Why Minamata star Johnny Depp wants to return to Australia

Johnny Depp may have lost his legal row against Amber Heard over assault claims in Australia, but he still wants to come back to the lucky country.

“I’m not in a good state,” Johnny Depp says via Zoom from his vast kitchen in the French countryside.

It’s difficult to ascertain whether Depp is talking about himself or his latest role in the film, Minamata, based on the true story of legendary Life photojournalist, W. Eugene Smith.

“Gene,” Depp laughs, “always said the ‘W’ stood for wonderful.”

Things have not been so wonderful for the actor who was once Hollywood’s most bankable star.

The 57-year-old has spent the past couple of years in various legal battles. Firstly, with his former business managers who he sued for mismanaging his earnings (a settlement was reached out of court) and, more recently, with ex-wife Amber Heard who had accused him of physical assault. Depp lost a London court case late last year after he was labelled a “wife-beater” by UK tabloid, The Sun.

The judge found The Sun had proved what was in the article to be “substantially true”.

Days later, Depp was dumped from his role as the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in JK Rowling’s Fantastic Beast franchise.

Depp appealed the case ruling and lost but he and Heard remain at legal loggerheads with the ensuing fallout leading some Hollywood insiders to suggest that Depp, who helped make the Pirates of Caribbean films a billion-dollar franchise, would not work again.

Depp says: “I’ve been asking questions of myself for many years. A dear, dear friend who made his exit back in 2004 – Marlon Brando ... we worked together on this film, Don Juan DeMarco, and we got to know each other pretty well and got close and he was a very funny guy. And in one serious conversation, he asked me, ‘John, how many films do you do a year?’ Depp says impersonating Brando perfectly.

Johnny Depp in a scene from Minimata.

“And I said, ‘maybe two-three.’ And he said, ‘That’s too many.’ And I said, ‘Well, if you have to bring home the bacon …’ and he said, ‘Yeah, but ... we only have so many faces left in our pockets.’

“And I understood very well what he meant, and I’ve been waiting to run out of the faces in my pocket, but I keep seeing more.”

American director, Andrew Levitas, had no concerns working with the star on Minamata.

“Working with Johnny was as high on my list of interests as you could have,” Levitas says via Zoom from his home in California.

“When we met, we didn’t make any film references – it was all this other stuff. We were kindred spirits in that way. We connected in such a beautiful way.”

In Minamata, famed World War II photographer Smith’s career is in freefall and he’s become paranoid and agoraphobic. He’s holed up in his New York apartment, drunk, in debt and estranged from his kids.

Johnny Depp in a scene from Minimata.

A chance encounter with a Japanese woman (who becomes his wife) opens him to the story of Minamata, a Japanese town whose residents are dying or are ill with mercury poisoning. She implores Smith to document what is happening in the town. The photos Smith takes become his defining work.

“By the time Gene Smith went to Minamata he was a pretty curmudgeonly ... almost to the point of paranoia, you know,” Depp says. “He’s wondering why he hasn’t given up. I do relate to that.

“I had taken an interest in W Eugene Smith a long time ago ... the fact he said the ‘W’ stood for wonderful explained the man to me in a split second.”

The film was released in Berlin more than a year ago but was delayed in the pandemic and, some suggested, because of Depp’s woes.

Given half of Hollywood seems to be residing in Australia while the rest of the world struggles to get going again, could we see Depp – who filmed some of Pirates of the Caribbean in Queensland – return to our shores to film?

“With pleasure. I got to work with one of the best crews and met thousands and thousands of really nice, cool people, who would come down and visit the set and just say hi with their kids,” Depp says.

Minimata opens in cinemas tomorrow

Originally published as Why Minamata star Johnny Depp wants to return to Australia