Johnny Depp on cover of January 2011 VANITY FAIR; interview by Patti Smith, photos by Annie Leibovitz

Here’s an early holiday treat — Johnny Depp is featured on the cover of the new edition of Vanity Fair (issue date January 2011). The stunning photographs (featuring a sultry, piratical JD) are by Annie Leibovitz; you can see a larger version of the Vanity Fair cover HERE. Check out that skull-and-crossbones tattoo! For a beautiful profile shot, CLICK HERE. The interview is by longtime Depp friend, music legend, and poet Patti Smith, who calls her feature “The Crowded Mind of Johnny Depp.” According to Vanity Fair, Smith asks JD about the filming of his two most recent movies, The Tourist and Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides; his famous co-star, Angelina Jolie; the relentless paparazzi; and — from one musician to another — “the music career he almost had.” Says Johnny, “Going into acting was an odd deviation from a particular road that I was on in my late teens, early 20s, because I had no desire, no interest, really, in it at all. I was a musician and I was a guitarist, and that’s what I wanted to do.”

The Zone thanks Theresa, Emma, and AnaMaria for articles and photos; you can read more about the Vanity Fair article on the Zone’s News & Views forum.

The Vanity Fair website currently features a gorgeous retrospective of Johnny Depp’s many appearances in their magazine; you can find it HERE.