RWF Movie Take (Black Mass ) Johnny Depp

 Johnny Depp as ''loving family man'' Whitey Bulger and Mary Klug as Ma Bulger in Black Mass.

In Black Mass, the 52-year-old actor plays James "Whitey" Bulger, a notorious Boston criminal who was the head of the Winter Hill Gang in the 1970s. Finally a movie starring Depp that is not from an imaginary world, an opportunity to show off his skills as an actor rather than a showman. To get into the role, Depp says he watched, "some footage, FBI surveillance stuff, a couple of tapes where you can hear shootings from a hit". Great.

We expect actors to do their homework and he discovered "a businessman who, within the language of that business, did what he had to do; and there was another side, a loving family man, very dedicated to his mother and brother". "He is a very complicated man. When you dig into a person like that, you owe them first to do some sort of justice, even though along the way there are some ugly moments."

 Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

 Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.

Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. 

Will the real Johnny Depp please stand up?

 

by Kaleem Aftab

The reason Depp found such a perfect collaborator in director Tim Burton is because Burton is infatuated by alienation. Edward Scissorhands, The Mad Hatter, Willy Wonka and Ed Wood are all individuals who work on their own, and have behavioural patterns that set them apart from the rest of the characters.

Perhaps there is a reason for this. "I've never decided to be an actor. I never really cared because I was a musician," Depp told journalists at the Venice Film Festival this month. "After, when I got into the racket and started going on and got stuck in a TV series that was … you know … it put me on the map … it was very frustrating. You realize you end up saying someone Else's words."

"I think being an actor gives you responsibility towards the audience to change, to give them something different, something new, to try to surprise them," Depp said in Venice. "Not bore them by just being the same sort of thing every time, playing yourself.

 

"For me it's very challenging, it's very important as an actor to test yourself." However, as he acknowledged, "there's a danger in trying to do these transformations".