How about that Johnny Depp, huh? What will he get up to next? Your guess is as good as mine, though a recent interview with Rolling Stone certainly does a fine job of exploring the unique grey matter of one of Hollywood's most beloved yet controversial actors. Recently while speaking with reporter Stephen Rodrick, Depp confirmed a rumor suggesting that he wears an earpiece on set to have lines fed to him while shooting. What's that? You want to hear about Depp's idea of using hallucinogenics to find war criminals? Don't worry, little lamb, we'll get to that part soon enough.
In his report, Rodrick states, “According to the lawsuit, Depp kept a sound engineer on the payroll so he could feed him lines through an earpiece while filming. This Depp does not deny.” While Depp cops to the act of wearing an earpiece on set, the FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS actor claims that it's not because he can't remember his lines but that the device allows his sound engineer to filter the lines and the sounds on set so that Depp can act better with his eyes. Um, alright. I mean, I'm not an actor, though I'd imagine that keeping lines, atmosphere, marks, and body language all in mind while trying to recite dialogue word-for-word is no easy task – regardless of how seasoned you are at your job.
“I’ve got bagpipes, a baby crying and bombs going off,” said Depp. “It creates a truth. Some of my biggest heroes were in silent film. It had to be behind the eyes. And my feeling is, that if there’s no truth behind the eyes, doesn’t matter what the fucking words are.”
Alright kids, gather round! It's time to drop some acid with Johnny Depp!
While there are several facinating angles to Rodrick's interview, none piqued my interest more than Depp sharing his thoughts about what would have helped find Osama Bin Laden faster: Dropping LSD out of airplanes over Pakistan. Are you still with me? Well then hold on, Alice, because we're about to dig deeper into this rabbit hole.
According to Depp, “You get a bunch of fucking planes, big fucking planes that spray shit, and you drop LSD 25,” Depp proposed. “You saturate the fucking place. Every single thing will walk out of their cave smiling, happy.” Oh yeah, it would have been a regular rave in the desert, right? Maybe we could have air-dropped Daft Punk or Deadmau5 onto a nearby dune to really turn the party up to eleven? Now, everyone knows that Depp has a colorful past when it comes to taking drugs, though perhaps one of the highlights of his "extracurricular" career was during the time he picked Hunter S. Thompson up at an airport in Aspen, Colorado. As the story goes, Thompson told Depp, "I've got something that you've just gotta try." That something turned out to be a pipe filled with sticky resin. Depp then told Rodrick that upon taking a hit, shit started to go sideways.
“[Thompson] was like, ‘Damn, some kids brought that over, and I took a hit and puked my guts out,’ ” Depp said.
During the interview Depp also vouched for his love of Quaaludes, while simultaneously lamenting the idea of them no longer being a popular aspect of today's drug culture. For a laugh, Depp told Rodrick about the time that he was so blitzed on the drug that he asked a club bouncer in Florida to punch him square in the face.
“They’re made with just a little bit of arsenic, or strychnine,” Depp said while explaining the makings of the drug. “So the high was far more immediate. You either wanted to smile and just be happy with your pals, or fuck, or fight.”
Remember kids, drug dealers are dorks, don't even talk to them. Cowabunga! Meanwhile, you can catch more of Depp's on-screen antics when he stars in FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD alongside Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Jude Law, and Zoe Kravitz, among others. The sequel set in the magical world of Harry Potter will aparate into theaters on November 16th.