For every Pirates of the Caribbean blockbuster he makes, Johnny Depp has a project with deep personal meaning, such as this month’s The Rum Diary, an adaptation of the Hunter S. Thompson novel that Depp himself discovered. It is Johnny Depp’s The Rum Diary as much as it is the late Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary. For one thing, The Rum Diary, Hunter’s only published novel, likely never would have seen the light of day if Johnny hadn’t discovered it in the writer’s basement while staying with him 15 years ago. Hunter himself had forgotten about The Rum Diary, […]

Friend and rock legend Patti Smith finds him on set, guitar in hand, for a free-floating tour of the inner Depp. Johnny Depp is on set at Pinewood Studios, outside London, for the last days of shooting the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie—On Stranger Tides. We sit on the floor of his trailer. There is an old Stella acoustic guitar that he cannot resist picking up and strumming quietly. Johnny is working 12-hour shifts. The day begins in the makeup trailer, long before morning rush hour. Downtime is divided between press calls, stacks of pictures to sign, scripts to […]

Plunging deep into his roles—from the self-created to the painstakingly re-created —Johnny Depp can drive himself to the edge of the psyche. His decompression is as extreme: a 45-acre private Bahamian island, where he can snorkel among the barracuda. The author joins the 46-year-old star and friends on Depp’s 156-foot yacht, which flies the Jolly Roger, for a stay in this singular paradise. The notoriously private actor invited Vanity Fair along on a sailing trip to his Caribbean isle. “You’ve got all-access,” Johnny Depp declared. “Ask me about anything you want.” Photograph by François-Marie Banier. A few feet away, the […]