DEPP CHARGE

Despite his boyish good looks, expop star girlfriend and reputation for trashing hotel rooms, Johnny Depp is far from being your typical movie star. To the 40- year-old’s credit, he has consistently turned down the lead in box-office certainties such as Speed, Legends of the Fall and Interview With a Vampire in favour of quirkier movies like Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Now, however, with an Oscar nomination under his belt thanks to his hilariously camp performance as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, Depp has finally proved himself to be a bankable name as well as very special talent.

Two facts that will no doubt be underlined by his role as Willy Wonka in the forthcoming movie Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. But just don’t expect him to hob-knob in Beverley Hills because when the filming is done he’d much rather relax at his home in the South of France with his family.

These days, Depp may well prefer playing with his kids than playing the star but that wasn’t always the case. Having dropped out of school when he was just 17 and got his first acting break in the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street, the young actor soon developed a reputation for being a serial heart breaker. A fact that he now believes stemmed from his parents’ divorce and his own displaced childhood as one of four siblings born in Kentucky; the family had moved 30 times by the time he turned 16.

After getting a running part in the TV series 21 Jump Street as a pretty boy cop, his early marriage to make-up artist Lori- Anne Allison broke up and the star was linked with a string of beautiful women. He became engaged to Jennifer Grey then Winona Ryder and even wore a ‘Winona Forever’ tattoo on his arm. There was a much publicised relationship with Sherilyn Fenn and then there was that fantastic tale about Depp, Kate Moss and a bath of champagne. If you haven’t already heard it, the story goes that they once filled the bath in their hotel room with Kruger and went out for dinner. When they returned, they discovered that a maid had pulled the plug, believing it to be dirty water. Today Depp coyly denies it ever happened – but, nevertheless, admits it was the sort of thing he could have done.

Everything changed though when he met Vanessa Paradis while preparing for his role in Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate in Paris. Depp, who not long before had split up with supermodel Kate Moss, fell for the Lolita-like singer, who had a hit with Joe le Taxi in the mid-1980s. Since then she has appeared in films with Gerard Depardieu and Jean-Paul Belmondo, and her past boyfriends include rock star Lenny Kravitz. Within just a few months of knowing each other they bought a country home near St Tropez and then came together to England for the filming of Sleepy Hollow. While in London, Depp had his notorious clash with a group of paparazzi, allegedly attacking them with a piece of wood. “It wasn’t because I wanted to get into a rumble with someone,” he says. “I was with Vanessa who was four months pregnant and I was protecting what was precious to me. We were celebrating the upcoming birth of our child and the photographers were very aggressive. I did what I felt I had to do against six guys and I don’t regret it – but that doesn’t mean that I’m a mean or violent person.” Paternity, however, has helped put everything into perspective. “It’s amazing,” he says, “finally to discover the reasons for being alive. It’s amazing topaced and the values are all to do with business,” he says. “If we lived there fulltime it wouldn’t be good for the children. It’s not healthy for children to be raised in the overexposed world of Los Angeles.”

Another bonus is that Lily-Rose and Jack are bilingual. Johnny says: “Lily-Rose speaks both languages. She picked up English in two months. It was incredible. Jack has a primitive vocabulary.”