My love affair with Johnny Depp as an actor started probably when I was conceived. I know I’m not the only one either. From 21 Jump Street, to Edward Scissorhands, to the Mad Hatter in Alice In Wonderland, we’ve fallen in love and lust with his creepy characters and also the sexiest man alive himself. Though he’s a sex symbol to most women, he’s a magnificent actor. I recently got to attend the exclusive Alice In Wonderland press conference and got to chat with the likes of Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, Mia, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Sheen and more. To meet the cast was a dream come true to say the least. Johnny gave us some deep insight on his character The Mad Hatter.

The most intriguing part of seeing Alice In Wonderland was getting to know the characters and understanding each one’s point of view. Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter was no disappointment to his resume. The most interesting part of the character was Johnny Depp’s outlook on him. Let me just say that Johnny Depp in this role is absolutely GENIUS. The Mad Hatter is definitely mad, but also sweet and brotherly to Alice. The depth of the Hatter is what really got me. He’s sad, crazy, dark and tormented, yet his outlook is so light and hopeful.  Johnny brought a tragic nature to the Mad Hatter’s background of the character that we’ve never seen before with Alice In Wonderland. Where did this tragic nature of the character come from?

Johnny Says:

“Well I think that part of, I mean there’s that whole, ‘hatter’s dilemma’ which that was really where the term ‘mad as a hatter’ came from the amount of mercury that they used in the glue to make the hat. Everything was damaging, so I mean in terms of the Hatter looking in from that perspective of a guy who’s literally yea, damaged goods, you know, physically damaged, emotionally and a little obtuse and kinda taking that and deciding that he should be just as opposed to this hyper nutty guy. He should explore all sides of the personality at extreme levels. He could go from one second being very high pollutant and a lot of levity and then strayed into some dangerous potential rage and then tragedy. It was interesting trying to map it out.”

Before the production started Johnny was ready to play pretty much any character in the film. When Tim came to him with the role of the Mad Hatter his reaction was classic. He says:

“To be honest, he could have said Alice and I would’ve said yes. Ya I would’ve done whatever character Tim wanted, but certainly the fact that it was the Mad Hatter was a bonus. It was a great challenge to try to find this guy and not just be you know a rubber ball that you heave into an empty room and watch it bounce all over the place. But just to find that part of the character, but also add a little bit more history or gravity to the guy.”

A lot of the actors had read Lewis Carroll’s book version Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland before starting the movie and some of them had not. This had an impact on where the actors would take the characters and what images they wanted them to bring. Johnny was no exception, except he’s come across many influential versions of Alice in his life. He says:

“Even though you can’t quite place when the book or the story came into your life, I do remember vaguely maybe roughly 5 years old reading versions of Alice in Wonderland. The thing is you always know the characters. EVERYONE knows the characters and they’re well defined characters. Which I thought was fascinating because most people haven’t read the book but they definitely know the characters and reference them. For me, I went back maybe only a year prior to Tim calling me and I had re-read Alice In Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. What I took away from it was these very strange, cryptic, nuggets that he’d thrown in there. And those things I was intrigued by them and fascinated by them as they were asking questions that couldn’t be answered almost and making statements that you couldn’t understand. Like ‘I’m investigating things with the letter M’. That took me through a whole stratosphere of possibilities and doing a little research and finding that the M was mercury. And ‘why is a raven like a writing desk?’ Those things just became so, so important to the character and you realize that the more you read it like if I read the book again today, I’d find a hundred other things that I missed the last time. So it’s a constant changing.”

This movie is really a dream world to be seen and I absolutely loved it. Lucky for me did I not only get to attend the press conference but I got to meet the masterminds behind the movie. Now ready for the most amazing part? Here it is.

Yes! I got a hug from the man himself, Mr. Johnny Depp. Ladies he’s everything you can imagine and more. He’s very well put together and his mannerisms are very Jack Sparrow-ish. Just a bit more toned down than the pirate personality. Johnny Depp is by far, one of the most gracious and amazing celebrities I’ve come across. And no, I still haven’t showered.

Tags: Celebrities, Movies

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 2:59 pm and is filed under art&music, celebrity&lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.