QUOTES -- BY JOHNNY
ON ACTING / CAREER
With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying.
The characters I've played, that I've responded to, there has been a lost-soul quality to them.
The term 'serious actor' is kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? [Like] 'Republican party' [or] 'airplane food.'
I don't pretend to be captain weird. I just do what I do.
On a film you start to get closer and closer with the people you're working with, and it becomes like this circus act or this traveling family.
All the little films I've done that were perceived by Hollywood as these obscure, weird things, I always thought could appeal to a larger audience. I mean, box office is such a mystery to me that I can't... you know... I have enough -trouble doing my own gig.
When asked why he hides his box office good looks behind strange wigs, fake teeth, and girly squeals: "I think it's an actor's responsibility to change every time. Not only for himself and the people he's working with, but for the audience. If you just go out and deliver the same dish every time...it's meatloaf again...you'd get bored. I'd get bored."
About 'Pirates of the Caribbean': "It was mentioned that they were considering a movie based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and I said I was in. There was no screenplay, no director, nothing. For some unknown reason, I just said I was in."
All the amazing people that I've worked with - Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman - have told me consistently: don't compromise. Do your work, and if what you're giving is not what they want, you have to be prepared to walk away.
About 'Pirates of the Caribbean': "I only wanted to be in a movie that my kids could see."
I had never experienced that before. And it's been fun to visit Hollywood and talk to studios as a bankable actor for a change.
I've been around long enough to know that one week, you're on the exclusive list of guys who can open a movie, and then the next week, you're off the list. It's been a fun ride, and I'm enjoying it for all it's worth.
Marlon wanted me to escape movies for a while - 'Take a year off. Go on. Study Shakespeare.' So it's one of the things that keep ricocheting around in my head. He told me that by the time he had got to the point where he felt he could do Hamlet, it was too late. So he said, 'Do it now, do it while you can.' And I would like to do it - although it's one of the more frightening ideas I've had. I think as an actor it is good to feel the fear of failing miserably. I think you should take that risk. Fear is a necessary ingredient in everything I do. But if I do Hamlet it will probably be in a small theater on a small stage and it will have to be very, very soon because I'm getting a little long in the tooth for it.
On Gene Wilder's comment on the remake of Willy Wonka: "Hearing about that was disappointing, but I can understand where he's coming from, I guess. The one thing I didn't understand was that apparently he was quoted as saying 'Well, they just did this for money.' Well, hey, man, where have you been? When didn't they ever do anything for money? Nobody's ever made a film in the history of cinema where they weren't expecting some return on their dough."
I would hate to say that I'm an actor and that's all I'll ever be. It's important to do anything and everything you can in life. Otherwise, you'll never learn anything.
I started out as a guitarist in the early '80s. I hooked up with a guy who idolized James Dean and he gave me a copy of the Dean biography The Mutant King, which I thought was really interesting. While reading the book, I watched Rebel Without A Cause, and I thought, 'Wow, this guy really has something.' And I was hooked. I wasn't really into acting at the time--but James Dean was the catalyst.
I think I'll act until I make enough money to buy my own planet and move onto it. Uh, no, as long as I can keep doing stuff that I want to do and have fun, then I'll be doing it.
ON AGING
I suppose nowadays it's all a question of surgery, isn't it? Of course the notion is beautiful, the idea of staying a boy and a child forever, and I think you can. I have known plenty of people who, in their later years, had the energy of children and the kind of curiosity and fascination with things like little children. I think we can keep that, and I think it's important to keep that part of staying young. But I also think it's great fun growing old.
ON AMERICA / GOVERNMENT
I was ecstatic when they re-named 'French Fries' as 'Freedom Fries.' Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots.
Taken in context, what I was saying was that, compared to Europe, America is a very young country and we are still growing as a nation. It is a shame that the metaphor I used was taken so radically out of context and slung about irresponsibly by the news media. There was no anti-American sentiment. In fact, it was just the opposite. I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it. I have benefited greatly from the freedom that exists in my country and for this I am eternally grateful.
What I said was, the United States of America is a young country compared to Europe, compared to, you know, other countries. We're young. We're 200 and something years old.
ON AWARDS
Sure, I find it touching, honestly, but awards are not as important to me as when I meet a 10-year-old kid who says, 'I love Captain Jack Sparrow' ... That's real magic for me.
ON BEING DIFFERENT
If there's any message, it is ultimately that it's okay to be different; that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.
ON DIRECTING
On reactions to his film, 'The Brave': "You know what was traumatizing, what was very, very strange in terms of this film I directed a few years back called The Brave. Well, I guess I wouldn't say traumatizing, but I would say weird: at the premiere of the film the reception of it was beyond any expectation that I had. I had no idea I'd be looking at Bertolucci or Antonioni sitting there watching my film. And then to receive the applause that my film got, it was so incredible. And then the next day the majority of the American press, just turn it into this horrible thing. Once again, everybody is entitled to their opinion, man. Maybe it's a bad film? Maybe it's a good film? To me it's just a film. It's something I needed to make."
ON FAME
I'm shy, paranoid, whatever word you want to use. I hate fame. I've done everything I can to avoid it.
I don't want to get used to being famous and I don't think I ever will--if it ever started to seem normal to me, then I'd know I'd become something I don't want to be. But I do think I handle fame better than I used to, mainly because these days I have a couple of kids to put everything into perspective, and show me the things in life that really matter and the things in life that don't.
ON FAMILY
Anything I've done up till 27 May, 1999 was kind of an illusion, existing without living. My daughter, the birth of my daughter, gave me life.
On his daughter, Lily-Rose: "I see this amazing, beautiful, pure angel-thing wake up in the morning, and nothing can touch that. She is the only reason to wake up in the morning, the only reason to take a breath. Everything else is checkers."
Having kids was a huge change for me. Becoming a father. But I think more than changing, I feel like I've been revealed to myself, I kind of found out who I was. When you meet your child for the first time and you're looking at this angel, you start realizing what an idiot you've been for so many years and how much time you've wasted. As far as being feet-on-the-ground, once again my kids and Vanessa have given me a proper foundation. A sense of home that I never had in my life, a real sense of a place to be.
On Vanessa Paradis: "I pretty much fell in love with Vanessa the moment I set eyes on her. As a person, I was pretty much a lost cause at that time in my life. She turned all that around for me with her incredible tenderness and understanding."
You can't plan the kind of deep love that results in children. Fatherhood was not a conscious decision. It was part of the wonderful ride I was on. It was destiny, kismet. All the math finally worked.
When kids hit 1 year old, it's like hanging out with a miniature drunk. You have to hold onto them. They bump into things. They laugh and cry. They urinate. They vomit.
ON FANS
I think that the kids that come around, it's nice to meet them. For all intents and purposes, they're my boss; they keep me employed.
These people [the fans] are my boss; they're the ones who keep me employed. A couple of times, they could have said, 'Let's abandon him.' And they haven't. You don't want to let them down.
I've learned to sort of condition myself to not have any expectations in terms of box office, because that kind of escaped me for many years. It's relatively a new experience to have more than a few people go and see my films, but it's very exciting.
I've known that there have been a kind of select group of people, amazing die-hard supporters, even through some of the more, shall we say, odd films. These people, bless them, have stuck with me the whole length of the road. To say that you appreciate it is not nearly enough. It's part of the essence, or fuel, of what keeps you going.
I had never experienced anything like the response I got from people for Pirates of the Caribbean, where you meet a 75-year-old woman who had seen Pirates and somehow related to the character, and then five minutes later you meet a six-year-old who says, 'Oh, you're Captain Jack!' What a rush. What a gift. That was the challenge with Wonka, too--to be, in a sense, like Bugs Bunny. I find it magical that a three-year-old can be mesmerized by Bugs, but so can a 40-year-old or an 80-year-old. It's a great challenge to see if you can appeal to that huge an age range.
More than anything, it's those kids that mean so much. I don't like the word fan and I don't like to refer to anyone as a fan, but the kids outside the movie theater, the kids who go and watch these things and the kids who have stuck with me on a very long, lengthy, strange, bumpy road--that's what means the most. They're the people who keep me employed.
