nov 30, 2017 - THE TELEGRAPH 'I've made a career of failing': what now for Johnny Depp?

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'I've made a career of failing': what now for Johnny Depp?

By Adam White

At one point in time, Johnny Depp looked back on his journey so far. “The interesting thing is, for the most part, I’ve kind of been able to glide through this weird little thing they call a career in terms of the business world and in terms of the industry in many movies that were considered absolute failures, flops,” he told Esquire. “So I’ve kind of made a career of failing.”

While the quote wouldn’t look out of place in a new interview with the star, it stems from 2004, when Depp was in the midst of his career peak. Then, Depp was far and away the biggest star in the world, having stolen the show as flamboyant Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, one of 2003’s most unexpected movie sensations, and lured large audiences to commercial thrillers like Secret Window, arthouse fare like The Libertine and prestige Oscar bait like the JM Barrie biopic Finding Neverland.

After years of rejecting commercial expectations foisted upon him as the star of the teen cop drama 21 Jump Street and earning a reputation as something of an outsider oddball, Depp was suddenly the hottest commodity in Hollywood.

He even earned back-to-back Oscar nods, the first for his inaugural stab at Jack Sparrow. It’s an interesting bit of trivia – the character having been brought back for so many increasingly exhausted reprisals that it’s easy to forget it once merited Academy Award attention.

But the Depp of 2004 is almost unrecognisable from the Depp of today. Between accusations of spousal abuse, legal entanglements with Australia and jokes about assassinating Donald Trump, he has spent the last few years infuriating many, morphing from a beloved pin-up and celebrated movie star into a scarf-swaddled cartoon, someone buried in legal paperwork and so unappealing that people are actively trying to get him cut out of movies.

Remarkably, none of this appears to have damaged his standing in Hollywood, even after losing studio money amid an almost impressive number of financial disasters (Dark Shadows, The Lone Ranger, Transcendence, Mortdecai, and the list goes on...) As if to prove right his 2004 assertion about failing upward, he’s maintained a staggering level of cultural ubiquity despite setbacks that would typically kill an A-list career dead.

Along with a sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, he has two intriguing-looking indies on the horizon, is one of the stars of the sleeper hit Murder on the Orient Express, and remains a face of Dior.

There are several explanations for all of this. For one, he’s an undeniable talent. Look past the repetitive nature of many of his roles in the past decade, and he remains an often quite daring and original actor, whose work, regardless of its quality, is typically at least interesting.

He’s also one of the last stars to preserve a certain level of mystique, something that continues to stand as nicely refreshing. Notoriously press shy, he has given few long-form interviews in recent years, while the circumstances of his split from long-time partner Vanessa Paradis remain a mystery.

More importantly, however, is that he’s a major draw at the global box office. While something like The Tourist, his infamously awful collaboration with Angelina Jolie, has long been colloquially regarded as a commercial belly-flop, it inexplicably grossed nearly $300 million worldwide, $210 million of it overseas. Likewise last year’s Alice Through the Looking Glass and this summer’s Pirates of the Caribbean 5 – both underperformed in the USA, but at least broke even thanks to international audiences.

It’s the major reason why he’s still being cast in things, including Fantastic Beasts. And that’s despite Harry Potter fans clamoring for his removal from the film, citing the allegations made against him by ex-wife Amber Heard last year.

Heard accused him of being “verbally and physically abusive” throughout their relationship and took out a restraining order against him, while a leaked video showed Depp angrily slamming cupboards and throwing a wine bottle and a glass. Images of Heard with a black eye were also leaked online.

The pair finalised their divorce earlier this year with a statement in which they described their marriage as “intensely passionate and at times volatile,” declared that “neither party has made false accusations,” and that “there was never any intent of physical or emotional harm.”

People remain unhappy, however, leading Fantastic Beasts director David Yates to defend Depp’s casting this week. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, he suggested that Heard’s claims are irrelevant as no one else has accused Depp of abuse.

“There’s an issue at the moment where there’s a lot of people being accused of things, they’re being accused by multiple victims, and it’s compelling and frightening,” Yates said. “With Johnny, it seems to me there was one person who took a pop at him and claimed something. I can only tell you about the man I see every day: He’s full of decency and kindness, and that’s all I see. Whatever accusation was out there doesn’t tally with the kind of human being I’ve been working with.”

He added: “By testament, some of the women in [Depp’s] life have said the same thing — ‘That’s not the human being we know.’ It’s very different [than cases] where there are multiple accusers over many years.”

Yates’s statement is an illuminating one, and key to how swiftly Depp has been able to sidestep potential career destruction. While many had hoped that the outpouring of harassment stories to have emerged in the wake of Harvey Weinstein would mark a major step in believing allegations made by women, it doesn’t appear to be the case. Rather it is about volume. One sole voice, for Yates and probably much of Hollywood, doesn’t add up to much. Add four or five more, and then there’s a problem.

As a result, Depp has emerged entirely unscathed from the personal scandals of the last few years. It helped that the press was so heavily bent in his favour during the Amber Heard split, with TMZ in particular deciding early on that a blameless Depp had fallen victim to some sort of evil bisexual succubus. To drive home the unfairness of Depp’s teflon-like ability to weather scandal, Heard’s reputation continues to be marred by her divorce.

There are signs, however, that Depp has recognised he needs to regroup in certain areas, and appears to be consciously stepping away from the big-budget spectacles that had become his bread and butter over the past decade. Richard Says Goodbye and Labyrinth, both due for release in 2018, are two small-scale indies, the former an emotive drama about a man throwing caution to the wind in the months before his impending demise, and the latter a true crime tale based on the investigation into the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.

Neither film will be guaranteed box office smashes and neither are directed by major names (Wayne Roberts and Brad Furman, respectively) but both are the kinds of low-key character project that Depp was once regularly drawn to. Even more promisingly, there are no flamboyant hats or wacky prosthetics in sight. The most extreme act of transformation is a grey moustache, which Depp sports in Labyrinth.

The films could indicate that Depp is looking to turn a corner, potentially recognising that the dissolution of his marriage and its related legal skirmishes have dented what was at one point a stellar reputation. And while he does have one 2018 project that screams “lawyer fees”, the Gnomeo & Juliet sequel Sherlock Gnomes, it’s doubtful that he’ll be significantly put to work promoting it.

It’s important to remember, however, that we’ve been here before. 2009’s Public Enemies was at one point meant to be Depp’s return to serious acting following years of fright wigs and false teeth, but it ended up being only a short detour. The following year he was back to yukking it up in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and cashing a very large cheque for The Tourist.

Similar “return to form” conversation arrived in conjunction with 2011’s Hunter S Thompson adaptation The Rum Diary and his Whitey Bulger biopic Black Mass in 2015. But neither stuck, once again sandwiched in between expensive flops that cast him as heavily made-up eccentrics. Dangle in front of Depp’s face a big enough paycheck, and he’d slather it in whatever you want.

It’d be naive to assume that Depp has truly stepped away from commercial fare (Fantastic Beasts, after all, is currently filming), but anyone who has been following the dire state of his finances over the past six months will be aware that he is in no position to turn down lucrative work. After all, he’s still embroiled in a lengthy lawsuit with his former business managers revolving around his diminishing fortune.

But now more than ever both films are important optics for Depp, whose wild spending habits have been gleefully splashed across the media this year, with tales of extravagant purchases of private islands, expensive booze and Kim Kardashian’s sofa. Retreating to films with lower budgets and artistic cred can only help a man who has appeared to have been entirely consumed in recent years by the draw of bloated paychecks.

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