Johnny Depp and director Bruce Robinson charmed a crowd at the University of California at Berkeley on Monday night, where they hosted a question-and-answer session and a private screening of their new film The Rum Diary in Wheeler Auditorium. The Q&A was moderated by Ben Fong-Torres, an Oakland native who has written for Rolling Stone and the San Francisco Chronicle; the event was open to students only. The Rum Diary is adapted from an early novel by Hunter S. Thompson, and Johnny made a point of mentioning the author’s affection for Berkeley: “Hunter loved this place. He would be very, very happy to show the film to you guys here tonight.”

Johnny also explained how the manuscript of The Rum Diary happened to make it into print and eventually onto film. He found the draft of Hunter’s novel in 1997 while he was preparing to play Raoul Duke in the film of Thompson’s classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. “We were in what Hunter called ‘the war room,’ which was in the basement of his house,” Johnny told the crowd, “and it was strewn with cardboard boxes and files and stuff, just everywhere [. . .]. And we were going through the manuscript of Fear and Loathing, and then I just happened upon this box and opened it up, and there was The Rum Diary inside. And I opened it up and started to read it, and then we sat there cross-legged on his floor and read it together. And I said, ‘This is insane! You should publish this.'”

Smiling, Johnny continued, “And he said, ‘Yes, good idea, man. However . . . we should produce this. We should make a film!’ So it was Hunter’s idea, actually,” Johnny confided. “We started this thing out together in ’97.”

To see a larger version of the photo above, which shows Johnny Depp onstage at Wheeler Auditorium, CLICK HERE. You can find other photos of Johnny onstage with Bruce Robinson HERE and HERE, and a nice backstage portrait of Johnny with Ben Fong-Torres HERE. Of course Johnny signed autographs, too — you can see him signing HERE.

The Zone thanks Emma, Evochka, and HonestGirl for sharing news accounts, videos, and photos of Johnny’s trip to Berkeley. You can read more about the event on the Zone’s News & Views forum. There are also several audience-shot videos available on YouTube.