, you know, is from the inside out, but then nothing helps you more than to be put into the skin or the wardrobe of the character that you're -
JL: Especially in THIS case!
JD: Yeah, yeah sure. Yeah, brassieres, yeah.
JL: Some of the most effective and touching scenes in this movie are the ones between Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi, which is to say between you and Marty Landau.
JD: The opportunity to go to work with Martin Landau was a great, great gift. Um ?especially after, you know, after coming off of "Gilbert Grape," which, for me, had been a kind of a rough time, you know, inside my own skin and my own brain, and working with Martin restored my ?my faith in the work and the process and ? and he's just so great, he's just so great, he's so pure, you know, he's so honest.
JL: I agree with you.
JD: So I was ?it was a great gift.
JL: Was it your propensity for offbeat roles that led you to the title role in "Don Juan De Marco?"
JD: Yeah. I hadn't seen that character before in that way.
JL: This is a man who THINKS he's Don Juan. Is that fellow that you played sane or not?
JD: My decision is that he was totally sane.
JL: And in the end your psychiatrist came sort of to agree with you.
JD: Yeah.
JL: What is it like to act in scene after scene, as you did, with Brando?
JD: The most important thing that I learned working with Marlon was .. uh ?to keep a straight face. I mean it's almost impossible. That became the objective in a lot of the scenes was just to be able to get through without exploding.
JL: Because the character was funny, or because Marlon was being funny?
JD: Because Marlon is hilarious. He's hilarious, I mean ?he killed me ? he was killing me.
JL: Did you become close in the movie?
JD: He was a great teacher for me, a great ?mentor, a great friend.
JL: What attracts you to odd hats?
JD: Odd hats?
JL: You've been known to wear one or two.
JD: I don't know, maybe I ?I read too many Dr. Seuss books when I was a kid. I hadn't thought about that, actually, the hat thing.
JL: Are you fond, in films, of wearing long hair? Is it something that makes you comfortable, to have your hair long, or does it matter?
JD: No, I'd always thought, probably very stupidly, I thought that, you know, if your hair is down ?you're hiding. So you're invisible, you know? People can't ?
JL: You're invisible at this moment, I'll tell you that. I can't see one of your eyes.
JD: I don't know, that was always part of it, yeah. Now I have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter who won't let me cut my hair.
JL: I want to ask you about a marvelous motion picture called "Donnie Brasco."
JL: There are many reasons for the quality of this movie, but two of them without question are Al Pacino and Johnny Depp. In this movie, Al wore the hat.
JD: Yes.
JL: I want to know where the Kentucky-born Florida-raised guy acquired that dead-on New York accent.
JD: Well, I was very fortunate ?I spent a lot of time with the real Donnie Brasco, with Joe Pistone and ?I'm sure he was real sick of me, cuz I haunted him --
JL: It's such a good movie and such a good portrait.
JD: What was most important to me with "Donnie Brasco" was the fact that Joe, the real Donnie Brasco, Joe Pistone, had been so generous with his time and with his past, and so generous that for me, all I wanted ?the result that I wanted was for him to be happy.
JL: I see.
JD: Because he lived it and I played it, but then he has to live with it, and his family has to live with it, for the rest of their lives. So that ?I was very touched that they were satisfied.
JL: Who's idea was it to make a movie of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?"
JD: I knew Hunter Thompson a little bit, and, when I was doing "Donnie Brasco" I got a phone call from Hunter: (in Hunter's voice) "You wanna play me in the Vegas movie?" You know, that kinda thing. I said, "Well, you know, yeah, is there a script? Do I have your blessing?" and he said yeah, and then that was it.
JL: Who brought Terry Gilliam into it?
JD: It was my agent, Tracy Jacobs, my agent of many, many, many, many years ?she's such a brave soul ? she brought up Terry's name and she called him, and that was it.
JL: As you were preparing the film, was Hunter Thompson a big help to you?
JD: Oh, he was a great help. Once again, it was a situation where I was basically ?had no choice but to go and seek him out and move in with him -
JL: You were playing him.
JD: Yeah. I was playing Hunter, so I had to, you know, figure out a way to steal his soul. Heh!!! I lived in his basement, which we called "the dungeon," for a couple months.
JL: No wonder you came out Hunter Thompson!
JD: (Laughs.)
JL: And shaved your head?
JD: Hunter shaved my head, in fact.
JL: Did he really?
JD: Yeah.
JL: The two of you looking in the mirror until it was right.
JD: I didn't look in the mirror at all! I was in mortal fear. Hunter had a mining light on his head and we were in his kitchen, you know, and, and, uh, he shaved my head.
JL: There are several extraordinary drug-fueled scenes between you and Benicio Del Toro.
JD: Yep.
JL: How much of those scenes was improvised between you two? I can't imagine that that was all scripted. The two of you are going absolutely berserk.
JD: The meat of the scene would be the dialogue and then we would just sort of fly around a bit.
JL: You reunited with Tim Burton for "Sleepy Hollow." There have been a lot of Ichabod Cranes. There are a number of character elements that you chose: His bearing, his precision, his elegance ?even a kind of delicacy.
JD: I saw Ichabod as almost ?part, sort of teenage girl, you know? And part Angela Lansbury.
JL: He is SO meticulous!
JD: Yeah. Ichabod Crane, Girl Detective.
JL: A kind of grown-up Nancy Drew.
JD: Yeah, like perpetual puberty for Ichabod Crane. I was sure I was going to be fired off that film.
JL: You WERE????
JD: Absolutely convinced that Paramount was going to give me the boot within two - three weeks. Totally convinced.
JL: Because of what you were doing.
JD: Playing their lead character in a very expensive motion picture as, you know, a pre-pubescent young lady. But, you know, Tim saved me and Scott Rudin saved me, so ?
JL: You were wonderful, and I liked your pre-pubescent lady.
JD: Thank you.
JL: You went back to Lasse Hallstrom for "Chocolat."
JD: Yeah.
JL: What do you play in that film?
JD: I play the guy named Roux, he was sort of ? they explained him to me as a gypsy, but I saw him more as, I don't know, a wandering minstrel. Yeah, just a vagabond, you know.
JL: Tell me about acting with Juliette Binoche.
JD: What a force, you know?
JL: She is a force.
JD: She's a force. She's a ?amazing dedication to the work, to the moment.
JL: Where do you make your home?
JD: I've been living in France for the past few years, well, back and forth between France and the States.
JL: What made you choose France?
JD: I think it chose me! Heh, heh. I went to do this film with Roman Polansky, and while I was there I met my girl, Vanessa, and ?
JL: Her last name is ?
JD: Paradis. And, uh ? it was over, that was it, you know, and I essentially just never left.
JL: To be in love and in France is a ? a blessing.
JD: Equals baby.
JL: What is your baby's name?
JD: Lily-Rose.
JL: You didn't finish it.
JD: Oh ?Lily-Rose Melody Depp? Yeah?
JL: Yeah, Lily-Rose MELODY. Where did that come from?
JD: Melody in fact came from a song by a French, a great French songwriter/singer, Serge Gainsbourg, who, um ?
JL: Melody Nelson?
JD: Melody Nelson, yeah, the Ballad of Melody Nelson.
JL: Several of our guests have talked about the new perspective that a child's birth brought to everything in their lives; it's such a frequent theme. Has Lily-Rose had an impact on you?
JD: It was like this ?having this great veil lifted, you know, from in front of your eyes. This, this ?where everything was ?your entire life had never been quite in focus, you know, and then suddenly it was like -- VOOM -- this sharp imagery and ?you know, one of those moments where you just go "OH, OH!!! That's what it is, that's what life is. I get it, you know.
JL: Now, one of the most important questions in this eight-year series of craft inquiries: And that is the matter of tattoos. Billy Bob Thorton who was in that chair recently has 11. I, for reasons that will not be restated tonight, am not allowed to have one. (Looks with mock indignation at his wife seated in audience.) But we won't discuss that. How many do you have?
JD: I ?boy, I don't know, exactly. I think I've got around, I don't know ?maybe 9 or 10? Something like that.
JL: One little tattoo, Kedakai! No? Maybe? (Wife shakes her head "No," and then mouths "Maybe.")
JL: On your right arm, what does it say?
JD: Up here? Up here it says, "Wino Forever."
JL: But YOU'RE not a wino!!!
JD: How do you know???
JL: I won't pursue it. You have an Indian head. What does that celebrate?
JD: That's a ?for me, it was the first tattoo I got when I was 17, and I got it in honor of my grandfather ?to remember my grandfather.
JL: The Cherokee heritage.
JD: Yeah.
JL: Terrific. On your left arm there's a heart. Whose name is in it?
JD: Betty Sue.
JL: That is so neat. And on your left hand, there's something that looks either like an "E" or a "3". What is it?
JD: It's a 3, the number 3.
JL: And am I allowed to know what that means?
JD: A friend of mine did it, and I sat down at his table and I said, "Would you put a 3 here?"
JL: See? It's so easy, Kedakai!"
JL: Because we're The Actors Studio Drama School New School University and because these students are getting their Master's degrees in the craft of acting and directing and writing, I would like you to review for us what kind of training have you taken as an actor?
JD: Well, the initial stuff, I went to a place called The Loft Studio, which was out in Las Angeles, La Brea, it was, and ?which was Peggy Feury and Bill Traylor.
JL: Was Peggy alive when you were there:
JD: Peggy was alive, yeah. Good woman.
JL: Great woman.
JD: Yeah.
JL: Great member of the Studio.
JD: Yeah. And I studied with a couple ?then I studied with Sandra Seacat for a little bit ?
JL: Who has taught in this program.
JD: There was a great book called "On Method Acting" by, uh, Dwight Edward Easty, is it? [Edward Dwight Easty] which was astounding, you know, it was a revelation. But then I read ?when I read "No Acting, Please" by Eric Morris, it put everything in perspective for me, you know ?
JL: Do you use that work? When you're acting?
JD: Oh yeah, I mean, it's kind of like ?it's sort of ?this is similar to the way I view religion, you know. In religion, you pick and choose the things that work for you, you know, so with the work, I, yeah, sort of took things from Stanislavski, Strasberg, from Eric Morris, the great book by Michael Chekhov "To the Actor" ?
JL: You bet.
JD: I incorporate all of it into my work, yeah.
*******
JL: We will begin our classroom with the questionnaire by the formidable Bernard Pivot:
JL: Johnny, what's your favorite word?
JD: Why? (Audience laughs at Lipton's confusion, who then realizes that Johnny has just answered his question.)
JL: Didn't that sound appropriate to you? It did to me. What is your least favorite word?
JD: No.
JL: What turns you on?
JD: Breathing.
JL: What turns you off?
JD: Not breathing.
JL: What sound or noise do you love?
JD: My daughter's voice.
JL: What sound or noise do you hate?
JD: Vacuum cleaner.
JL: What is your favorite curse word?
JD: Boy ?this is a real opportunity here.
JL: Yes it is.
JD: I don't want to mess this up.
JL: Right.
JD: I think the most expressive would be 卻hit?yeah, works a lot.
JL: Just as good ?maybe even better ?in French.
JD: Yeah, yeah. And it's said a lot, it's said more in France than anywhere.
JL: Yeah. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?
JD: Writing, I think, writing.
JL: What profession would you absolutely NOT like to try?
JD: President of the United States.
JL: Johnny, if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
JD: WOW!!!!
JL: I think he would be joined by a choir of angels! Here are your students:
Student: Hi, my name is Kozmin and I am second-year director. I want to ask you something. You mentioned before that you spend some time with a band of Romanian gypsies.
JD: Yeah.
Student #1: I'm Romanian myself. What did you learn from them, in terms of craft as well as in terms of life?
JD: Life. Yeah, great lessons in life. These guys ?um ? really know the definition of living, you know, and I don't mean that in terms of a constant festival or a constant party, I mean I ?I mean these guys live every single moment, and when ?when ? James asked me ?what I, um ?I think it was one of my favorite to do or something, I don't remember, but I said "breathing." We forget what a gift every single breath is, I mean, that we're given. Every breath that we take is a great gift, and we never pay respect to that, you know. And those guys, my gypsy brethren, appreciate every single second of every day, every moment, every breath they take, every ? Well you know the song!!! Um, I learned a lot from them.
Student #2: Hi, Johnny. I'm Pamela, I'm a first-year playwright, and there are a lot of things driving my question. I don't want them to be misleading before they're all out.
JD: Okay.
Student #2: But you played a cross-dresser, you played a transvestite, you have a deep love and admiration for your mother, really sounds deep. Even more intriguing ?
JD: What are you getting at???!!!
Student #3: I write for the tabloids, this is just a cover! Um, more intriguing to me is that Dean Lipton talked about your burden of beauty, and you talked about ?you talked about being someone else's product, of being marketed, and those things struck me as being distinctly female experience, they are very often, and I wonder if you would ever play a female character?
JD: Sure. I mean, why not? You know, listen, yeah, yeah, I would love to play a woman. Certainly, yeah. I mean, you know, the most difficult time I had cross-dressing was ?was really just the stuff that goes on underneath, really. It's a lot of work and I ?and I've developed ?I mean I had tremendous respect for women before I did "Ed Wood," but afterwards, boy, it was ?it was a monumental respect. All that stuff ?the shoes, the bras, the whole thing. But yeah, I'd do it again, sure. You know, when you welcome a child into the world, you know, you witness the birth of your child, and you've been there for that nine-month period, uh, you realize that there's NO DOUBT, there's no question that women are the stronger sex there's no doubt. Any man, you know, who had to carry a child for nine months would cave in about Month Two. And then, delivery, uh, you know, labor? Yeah, no hope. So, yeah, I certainly would like to explore that, yeah. That's it.
Student #3: Hi.
JD: Hi.
Student #3: I'm Tanya. I'm a third-year acting student ?I'm graduating this May ?
JD: Congratulations.
Student #3: Thanks! And a whole bunch of us are ?it's a miracle! Um, is there any advice that you might want to share with us about, just like, you know, not only what to expect but maybe a way to just begin the whole ?the birth of our acting experiences, and, if you don't mind sharing the history of those boots? I'm totally fascinated.
JD: My old friends. These are my old pals. We've been through a lot together. Boy! Getting started. One of the greatest pieces of advice I've ever gotten in my life was from my Mom, you know, when I was a little kid there was a kid who was bugging me, you know, in school. And she said, "Okay, I'm going to tell you what to do." She said, "The kid's bugging you. He puts his hands on you, you pick up the nearest rock, or whatever you can get your hands on, and you lay him out." And I did! And I felt better. And it worked. And ?so, for me, that was a great lesson because someone had invaded my space ?invaded my being, you know ?and was doing something against me that I didn't want to be done, so I took control of the situation and I ran with it, and many years later after being, you know, turned into a product, you know, by a very huge corporation that had their hands all over me and I couldn't escape it, you know, I promised myself that I would continue to move forward and do my best not to compromise in any way whatsoever, you know, not allow anyone to put their hands on me and affect me in that way so, that's the best advice that I could give is just to keep moving forward, and don't give a shit what anybody thinks, you know, just keep moving forward and do what you have to do for you.
Audience member: Thank you very much.
JD: Pleasure.
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