JohnnyDepp-Zone.com

The July 2005 edition of the French PREMIERE magazine celebrates “Twenty Years of Depp” with a retrospective and several fascinating articles, including “His Strokes of Genius,” “His Return to Tim Burton for CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY,” and a feature where ten directors invent a film role for Johnny. Vanessa Paradis also contributes an article in which she lists twenty reasons to love Johnny–and she should know! Some of Vanessa’s reasons: “He’s not afraid of anything,” “He knows French culture better than I do,” “He will do anything to help someone,” and–of course–“He is always beautiful.”

The Zone thanks Sam for breaking the story and posting scans of the French PREMIERE on the News & Views forum. We also thank the many Zoners who have contributed translations of Vanessa’s 20 reasons. Merci! For a larger view of the PREMIERE cover, click HERE.

In a SHOWBIZ TONIGHT interview aired on June 28th, reporter David Haffenreffer asked Johnny Depp what attracted him to the role of Willy Wonka in CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. “First was the opportunity to go back to work with Tim,” Johnny replied. “And then second, obviously, Roald Dahl’s classic story [. . . ].The combination of those two was, I thought, just perfect and magical.” Other factors included the acting “challenge” of trying to play Willy Wonka without repeating what Gene Wilder had done with the role, and the opportunity to make another film the Depp children would enjoy. “My kids were very excited when they heard that I was Willy Wonka, you know,” Johnny told Haffenreffer. “It’s important to me that films like ‘Pirates,’ ‘Finding Neverland,’ and also ‘Wonka’ is a film that’s accessible for my kids and my kids can watch it.”

“You seem to show up, do your films, do the publicity for them, and then you’re off the map, basically,” said the SHOWBIZ TONIGHT reporter. “But how do you see yourself fitting into the Hollywood social scene?” Johnny doesn’t see himself as part of that scene. “I’m not a particularly social animal, in the Hollywood sense. I don’t like to do that. But when I have to go to those events and stuff, it’s kind of fun, you know, because it’s so weird,” Johnny said. “I actually kind of enjoy it, you know, because it’s like going into some kind of weird carnival ride for a little while, [. . .] knowing that you’re going to come out the other side and escape immediately.”

The Zone thanks emma for posting the transcript of the SHOWBIZ TONIGHT interview on the News & Views forum. Thanks also to Theresa for the lovely screencap of Johnny on SHOWBIZ TONIGHT; you can see a larger version of the thumbnail HERE.