JohnnyDepp-Zone.com

Johnny Depp appeared briefly on Entertainment Tonight on February 19th to confirm that he would be among the Alice in Wonderland cast members greeting the crowd at Disney’s Ultimate Fan Event. Director Tim Burton introduced Anne Hathaway (the White Queen), Helena Bonham Carter (the Red Queen), Mia Wasikowska (Alice), Michael Sheen (the White Rabbit), Crispin Glover (the Knave of Hearts), Matt Lucas (Tweedledum and Tweedledee), and Johnny (the Mad Hatter) to an enthusiastic crowd. “I’m very excited to have the opportunity to present the film to [the fans],” Johnny told ET. “Those people have stood behind and supported Tim and certainly myself for a long time, so yeah, that’s very gratifying. It’s always exciting to present the film that first time out of the gate and to feel the reactions of the people around you, so that’s always exciting.”

And is Johnny excited about Alice in Wonderland’s royal world premiere, taking place on February 25th at Leicester Square in London? “I’ve never experienced a royal premiere,” Johnny confided. “They would never let me near the royals before.”

The Zone thanks FANtasticJD for sharing the Entertainment Tonight interview and her screencaps of Johnny. You can see larger screencaps HERE and HERE. You can read more about Johnny’s appearance on Entertainment Tonight on the Zone’s News & Views forum.

The photo at left shows Johnny Depp as he appeared at the Alice in Wonderland Ultimate Fan Event held at the Hollywood & Highland Center’s Central Courtyard today. Johnny and director Tim Burton were interviewed backstage–the interviews were streamed on MySpace–and then came out briefly to greet the crowd, which had been entertained by musical artists featured on the “Almost Alice” CD. Johnny expressed his gratitude to the crowd, many of whom showed up in Alice-inspired costumes: “The fact that these people come to support us in this way . . . it proves that the only reason we’re still working is because of them, so we’re very, very excited.”

Asked to explain his “inspiration” for the Mad Hatter, Johnny replied: “The Hatter kind of came from . . . certainly, the information that’s there in [Lewis] Carroll’s works, which is magnificent. He sort of came from . . . for me, it was the idea of all of us, the idea of the extreme sides of our personality: the extreme sides of our rage, the extreme sides of our sadness, the extreme sides of our levity. So it was like . . . for me, I looked at the Hatter as a kind of human mood ring, if you will.”

The Zone thanks AnaMaria for sharing the live feed of the Ultimate Fan Event and Theresa for video clips and screencaps. To see a larger version of our screencap of Johnny Depp’s MySpace interview, CLICK HERE, and to see a screencap of Johnny with Tim Burton, CLICK HERE. You can read much more about the Ultimate Fan Event on the Zone’s forums.