Johnny Depp: The Playboy Interviews (50 Years of the Playboy Interview) by Playboy, Johnny Depp

hanging out, having dinner, seeing what a family is supposed to do that I saw that we weren’t normal.
    Playboy: How was it different?
    Depp: Even down to sitting around a dinner table together—it wasn’t an everyday occurrence in my house. At my house dinner easily could have consisted of a bologna sandwich, and then you’d split. You might come back later and grab a few peanuts, and then you’d split again. That was it. I would go to my buddy Sal’s house for dinner. I couldn’t understand what was going on with everyone sitting down together. I’ll never forget seeing romaine lettuce for the first time. I thought it was weird—I was afraid of it. There was salad and appetizers and soup. I had no idea about that. I grew up on hillbilly food.
    Playboy: Apparently you were no more at ease in school. Were you a problem student?
    Depp: Yeah, in high school.
    Playboy: In what way?
    Depp: There was this vicious woman, a teacher. If you weren’t in her little handpicked clique, you were ridiculed and picked on. She was brutal and unjust. One day she told me to do something, I can’t remember what. Her tone was nasty. She got very loud in my face in front of the rest of the class and tried to embarrass me. I saw what she was doing, that she was trying to ridicule me. I turned around and walked away. As I did, I dropped my drawers and mooned her.
    Playboy: How did she react?
    Depp: She went out of her mind. Then of course I was brought before the dean and suspended for a couple of weeks. At that time it was coming anyway. I knew my days were numbered.
    Playboy: What in school interested you?
    Depp: I was more interested in music than anything else. Music was like life. I had found a reason to live. I was 12 when my mom bought me a $25 electric guitar. I had an uncle who was a preacher, and his family had a gospel singing group. He played guitar in church, and I used to watch him. I became obsessed with the guitar. I locked myself in my bedroom for the better part of a year and taught myself chords. I’d try to learn things off records.
    Playboy: Which records?
    Depp: I was very lucky to have my brother, who is 10 years older than me and a real smart guy. He turned me on to Van Morrison and Bob Dylan. I remember listening to the soundtracks to A Clockwork Orange and Last Tango in Paris . I loved Aerosmith, Kiss and Alice Cooper, and when I was older, the Clash, the Sex Pistols and the Ramones.
    Playboy: Why didn’t your music career pan out?
    Depp: At a certain point I realized that, in terms of a job, maybe I didn’t have the passion for it.
    Playboy: What effect did your parents’ divorce have on you?
    Depp: I was 15, I think. It had been coming for quite a long time. I’m surprised they lasted that long, bless their hearts. I think they tried to keep it together for the kids, and then they couldn’t anymore.
    Playboy: How were they as parents?
    Depp: They were good parents. They raised four kids. I was the youngest. They stuck it out for us all those years. But we lived in a small house, and nobody argued in a whisper. We were exposed to their violent outbursts against each other. That stuff sticks.
    Playboy: What led you to acting?
    Depp: Opportunity. I never really had an interest in it in the beginning. Nicolas Cage—we had some mutual friends—introduced me to his agent. She sent me to a casting director, and I auditioned for the first Nightmare on Elm Street . I got the job. I was stupefied. They paid me all that money for a week. It was luck, an accident. I did it purely to pay the rent. I was literally filling out job applications at the time, any kind of job. Nic Cage said, “You should try being an actor. Maybe you are one and don’t know it.” I began acting, and I thought, Well, this is an interesting road; maybe I should keep traveling on it. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, so I started to read everything I could about acting—Stanislavsky, Uta Hagen, Michael Chekhov. I started soaking