HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Mar. 17, 2001— Even with his soulful eyes, polite smile and smoky voice that oozes deep thoughts, the last thing Johnny Depp would’ve called himself is unselfish. But then came the moment he stood in the delivery room and watched the birth of his daughter nearly two years ago.
I’m not a selfish guy; I’m not one of those self-obsessed [characters], the 37-year-old says. When my daughter was born it was absolutely, without question, the first selfless moment I’ve ever had. And what a gift that is to be able to step outside yourself and go, ‘You know what? I didn’t have the greatest childhood? Well, tough s—. Things didn’t go the way I wanted them to here or there. You know what? Tough s—-. So what.'”
With daughter Lily-Rose and French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis — his girlfriend of three years — on his arm, Depp settled in France (where I can smoke in peace, he half jokes), taking his family with him when he goes on location.
But family has kept close by in more ways than one. For Blow, his latest film, Depp took on the lead role of cocaine king George Jung, whose rise and fall in the 1970s and ’80s cost him everything. But the saddest part of Jung’s life lies in his relationship with the daughter (played by Emma Roberts, niece of Julia), whom he eventually loses due to greed.
There’s no way to avoid what now lives inside me, that feeling, Depp says of his parental instincts. But certainly there are things you can access in your own emotions, your own life in using your own work.
The film follows Jung’s introduction to the marijuana empire via his girlfriend (Franka Potente), through his ascension to Colombian cartel leader Pablo Escobar’s right-hand man, his marriage to the wild, unbridled Mirtha (Penélope Cruz), and his attempts to go straight until the law ultimately catches up to him.
The actor spent two intense days with the real George Jung, currently serving time until 2014, and became fascinated with his openness about his mistakes. He and Blow director Ted Demme have even spoken to the FBI on Jung’s behalf.
I believe he’s paid his debt to society, and now it would be nice to get him out of prison so that he can try and pay his debt to his family, Depp says emphatically. He is rehabilitated. He’s the man he started out being before he lost himself. He deserves a chance to get his life together in a real sense and get his family life back together.
Take it from a guy who knows.
I went through 35 years of a very strange and dark fog. And I never really understood what the point was to anything in life, he says. I knew that I had some degree of luck and success in my chosen field, in my business, in my work. And I knew I was very lucky in my family and I had good friends. But it wasn’t until Vanessa and the birth of our daughter, Lily-Rose, that it finally realized there is something to live for. I then knew why I had to be alive. There was a reason to live.
Blow opens April 6.
Photos courtesy of New Line, ©2001 New Line.
