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SUSTAINABILITY - Why do we marvel that some people seem to be able to do "anything"? Why do we approach that almost skeptically?
Johnny Depp was in the Netherlands. At Pinkpop, of course, as a guitarist with the Hollywood Vampires. The Dutch music magazine OOR was surprised by this and asked the question: can this man really do anything?
Of course, we know Depp mainly as an actor in films: Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, Wade Walker in Cry-Baby, Edward Scissorhands, and, last but not least, Joseph Pistone in Donnie Brasco. But Depp is not an actor who is now also trying to be a rock artist. He is actually a musician who was encouraged by Nicolas Cage to pursue acting. So, not the actor who also plays guitar, but the guitarist who also acts. Depp even quit school as a young kid, encouraged to do so by the school principal to become a rock musician. He only became more famous as an actor.
As a musician, Depp played for years with Jeff Beck. Beck was ranked fifth in the top 100 best guitarists in the world by that other famous music magazine, Rolling Stone, honorably between B.B. King and Keith Richards. In other words, Depp plays with the very best. That background is unknown to most, which is why the magazine OOR called Depp the surprise of the day at Pinkpop. So the answer to their own question is that Johnny Depp can indeed do anything. ...
With creative minds, then, adding value across disciplines is the rule rather than the exception. That’s because their starting point is not what exactly they can do (unlike the question from OOR’s journalist, which focuses precisely on that ability: So can Johnny Depp really do anything?). No, their starting point is curiosity, an unbridled fascination with the world, the organisms that live in it, and how those organisms handle things. When that curiosity is combined with a keen power of observation, with an eye for detail and the bigger picture, that curiosity also functions as a breeding ground for inspiration.
Curiosity + observation = inspiration
That inspiration is the fuel that creative minds combine with a hefty dose of passion and drive. That cocktail of traits enables them to add value to multiple disciplines. ... Similarly, Johnny Depp did not play Captain Jack Sparrow, he became Captain Jack Sparrow. He did so, inspired by Keith Richards, through a combination of imagination and empathy. Creative minds like Leonardo da Vinci, Herbert Simon, and Johnny Depp are guided by the creative process, not the final product. Some say that is the secret behind Depp’s success and not a particular acting talent or anything like that.