JohnnyDepp-Zone.com

The January 2nd issue of the Los Angeles Times carries a delightful article by Mark Salisbury reporting his interview with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp; details reveal that the interview took place during the London press junket for SWEENEY TODD in late November, when both of Salisbury’s subjects were suffering from the flu. Nonetheless, the friends are cheerful and quick-witted as they pass the Kleenex box back-and-forth and tell Salisbury about their work. In addition to the usual questions about whether Johnny was nervous about singing in a film, they discuss their “silent movie” approach to conveying the central character’s torment.

Salisbury explains that Burton and Depp wanted to recreate the “minimal but expressive acting style” employed by actors like Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, and Lon Chaney. “It’s almost a lost art,” Johnny tells Salisbury. “[John] Barrymore was a master, but the king for me was Lon Chaney. You go back and watch films like THE PENALTY and see this rage and sadness, this huge range of emotions, without the luxury of dialogue.” Tim Burton reveals that every day during the shooting, he and Johnny “would cut Sweeney’s lines down to the bare minimum.” Explains Burton, “Johnny can, just by looking and not saying anything, project pain and sadness and anger and longing. [. . .] That’s what all those actors could do without a word and that was the exciting thing about this. The story is told through the eyes and the singing.”

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the Salisbury article; you can read it in its entirety on the News & Views forum. –Part-Time Poet

The Zone welcomes 2008 with a wonderful comment Johnny Depp made in the recent “Unscripted” interview he and Tim Burton did for Moviefone, in which the men interviewed each other using questions that Moviefone’s readers submitted online. Tim asks Johnny, “Do you ever go online to see what your fans are saying?” Of course one would expect the answer to be “No, of course not,” but instead Johnny says this:

JOHNNY DEPP: There are a couple of sites that are actually very, very helpful . . . like, a couple of them I can access and I can see what’s happening before, like, before I know, before my agent knows . . . .

TIM BURTON: There’s a lot of stuff that’s not accurate, isn’t there? I mean–

JOHNNY DEPP: Yeah, but they sift through somehow, miraculously, they . . . these people are able to sift through and get to the, you know, the actual part of it, you know, the truth. [. . .] Either that or they know, they’re familiar enough with me and, you know, who I am, that . . . they can slice away the crap, you know what I mean, and go straight to the heart of the matter. It’s, it’s . . . they’re amazing; it’s really . . . a lot of information out there.

The Zone would like to begin 2008 by thanking our intrepid newshounds who keep us up-to-date with all of the latest developments regarding Johnny Depp’s career projects and public appearances, and our picture detectives and Depp historians who share their photographs and their expert knowledge on our forums–always with accuracy, sensitivity, and respect for Johnny Depp. And we would like to thank Johnny for speaking so kindly about his fansites. We will replay that interview clip over and over!

To see the Moviefone clip where Johnny talks about websites, click here: http://tinyurl.com/yrfw7h Unfortunately AOL/Moviefone is not available for viewing in all areas; we apologize if the clip does not play for you. Many thanks to namaste for bringing the clip to our attention, to Lucky13 for designing our New Year’s photo, and to Theresa for the transcript of Johnny’s remarks. What a wonderful surprise it was to hear those words! –Part-Time Poet