Award-winning actor Johnny Depp has portrayed countless characters throughout his career, and many have lauded him for his ability to imbibe different complex personas.
When he was recently asked which role he considers as his toughest achievement yet, Depp was hard pressed to choose just one.
"Three stick out in my mind," he told Variety. "'Edward Scissorhands' was tough to let go of because I found real safety in allowing myself to be that open, that honest. To explore purity. It was a hard one to walk away from."
He also considers his portrayal of Captain Jack in "The Pirates of the Caribbean" as tough because the success of the franchise was uncertain.
"Because Disney wasn't looking at it like it wasn't going to be particularly successful," he explained. "I don't think they were thinking sequels at that point so I didn't know I'd see him again. He was so fun; he was a get out jail free card to be as irreverent as you want to be.
Finally, Depp said that "The Libertine" would probably have to be the most difficult movie he has ever done simply because of the physical challenges he faced.
"That's a film I did that about 17 people saw, I think. I played John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, and we did that film so quickly, in about 45 days, and it's quite epic. A huge page count per day, a demanding character," he said. "At the end of that, I just kind of broke and got really sick. When you're doing a movie, your body doesn't allow you to get sick until you finish. I was down for like two weeks. Playing him was touching because I was passionate about bringing him out to the world as a brilliant poet. So many people don't know who he is. And I loved him."
Depp added that he usually undergoes a "decompression period" after each film, which usually takes around three months or more.
"Because you're playing the guy from morning to night every day for a certain length of time, months and months, they do seep into you. That's not to say that you're no longer you," he explained. "But being someone more than you're yourself in a day, there's no other way that it can happen without the character seeping into you a bit... Sometimes it joyful, because you're just happy to be done. Or it can be melancholy. I remember the last day of 'Edward Scissorhands,' looking at him and being him and knowing I would never see him again. It really got me."
