Celebrity Mound

Let’s get one thing straight. We don’t like pretty boys. When it comes to guys, the less attractive the better, we usually say. The ugly ones try harder. Plus they’re less likely to leave you and easier to control. We make an exception for Johnny Depp, however. Dude is hot and not in a “No, no honey, please don’t talk and ruin it” kind of a way. The man actually has something to say and tells it like it is.

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, for instance, Hollywood’s beloved can-do-no-wrong actor admits that he actually never wanted to be an actor at all. Also, he does it for the money! Let’s just hope he doesn’t leave us for France.

On dropping out of school at 16 to be a musician:
“My parents said, ‘OK, kid, you’ve taken yourself out of school, so you fend for yourself.’ So there weren’t many options. I was very close to joining the Marine Corps… So I sat down with the dean and said, ‘Listen, I made a mistake and I’d like to try again.’ And bless him, he said, ‘Johnny, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. You love your music, that’s the only thing you’ve ever applied yourself to. Go out there and play.’”

On why he became a guitarist and not a singer:
“I didn’t want to be that guy at all. Plus, singers had to do stuff that I found mortifying, like jump around. Horror show. I just liked playing very loud and keeping my head down, staying in the dark.”

On acting:
“I never wanted to be an actor. It just seemed like a good way to make easy money. I didn’t care what the movies were. If you were going to pay me, fine. That was my philosophy.”

On how Nicolas Cage got him into acting:
“Nic said, ‘Why don’t you try acting? I think you could probably do it.’ I remember saying, ‘I’ll try anything, man.’ I gotta live without calling home and begging for money.’ So I met his agent, and she sent me to read for a movie [Nightmare on Elm Street], and they hired me.”

On his past substance abuse:
“I’m a dumb-ass, and I poisoned myself for years. Now I understand things better.”

(source)

Johnny Depp is considering an offer to star in two forthcoming Pee-Wee Herman movies, playing the legendary kids’ character. Paul Reubens, who played Pee-Wee in TV shows and films until 1990, has completed two scripts he hopes to bring to the big screen in 2009.

Reubens hopes to reprise the role himself, but admits he has also spoken to his Blow co-star Depp about taking on the part.

Reubens tells MTV, “(He said) Let me think about it.”

Besides appearing together in Blow, the two actors are also linked through director Tim Burton – one of regular Depp-collaborator Burton’s first films was 1985′s Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.

(source)

Johnny Depp is keeping a bedside vigil over his daughter Lily-Rose, 7, who is hospitalized in London with blood poisoning contracted from stepping on a rusty nail. “After the wound was left untreated, blood poisoning developed. It has now spread through her body and has affected her vital organs,” an insider told In Touch magazine. Depp, lover Vanessa Paradis and their kids moved last month from their home in France to a farmhouse in England, where he’s filming “Sweeney Todd.” A spokeswoman for Depp said, “We are happy to report that their daughter is doing much better.”

Johnny Depp became so obsessed with Hunter S. Thompson that he turned into a thief, raiding the legendary Gonzo journalist’s wardrobe and garage, a new book says. In “Johnny Depp: A Kind of Illusion” by Denis Meikle, director Terry Gilliam says during the making of “Fear and Loathing,” in which Depp portrayed Thompson, the star quickly latched onto the booze-swilling writer. “Johnny spent a lot of time with him and basically stole a lot of his clothing and his car – which were then used in the movie,” Gilliam says. Meikle suggests Depp, once considered an outspoken, uncompromising personality, may have become just another Hollywood phony. “Of late, his comments have sounded increasingly anodyne and indistinguishable from those of any other cog in the wheel of the dollar-hungry Hollywood machine,” the author writes. “Every screenplay is the best, every story the most interesting, every producer/director the most brilliant to work with, every co-star the most fascinating to work alongside. [It's] like a tape playing on a continuous loop, with only the names interchanging. Same old, same old.”

(via page six)