Depp picking films carefully

2001-04-03 11:21

Sue Zeidler

Los Angeles - Johnny Depp is getting pickier about the films he makes these days, but he could not resist starring in "Blow" about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll - topics with which he is well-versed.

Depp, 37, said his career choices of late are influenced by his aversion to being apart from his young daughter, Lily-Rose Melody, and her mother, model Vanessa Paradis, for long.

"A lot of it has to do with time. I want to be sure there's never too long a time away from family. The most we've ever gone is 17 days and by then I was chewing my hand off," he told reporters while promoting "Blow".

"So now what comes into play is that it's got to be a great script, have great filmmakers, and it has to work out with the timing around my family," he said, smoking one of his signature, nearly omnipresent hand-rolled cigarettes.

"But first you have to bring home the bacon and keep the paycheques coming," he said.

Depp could not turn down "Blow" because "it was such a great, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he said, explaining that he felt a great connection to the central character of the film, which is based on the true story of George Jung, the first American to import cocaine into the United States.

Jung lived the high life of money, fast cars and beautiful homes before losing everything including his wife and daughter, who have refused to visit him in prison. Serving a sentence in Otisville Federal Corrections Facility in upstate New York until 2014, he has been estranged from his daughter for many years - a central theme of the story.

Depp went to the prison several times to meet Jung and the two became friends. The actor said he related to the character's dizzying rise to fame and fortune.

"I started making money like I'd never seen before in my life, and one thing led to another and suddenly I was on the rise and there was no stopping it. I think that's what happened to George," Depp said.

Depp, who shot to fame on the TV series "21 Jump Street" and made his big-screen debut with the 1984 slasher film "Nightmare on Elm Street,'' has matured as an actor, winning critics' respect for such films as "Edward Scissorhands" in 1990 and "Ed Wood'' in 1994.

A better man

The Kentucky-born star said his daughter's birth in May 1999 has also made him a more mature person off-screen. The owner of the Los Angeles rock club "The Viper Room" has been arrested several times, most recently in January 1999 for being in a fight with paparazzi in London.

Jung's remorse over his failed relationship with his daughter personally struck Depp. "The birth of my daughter gave me life. Anything I thought up until then was kind of an illusion," Depp said. "It's an interesting parallel to this movie and this character's experience."

Depp's past has had its moments of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, including an arrest in 1994 for trashing a hotel room in New York City and the tragedy of the overdose death of actor River Pheonix outside the Viper Room nightclub.

"This is the happiest I've ever been in my life, the most together I've been in my life," Depp said, his chiselled good looks beaming with pride about his daughter and wife.

Dressed in grungy jeans, his hair swept back in a ponytail, Depp said "Blow", directed by Ted Demme, is not intended as an anti-drug movie. "Blow" is just a look at this one man's life and drug smuggling happened to be his business.''

The film also stars Penelope Cruz, Ray Liotta, Rachel Griffiths and Paul Reubens, of Pee-Wee Herman fame, who plays Jung's California connection, Derek Foreal.

Depp hopes that audiences see that Jung made some wrong decisions for the wrong reasons. "We've all gone through that whole thing, initially thinking drugs is like party time and that getting high is fun,'' he said.

"You can live that lie that it is recreational and we can try to numb ourselves. But getting loaded to that extent is really postponing the inevitable, which is that you are going to have face the demon some day."

Asked if that day has come for him, Depp smiled and said, "I've seen the demon."

- Reuters