Depp creates another memorable character

LOS ANGELES -- No actor working today has played so many oddly costumed, weird-looking and strange characters as Johnny Depp.

There may be a slight madness to his method of creating such memorable roles as Edward Scissorhands, Capt. Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka and now the Mad Hatter in his new film, "Alice in Wonderland." But Depp`s soft-spoken and unassuming manner makes people feel comfortable and believe in him.

Veteran producer Richard Zanuck, for example, said he sleeps well before shooting a film with Depp because he can count on the actor setting a positive tone on the set.

Depp`s unpretentious demeanor is apparent in how he views his career. Despite more than $5 billion in tickets sold for his films, Depp said he is amazed he`s still a working actor.



"My whole experience on this ride, since day one, has been pretty surreal," Depp said. "I`m still completely shocked I get jobs and am still around. It`s been a kind of wonderland and I have been lucky. I had no idea where anything was going. I thought after I had done `Cry Baby` with John Waters and `Edward Scissorhands` with Tim (Burton), I thought they were going to cut me off at the point. But I`m still here."

"Alice in Wonderland" is his seventh collaboration with director Burton.

One reason Burton said he enjoys working with the three-time Oscar nominee is the actor`s dislike of seeing himself on screen. That means the director never has to worry about his star getting temperamental about how a scene was shot.

Each time Depp agrees to star in a Burton film, his biggest fear is that he won`t be able to come up with a character that`s different enough to please the director. This time, their collaboration was on creating a key player in the mad tale: the Mad Hatter.

Zanuck compares Depp`s way of creating a character to a factory, in that he puts together an assortment of what appear to be unrelated elements to create a product the public longs to buy. For the Hatter, Depp did watercolor drawings of his idea for the character`s look, which were almost identical to what Burton had in mind -- a result of sharing so many collaborations.

Instead of his Hatter just being a hyper-nutty character, Depp plays him as someone who has extreme emotional swings that can go from light-hearted levity to dangerous rage.

Depp remembers reading the Lewis Carroll classic when he was a boy, and had just re-read it before getting the call from Burton for the latest film version of "Alice in Wonderland."

"What I took away was these strange, cryptic nuggets he threw in there. I became fascinated by them because they were asking questions that couldn`t be answered or making statements you quite don`t understand," Depp said.

Many of those nuggets were used as Depp brought Hatter to life.

His growing list of unique characters comes with a curse. He has to be careful not to slip in a bit of Sweeney Todd, Ed Wood or another character into his latest work.

"You have to pay attention to the places you`ve been," Depp said. "That`s the great challenge -- you may get it wrong. There`s a very good possibility you can fall on your face, but that`s a healthy thing for an actor."



(McClatchy-Tribune

Information Services)







By Rick Bentley/McClatchy Newspapers