‘A sense of anonymity’: Why ‘it’ girl Lily-Rose Depp isn’t trying to be famous
Lily-Rose Depp is forging her own path, taking on provocative roles that have turned her into an ‘it’ girl.
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She has one of the most recognisable surnames in Hollywood but Lily-Rose Depp isn’t buying into the lure of celebrity.
Despite being one of the “it” girls of the moment, the daughter of actor Johnny Depp and French singer and model Vanessa Paradis is more concerned about preserving her anonymity than becoming part of the Hollywood scene.
“Every job comes with a set of circumstances and this [fame] is kind of one of them,” the 25-year-old says matter-of-factly, on a Zoom call from London.
“The importance to me has been to maintain a sense of, like, privacy and grounded-ness and to protect [what] really belongs to you.
“People are interested in things that they shouldn’t necessarily be interested in and … the job of an actor is to go into a character and, like, melt into it – and make the audience believe you are this character.
“In order to do that, it’s important to protect a sense of anonymity – they’re not supposed to get to know ‘you’ that well, ‘cause you want them to believe you as other characters.”
For our interview, Depp – who was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, to her French mother and American father – is wearing a black blazer and midi skirt, with strappy silver stilletos.
The dark hue is fitting as she sits next to co-star Nicholas Hoult; the pair are speaking about their roles in the unsettling Robert Eggers-directed gothic horror film, Nosferatu.
Based on the 1922 German silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (to which Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula served as inspiration), Nosferatu tells the story of a vampire (Bill Skarsgard) who becomes obsessed with a young woman, Ellen Hutter (Depp), and her husband, Thomas Hutter (Hoult), leading to a reign of terror.
Like Depp, British actor Hoult – who has been in the public eye since he was a child in About a Boy and a teenager in the cult TV series Skins, before more recent roles in the X-Men franchise and Mad Max: Fury Road – is not driven by fame.
“If I look at [actors] I really adore, when I am watching them, I don’t know where they were that weekend or what they were eating for breakfast,” Hoult, 35, notes.
“It’s easier to escape and believe in whatever you’re watching. There’s also an element of – well, it’s nice when people do recognise your work or have seen it.
“You get to meet people and hopefully, they enjoy what you do, and that’s a privilege.
“But there’s also an element of trying to protect privacy and not being too visible everywhere – where people can watch you on screen and think, I believe that character! As opposed to being, ‘that’s so and so’.
While the co-stars have been photographed recently at premieres and press calls for Nosferatu, both admit to finding the attention that comes with their very public careers a bit hard to handle.
“I find it [red carpets] absolutely terrifying,” Hoult laughs.
“If you measured my heartbeat in the car … I felt like my chest was going to explode.”
Depp chimes in suggesting Hoult’s reluctance to be in the spotlight “means you’re a good person”.
“That’s like a sign of like a good, humble human being,” she adds.
“[Red carpets] are part of the job … and it kind of the opposite of the job.
“The job is to be someone else and almost leave yourself behind – and go into someone else’s skin and do it in an intimate setting [on set].
“So in a way, it feels private, like an intimate setting. And then all of a sudden, having to like go out into the world and be very publicly yourself is kind of an interesting paradox,” Depp says.
Asked how he finds the confidence to be himself instead of a character, Hoult laughs: “Maybe I’ll create a persona for red carpets”.
“You’ll see me throughout the [press] tour and be like, ‘Nick!’ And I’ll be like, ‘Nick’s not here’. And I’m like waltzing up and down the red carpet.”
For Depp, fame is basically in her blood. Her father, the actor Johnny Depp, has starred in some of Hollywood’s highest-grossing movies – and been the subject of scandals, too.
Her mother, Vanessa Paradis, is a long-time muse of CHANEL and its late creative director, Karl Lagerfeld (Depp also has had an ambassador role with the French luxury house, having appeared in its beauty and accessories campaigns).
Last year, Depp made headlines when she starred as pop ingenue Jocelyn in the controversial Sam Levinson-helmed series, The Idol, alongside The Weeknd – with the reaction to the series heavily criticised and divisive.
When asked how she chooses her roles, Depp is contemplative. “It depends on where you’re at, in the moment,” she says.
“What you’ve been doing, what you shot last, I’ve always been interested in taking on roles that feel quite different from each other.
“For me, it’s like a new challenge to dive into another world.
“And that makes for a colourful career. That’s part of it, have I done something like this before? Am I interested in exploring something like this? And do I think I could do a good job?
“Having the humility to like read something and be like, this is a great script but am I the person for the job? Sometimes you’re not, and that’s OK.”
For Hoult, it’s about asking himself a tough question – “There are times where you want to say, am I the right person for this?”
“And then there’s something in your gut [that holds you back]. There’s a connection that there’s something about this that I feel like I can bring something to it,” he adds.
“You don’t want to get stagnant and do the same thing over and over again.”
Analysing Nosferatu’s relevance to modern day society, Depp says: “There is so much about this story that is so grounded in humanity”.
“I think all of the characters have a palpable humanity to them and you feel for them and what they’re going through.
“For my character [Ellen], she’s kind of at war within herself. She is battling against what she should be and what she needs to be, and that she wants to be. She desperately wants to cling to being like a normal girl, in a way.
“The life that she ‘should’ have and these darker impulses, this pull into a darker world, coming to terms with the darkness that exists within herself.”
Hoult adds: “There’s this element that I think a lot of people experience in life – the error of his ways is this idea of making more money, getting a nicer house, will solve any issues they might have in their relationship and in life, and make him feel like he is worthy of his partner and his friendships”.
“That’s something … people battle with. That’s a comparison to today in many ways … but not to unleash evil on the world.”
Nosferatu is in Australian cinemas on January 1 (Universal). For more from Stellar, click here.
Originally published as ‘A sense of anonymity’: Why ‘it’ girl Lily-Rose Depp isn’t trying to be famous
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