by Sue Zeidler
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Johnny Depp is getting pickier about
the films he makes these days, but he could not resist starring
in “Blow” about drugs and riches — 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 the film, which opens tomorrow.
“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
paychecks 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 drug-induced lunacy, 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 chiseled good look
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.”
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