Johnny Depp interview for DONNIE BRASCO

I'm so glad to see you again, because I like very much all your filmography. And this one, The Nebraska, a new one. Very, very good movie. What was your first reaction when you received the script for the first time? Did you accept immediately to play this character? I wouldn't say it was immediately, but it was pretty close. I read the screenplay and loved it. I thought it was just incredibly well written. I also knew that Pacino was going to be doing it, which is obviously a plus. But I was also fascinated with this character. How you could actually have a human being with a pulse and emotion who could live like that for six years and survive psychologically, emotionally, on many levels. It wasn't until I met the real guy, the real Donnie Brasco, Joe Pistone, that I knew I had to do this. I wanted to get under his skin and study him. Why did you prefer to work like that? You don't want to see Joe Pistone? Yes, I met him. When I met him, that was when I really wanted to do it. That's when I really felt strongly about it. Because he's a fascinating man. I like very much the relationship between you and Al Pacino in this movie. How you worked together. Matthew Wells said to me, Al Pacino likes to have a lot of rehearsals and everything. Not really, not you. Was it exciting to work with him? It was very exciting to work with him. It was a great dream come true. I'm not a big fan of rehearsing a lot. A lot of rehearsals. Because I feel almost as if the more rehearsals you have, the more tired you get on the material. And the less spontaneity you have on the set. It's almost as if you've shot the movie already, so why actually roll film? It's like life, in fact. You like to be spontaneous in life. I prefer that. I prefer to be surprised by the atmosphere, by the elements, by another actor. I don't want to know what they're going to do or what I'm going to do. It just feels better. I prefer the more organic way. But I respect his approach and I respect Newell's approach and his need for rehearsals. But working with him is incredible. He's a master. Maybe like Marlon Brando, in fact? Very much so. He's one of those guys. As Marlon is a sort of guru to every actor, Al is one of those guys. He's a master craftsman. So for me to be able to go to work with him every day and spar with him, like play a couple of boxers, it was terrific. For me, the Nebraska is not a gangster movie, it's more. But before you did the movie, did you like Godfather or What Guys or Casino, a movie like this? Did you like the atmosphere or the universe? I like very much those films. The Godfather I loved. I loved The Godfather 2. Casino, Goodfellas, all those films. I liked them very much. Strangely enough, I wouldn't say that this film is that type of mafia movie. I don't know how to say it. Those films are more like upper echelon mafia, and it's a little bit more romanticized. This film is really more about the mob soldiers. It's much more reality-based. It gets the humor of these guys, the sort of down-and-out humor that they have. But to be compared with those films is an honor, because I'm a huge fan of Coppola's and Scorsese's. To play Ed Wood or Danny Brasco, two real characters in fact, is it more exciting or is it the same? It depends on the project and the script. But to play two real characters, like Two-Eyed Pistons and Ed Wood, is it more exciting? Because you don't like to do some research or something like that, but for me they're very alive, in fact, these two people, Ed Wood and Danny Brasco. Do you like to play this kind of character? Yeah, very much. Playing both of these characters were, for me as an actor, a great challenge. Playing Ed Wood was a person who had been alive and had passed away in the 70s, so there wasn't a lot of material for me to go on. I could watch his films, but there wasn't a lot of interviews with him and I didn't get to spend too much time with the people that had been around him. So it was more I had to create something in my imagination, what I thought he might be like. With Danny Brasco, the approach was very different because Joe was very much alive and he was accessible and I could spend time with him. So I spent probably at least three months prior to shooting the film with him and studied him, his speech patterns, his body language, what he liked, what he didn't like. It probably got on his nerves a lot, but I just tried to steal as much of him as I could. It was nice for me to have him there when we were shooting, to have him there at all times was very important for me. Edward, just one more question about Edward. He could be a good friend of yours. Do you have common points with this character, more freedom in fact? Do you like this character and do you think you have some parallels naturally? Do you have common points with him? With? Edward. With Edward? Well, I don't know if I have any common points with Edward. Edward to me was sort of a beautiful, idealistic man who would make his films at whatever cost, at whatever, no matter what, regardless of what people said about them. And that I respect. I respect Edward for making these films and for not listening to the people around him who said that they were horrible and that he was the worst director of all time. I don't know how anybody who could make a film and really believe in what they were doing and was honest and pure in their approach, I don't think you could say that that's bad. It's just different. So Edward is somebody that I would have loved to have met. I admire him in a way. And Joe is, you know, Donnie Brasco is a completely different thing. Joe is one of those guys that growing up you think about what a man is supposed to be like and when you meet Joe you think, oh yeah, there it is. That's a real man. That's a man. Very stable, very solid. When I met you, I think it was for Don Juan de Marco, you said to me I have to do a movie in the nick of time with John Badham. I don't know if it's a good idea, a good director or a good choice, but I'm sure with Christopher Walken it's going to be a good thing to work with him. It was the case. With Christopher Walken? Absolutely. It was a great experience for me to work with Walken and to sort of experience that with him. And also with John Badham. I thought John did a good job on the film. As a director on the set, I thought he did a terrific job. I think I did the film for all the right reasons. I like Badham very much. I like the movie in fact. It's a good one. Yeah, it's all right. Yeah, exactly. It's a little bit, you know, it's a little glossy for my taste. It's a little bit, there's a little too much Paramount on it. But I mean, it was a good experience. I don't regret anything. In fact, it was your first experience with a major since a long time, no? Yeah, yeah. It was my first experience with a big studio for many years. Yeah, they're all right, you know. It's just, you know, they spit them out, you know. Boom, next one, boom, next, next. It's assembly line. You finished your first movie as a director, a feature movie as Brave with Marlon Brando. It was very exciting for you to direct this movie. It was a deep wish. It was a good experience. It was an exhausting experience. It still is an exhausting experience. I don't know if it's the right word to say that it was a deep wish of mine because I don't exactly know why I wanted to direct a film. It's not like I ever wanted to be a director, not by any means. I think it was more of some strange obsession, you know. It was like this weird thing that was in my head and I knew I had to get it on paper and get it out, you know. It was a great experience, though. I wouldn't trade it for anything. But my approach to this film was not like a director because I'm not a director. My approach was much more sort of naive. It was much more like approaching a piece of paper that I was going to draw on. No matter what I drew, I knew it would be my picture. It would be the image that I put there. Whether it's good or bad, it was honest and it was organic. So that's all I tried to do. But technically it was difficult with the cameraman? Because you have a certain idea of your movie, it was difficult to shoot this movie with different technique or something like that? No, technically it was not so difficult because I had a cinematographer and a production designer. If I didn't have them, I wouldn't have shot the movie. I wouldn't have done it without them. I had Vilko Filac shooting the film and I had me and Krzysztof Kwiatkowicz doing the production design. So to have those guys alongside me was a great blessing. What was very, very difficult for me was to be in front of the camera and then also be behind the camera and to have written the screenplay. It was just too much work, much too much work. I met him in Costa Rica just a few days ago. It was for the studio anniversary and I met him. And he said to me, I'm so excited to see the first edited movie. Do you like America, Costa Rica? You think maybe it's like, you say Marlon Brando is like a guru, a mentor. Same thing for America, Costa Rica. Do you think it's also maybe a kind of mentor, guru for you? Absolutely. Costa Rica for me is... I put him on the same level of creative genius as Marlon Brando. Costa Rica is one thing. He's a very specific man and a very unique man with his own amazing vision. And Marlon is the same. Definitely, Emir is a huge mentor for me. I mean, incredible. You guys all right? He's like... Emir is a genius. In fact, the Brave, in a weird way, is sort of like a salute to him. A tribute. Sort of homage to Costa Rica. In fact, I did a couple of shots in there where I did it for him. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.