mr deb we’re going to talk about miss

hurt in a couple minutes but i’d like to

first talk about

um your career in hollywood and so could

you please tell the jury how you ended

up acting in the first place um

i ended up acting by accident

i

was a musician and i moved out to los

angeles with my

band uh when i was

20 years old

um

and then there were

a couple of

uh

things that happened

in the back where the band split up and

um

i remember i was filling out job

applications and then nick

with a friend of mine and who happens to

be

he was an actor

uh less known then than he is now

nicolas cage

and i was filling out job applications

at any you know video stores clothing

stores anything and just to

be able to pay the rent and

um

nick cage said uh you know why why don’t

you meet my agent you know uh

because i

i think you’re an actor i think you

could be an actor

and i said look i’ll meet anybody you

know i’ll do anything at this point

and so he sent me to his

his agent eileen feldman

and i met with her

[Music]

um

she sent me to read for a

casting director named annette benson

who was casting a film called the

nightmare on elm street

and

they brought me back to read for the

director wes craven

and

i read for wes

craven and

somehow got the job

but i mean i was by no means

an actor

i didn’t

have any desire to be an actor i was a

musician

uh but

the fact that these

people were going to pay me

what i

found to be a ludicrous sum of money

which was uh it was kind of the sag

minimum

uh it was twelve hundred and eighty four

dollars

a week

which i mean you know i’d never seen

that kind of dough

before in my life

um

and so

i i suddenly

you know then i did some other couple of

dumb movies because i i i

still in my mind i was

a musician and this was just a way to

pay the rent pay the bills live

um then suddenly i found myself

on that road i had been

placed on that road

uh as a

as an actor and then i

one thing led to another from film to

film and then i

was cast in a tv series called 21 jump

street

when i was 22

i believe

mr depp between the time that you um

were cast in nightmare on elm street and

you um were cast in 21 drums jump street

how did you enjoy acting during that

time it was foreign to me

it was foreign to me but i i didn’t

i didn’t have any great um

ambition

to be an actor i

i’m a

uh

naturally normally

i’m i’m uh

i’ve always been quite as shy person

i’ve always been quite introverted

and

so

there was a very strange

metamorphosis from

being one of four

that is to say

one

of four in a band where you have this

fraternity or this brotherhood

um

and you’re out there

fighting the world together to try to

get that record deal or whatever you’re

looking for and

when the

when i got on this series

and my life started to change in various

ways that is to say that people started

to you know you go into a restaurant

you’d see people whispering and pointing

and

all that i was uh

i was very uncomfortable with it i was

very uncomfortable with it and i didn’t

like it

um

just just because it

i

i never wanted to be the lead singer and

the guy out front and

get all the attention and i didn’t so

suddenly i was on my own and i was uh

having to deal with this uh

this this this newfound sort of

notoriety

and it was it was odd it was very odd

and it was

yeah it was a very uncomfortable thing i

mean it i don’t think it’s anything that

one can get used to i don’t i i would

i’m not i’m still not used to it now and

i which

i’m actually glad that i’m not used to

it

because if i were

i don’t think i’d be the same person

that i am

mr deb did there come a time when you

became passionate about acting

once i realized that i that that’s the

road that i was

on

and

that any attempt at going back to music

would

would be a

um

not

would have been

i hated the idea that

since the television series had

come out and i had been exposed as this

this character or this actor uh um i had

to realize in in my own

mind and heart that there was no going

back to music because i i didn’t want to

you know i didn’t want to

i didn’t want to

use

whatever

amount of success that i had

attained from the tv series and that

sort of thing

i didn’t want to use that

to

influence

um

you know some career in music i i i had

far too much respect for

uh music

um than to just to become what they

wanted me to become which was a you know

teen idol or a teeny you know that

that’s that sort of thing

i um i fought that with uh

with everything in my being

so

once i realized that music was no longer

uh an option

then

um i began to uh study

um

at various places in the loft studio

which is now long gone

um in in los angeles i studied with uh

some other teachers uh saunders c cat um

i read

all the books that you could read and

all that was great

but um you realize that

the only way to

[Music]

the only way to

learn or the only way to learn how to

it’s not act necessarily the only

way to learn how to react

and behave

because it’s just behavior and its

reaction

um

was to do it

you

it’s on the job training it’s trial by

fire

so um

i did my best to

to work up

work my work up my own

approach towards the towards uh

a character and such

and what were a couple of the first few

uh projects that you worked on where you

were really able to implement that

approach

i would say

i i i would say that the

first

film that i had done

that i really took um

where i really felt okay

i’ve done the work i i i

know what i need to do

um

i would say that was that without

where i considered myself an actor i

suppose was was was when um

oliver stone cast me in uh

platoon in

1986

how did you come to be cast in pirates

of the caribbean

uh

well that’s that’s many years later but

uh

i

i had been um disney had offered me a

film

called

hidalgo

when it was about a man

his horse in the desert and stuff and i

i read the uh the screenplay

and i just didn’t think it was for me

um but

i wanted to have a meeting with them

because

i at that point i had a um two-year-old

uh

yeah two two

two and a half-year-old daughter

and

so or three and and and

for three years i watched nothing but

animated

films

cartoons from texas avery to bugs bunny

to

um that that was all i i watched with my

with my

little girl

and

i received the screenplay for pirates

and

it was i i somehow in my mind i saw this

opportunity like a way to mesh

characters

like

cart black cartoon characters for

example

wiley coyote gets a boulder dropped on

his head

and he’s completely crushed but in the

they cut to the next scene and he’s just

got a little bandage on his head

so i i started thinking about the the

parameters

uh that are that were available to

cartoon characters

and

if they were available to cartoon

characters

and and and

nobody ever asked a question whether you

were 5 or 95 you didn’t ask a question

oh wiley of course he’s still alive

so i tried to

incorporate

these uh

these kind of ideas into the character

of captain jack sparrow

so that

so

so that

i could try to push those parameters

and

and and control the sort of suspension

of disbelief the to be able to control

the

um characters

actions words movements

and put them in a place where

the things that he would do or say were

so

either ludicrous

or

um

mainly something that

also something

the cartoon characters can get away with

things we can’t

captain jack sparrow can do things that

i could never do he could say things

that i could never say

so it was for me

a way to

stretch the parameters of of a character

and

and take uh take a risk

in doing that but if it if it panned out

i i i and i felt i was on a

pretty good mission

if it panned out i thought that it might

be a character

who would be accepted by

five-year-olds and

45 year olds and

65 year olds and 85 year olds and

in the same way that bugs bunny is uh

you know

you mentioned that sorry you mentioned

that you received the script when was

that i’m sorry

when did you first receive the script

for pirates of the caribbean uh the

the first screenplay i i received was uh

2002 i believe yeah 2002.

and what did you think of that script

when you received it

um

i thought that it had all the

kind of hallmarks of a of a

of a disney film that is to say

a kind of a predict predictable

predictable three-act structure

um

with um

with

and the character

of captain jack was

was more um

he was more like a swashbuckler type

that would kind of swing in

shirtless and

you know be the hero um

and i

i had quite different ideas about the

characters so i

incorporated

my

notes into character and

brought that character to life

um much to the chagrin of disney

initially

now when you say you made changes to the

character how did you do that

um just

you know in preparation you know

the same the very same way that i’ve

ever approached any character you you

you look for a back history you base it

on

um

you know it could be anything like

edward scissorhands for example was

i based on a

dog that i’d had and uh

newborn

babies

my sister had a couple of new babies and

i watched them you know

because i thought that edward would see

things

from the this sort of

unc the

from a place of innocence

um and

not knowing

exactly what things

meant or were

and and also that that

look of

a

a pure

innocent

child when they experienced something

for the first time

those those were the

the two main ingredients that i

thought would

serve the character

and with

captain jack

again the cartoons

you know the

pepe le pew it was it was a

um

it’s like it’s like making a soup

you know it’s ingredients it’s just

ingredients um

there’s some pepula pew

in there there’s some keith richards in

there

um

there’s a bit of a

you you know i figured this is a guy

who’s been on the sea

for the majority of his life

quite possibly his brains may have been

scrambled a bit by the sun

and also i thought that he’d been on the

sea for so long that he had his sea legs

but when he got on land he just didn’t

have his land legs so he could never

quite

stand still

how did the film ultimately turn out in

your view

um i didn’t see it

but uh i

believe that the film

well i mean the film did

pretty well apparently and uh

and uh they wanted to keep going uh

making uh making more and i was

fine to do that uh

as uh it was

it there’s great freedom in

in

being able to

it’s not like you become that person but

if you if you know that character

to the degree that i did because

he was not what the writers wrote

so they really

weren’t able to write for him

so once you know a character better than

the writers

that’s when you

um

you have to uh be true to the character

and add your words at the rewrites um

i was

yeah i know i i i believed in the

character wholeheartedly and

the uh

initially the

disney uh folks were

somewhat upset

now you mentioned that the film was to

your understanding a great success how

did your life change after the first

pirates of the caribbean movie came out

um

though i’d been around for many years

already and

[Music]

people people knew who i was and

all that

after pirates one came out

there was a

completely different it was a completely

different uh

way of life was was was being sort of

you know

my family and i were being plunged into

that is to say you know

at our house in los angeles you would

have

you would have people trying to climb

the gates

to get into

sea captain jack sparrow

um you would you would have people

trying to

bust in the gates

dressed as captain jack sparrow you

would have

it and

follow you or follow you and your family

so that was that was the moment when

um

there was no

other way

but to uh we had to hire more security

guards and i was certainly worried for

my kids

um safety

and so then we that’s when the

instead of just the one guy there were

there you know they were start there

became several security people

because i

wanted to make sure that my kids were

safe when they went to school or when

they went to disneyland or when they

went to

the mall or

whatever

um

so yes more security and you know then

just getting followed

you know by hordes of paparazzi and

things like that it’s it’s it’s uh

i’ve had worse jobs certainly i can’t

complain about it

but um

yeah

uh after a while you realize that

uh

um anonymity

uh has left the building

a long time ago you know the anonymity’s

gone

um

and that’s it that’s an odd thing to

deal with

um

when you just

i mean you can’t just drive down to the

diner and get a cup of coffee or

something it’s not

possible it turns into something else

altogether

so it’s

you know

it’s acceptance and there’s of course

there’s a bit of sacrifice

uh involved i i can’t complain

about the

work

that i’ve been given

i can’t complain about any of that

i have no right to

but

it does make you have to think very

creatively

with

when you’ve got little kids about how to

take them to the park

or you know to the swings or to this or

that movie or you know

it becomes uh it becomes a strategic

mission

and and and and that’s what happened

after pirates

now you mentioned your family who did

your family consist of at that time