Johnny Depp & Lawrence Krauss (PT01): Finding The Creativity In Madness

[Applause] hi hi thank you i'm johnny depp no ah [Applause] i it's great it's a wonderful night thank you all for coming to this little intimate dialogue we're going to have and i'm very excited and it's going to be a wonderful night and you are going to be amazed and i want to i want to say what the context of why we're doing this the origins project this weekend is running a workshop where we have 20 of the of the world's greatest scientists in neuroscience and artificial intelligence and many of them in the audience today uh have been reading for the last two days talking about pattern processing in the human mind and it's called in the context of of intelligence learning but also in machine brains and the idea is to look at how important pattern processing is in terms of allowing us to to model the world and to understand how the brain works and when it goes wrong when pattern processing goes wrong you get schizophrenia and things like that and to explore how we can understand that and hopefully how we can make machines that aren't schizophrenic especially when they're intelligent and uh and controlling nuclear weapons but uh so when we thought about doing that with origins we always like to connect as much as possible science and culture and um and the relationship between madness and creativity the connections the pattern processing that we discussed in the meeting we thought of trying to connect that in the real world and it was clear that we couldn't do it better the most appropriate individual in the world to to connect those was the individual is going to come out a little bit today because he's the most he's most capable as you'll see of intelligently connecting those two things in almost every aspect of his life johnny depp is without a doubt one of the world's greatest actors well there he is and he's but the hallmark of his career one of the hallmarks that's really important is the is his his choice of characters their eccentricity marginalized people troubled people otherwise kind of odd but often profoundly creative and what he's done and what is the beauty of his acting is that they're not two-dimensional he makes them three-dimensional beings and and and and indeed as we put in the in the title of this event tonight he finds the creativity and madness most many of you may not know that of course besides being an actor he's incredibly talented musician also a writer and also an artist so he embraces creativity in all aspects of the human sphere and then tries to bring it onto the screen in the context of madness and the other thing so he's kind of cute but uh the uh but you're gonna see he's more than a pretty face because what we're not gonna have one man up here today we're going to have at least 60 of them and and and here if you if we zoom in you'll you'll see that there's a man who's involved in over 70 films with many different characters pretty neat i'm very impressed that we did this but but but there may be there may be one or two of you who haven't seen a film so we created a little a little clip to introduce you to the many characters and the many people that are johnny depp so if we could run that right now we uh we couldn't let donald trump have the last picture so so we thought we'd give jack sparrow the last word in this introduction so let's go to the last little little clip here that's we thought set their page so um without further ado i'd like to bring out one of the most inventive thoughtful generous kind interesting caring people i've ever known someone i'm extremely proud to call my friend and admire tremendously johnny depp go ahead it's fine thank you so much thank you are we related all of us are your relatives is that why you clap thank you thank you for having me here uh this is the first time i'm gonna call him professor krause because he doesn't like it when i call him professor thank you professor krauss yeah i like to be called hair doctor professor krauss they're the author professor um so we were telling me about interviews you've done so i thought we'd start what's your favorite color no i'm not um okay so let's i want to start i want to cover a lot of material but i want to start with your background of course which is from kentucky right yeah from um the backwoods of kentucky yeah i was born i was born in owensboro kentucky uh kentucky is in a weird way the kind of naval [Laughter] and i mean that in the best way possible navals are important um so my my my upbringing was uh very interesting and um it was a rough upbringing that was strange it was most times quite unpleasant you had uncle was a preacher right i had an uncle who was a preacher my mom my mom my dad never really had uh anything that you could uh call religion you know but i had an uncle who was a preacher my uncle denny and uh you know they they'd we'd have to go watch him preach on sunday and uh you know i knew the guy you know he's my uncle so i i watched him very closely and and he had that beautiful kind of evangelical cadence that that draws you in and then it's you know maybe i'm six seven years old and suddenly you see grown-ups adults you know throwing their hands up into the air uh screaming i'm saved running up and grabbing his ankle and kissing his shoe and speaking in tongues and all that stuff and it was it that those are killers by the way anyway sorry go on i might kiss that shoe before the end it's there so so for so for me to see to see that you know and it was it was i mean it was intense you know and again like i knew the guy he carried he carried a lead pipe and his uh in his golden cadillac with a tv in it um to stomp to you all to stove people's heads in if you have to so i could see the two sides of the man so at that ripe old age of six or seven years old i realized this is [ __ ] [Laughter] we'll get there aren't there [Applause] you see yeah i think it's a lie yeah you see we kind of agree on a few things yeah um but you know when i know that it was a difficult childhood we'll get to some of the aspects of that in a sense but school certainly was too but when did you first realize you were really strange pretty early on um well it's one of those things we all feel you know you're either you know going through school you're either an insider or you're an outsider or whatever um i never wanted to be i definitely never wanted to be inside because i found those people pretty boring and pretty monotonous and they thought about things like you know obsessed on sports scores and things like that so so i i never considered myself outside i just didn't consider myself inside so i just sort of did what i did so i reckon it was probably around the age of uh yeah probably nine or ten when um let's say uh the circus kicked in okay but you lasted a while you lasted for until you were 15 before you left school right yeah and it was tough yeah but you know i know you weren't good you weren't a stellar student but there was a book you were telling me i think there's a book that that when you were thinking about yourself that impacted on you well you get to a point you know uh uh you know if if you're feeling pretty strange uh from the age of nine to the age of fifteen you know we think of that in terms of six years and it it's a it's a bird song but six years at that point in your life is quite a long period to mull over uh uh that you're potentially insane and you're going to end up in a bug house [Laughter] so i had this brilliant idea i wouldn't read a thing that they gave me in school i just wouldn't i i just i just wouldn't because i had teachers that i just never felt they were particularly interested in teaching they never gave me the feeling that they wanted to teach me anything it was sort of uh by numbers by the numbers so i searched out a book in a library and it was called abnormal psychology and modern life and i read it cover to cover to try to i don't know i suppose diagnose myself or whatever uh worst thing i could have ever done [Laughter] worst thing i could have ever done because when i finished that book i realized i was screwed okay and then and then you but then you didn't you didn't go and become an actor you know what didn't we agree we take these off so that people could see your beautiful face there we go okay i had to i mean okay i wouldn't say beautiful is the one i don't know i think there's some people who disagree with you most people are looking at me so they probably don't even notice you but it's um they are that's what i'd be that's what i'd be doing plus the red shoes you know it's the right you know i had to do something i had to really i knew i'd have to do something to compete um but you you went and and you went to play music when you quit school you didn't go to become an actor well i'd already i was already i started playing the guitar at the age of 12. i felt a a a passion for it that uh yeah it was the first real passion that i that i that i had and i and i can safely say because i feel and i felt then that the word ambition has become dirty you know yeah because ambition somehow implies that i know i know i know cry [Laughter] i'll i'll probably be crying at about ten minutes um so ambition was a dirty word to me because it felt like you were working for some gain or material or some status or so i literally don't remember going through puberty because i locked myself in a room at the age of 12 12 13 and just play the guitar learn things off records and taught myself how to play and it was my life um and it was the only solace it was the only sanctuary it was the only security it was the it was my first love um now you draw now too did you do did you draw then as well did you have you always been drawing as well yeah i always did i from a very very young age i i i felt a great need to occupy my brain because otherwise if i didn't force information in there or distract myself from the circus that i would go mad and so i i you know i did everything i dug a tunnel in my backyard that would go into my closet so that i could escape and get in a true story my parents weren't particularly happy about it but i was proud i was proud of it but you know but acting well i think we'll get to why acting may have been the perfect outlet for you but but what's interesting to me the other day you were talking and we said you don't you know so you musician actor artist and that's what's but you say you don't consider yourself an artist no and you said acting acting in art or like an oxymoron or something well certainly the term serious actor [Laughter] which which you hear a lot you know i uh people say i uh no i want to be a serious actor and you just look at them and go oh man you're missing it you're missing it it's all right read stanislavski it's great uh read eric morris it's great read uh you know read all those books read the hog and read it but serious actor avoid that at all costs you know um i don't think that in i think the technicians on a film set a production designer for example cinematographer who who who is choosing uh the composition um and and how that affects the psychology of what the audience feels i believe that the director sometimes the crew those guys are craftsmen and those guys are artists an actor i just don't feel that an actor can be an artist i feel and it's it's uh it's unfortunate i wish i i wish i could i wish i could think of myself as an artist but i can't i just can't never could but but it doesn't mean you can't approach the work uh with the need or desperation or or or or passion of an artist i do approach the work in that way it's just i just refuse to believe that an actor i think you said once because you knew where you i mean we both talked about that it's hard i don't think either of us takes ourselves too seriously because we know where we came from in a sense and and anytime you think of yourself as something else that you just realize come on that's just a label i just you know i know yeah i know where i came from i know exactly where i came from it's ludicrous that i ended up where i ended up and i feel very fortunate to have to have met the people that i've met to have become such as this man here uh my uh my hero truly that's the first you know that's the first thing i said to him when i met him hi i'm johnny you're my hero um i knew i liked i it that's when i knew you were smart and you really think about that no my my my drug of choice is youtube you know my my my wife and i sit there and go through you know hours of of of lawrence and and christopher hitchens and uh richard dawkins now okay let's let enough about me let's talk about you um i thought this is for you oh yeah so by the way i just want to explain something this is not my fault what i'm about to do this is not a cigarette [Applause] this is a stage prom it's a prop yeah and there is a loophole in the law that i learned from my dear friend and a great comedian doug stanhope oh good doug discovered that smoking on stage is uh is kind of a yeah it's a you know it's like if chekhov put a cigarette into a scene what are you gonna do cut it out it's like disney wanting to cut out the caterpillars smoking of the true story by the way yeah true story but we should say like we say like i always do when i do demonstrations we say to the kids don't do this at home right oh yeah don't do this anywhere it's stupid it's actually stupid it really is it's one of the dumbest things i've ever done in my life but uh okay let's talk about other things um he knew i was just about to go somewhere else oh good good call so one of the things you know you're we you're lucky because not every actor can control his i only like it because it's breaking the rules that's the only reason i like it um but not every actor can control his or her own roles or what chooses to and chooses to control the roles that they want to do rather than the roles that would be commercial you know that that would propel them in a certain commercial direction indeed and you have chosen to play eccentric or odd characters for the most part and but and and sort of push the boundaries and and i wonder what you want to talk about why why that choice i've always been drawn to i mean my whole life i was i was drawn to people uh like you know i remember being maybe 14 15 years old and being fascinated with vincent van gaal i remember being fascinated with jack kerouac and reading on the road at a very young age and reading a book that represented freedom you know uh i came into i can't you know i i became an actor by a mistake i really said it just sort of happened and and it happened out of absolute need need to pay the rent need to live um so for the first couple of years i really just was doing these movies to for somebody who's going to give me money you know to do it and then at a certain point i realized that i was standing on a different road than my music and playing in a band so at that point i became passionate about learning uh and and understanding what it really is and what it can be so in my brain like for um being i was on a series called 21 jump street [Applause] thank you i think i saw half of one but i was i was on the series and and and i don't mean this to sound like some hideous uh you know whiny actor or anything like that uh or or or that i was you know in a phys that i wanted to bite the hand that fed me but i felt imprisoned i felt trapped because at the time fox network was trying to they were building themselves and they and they and they were shoving me down the throats of of uh every but you know every the country and and i felt very uncomfortable um because i realized that they'd made me a product and i i did not want to be a product no matter what because i could go back to construction or i could pump gas again you know i could play music whatever i so for the three years that i was involved with that show i did everything i could to be fired i i did you in fact by appearing to be insane right yeah i i mean i did i showed up on set once in a george washington wig [Laughter] with the red white and blue star spangled bell bottom and refused to take it off because there's a great protection that one can use in terms of your approach to your character there's a circle around you that no one can come into which is this is my choice for the character [Laughter] that makes it a very difficult argument for a producer or a you know someone of the upper echelon so the george washington we came out the turbine came out i began to talk like this in once in your underwear you know uh there was there was [Music] there was a really good one that they freaked out oh i took a rubber band and i wrapped it around the back of my tongue [Laughter] and um of course they asked what are you doing and i said well my my my character has a speech impediment they shut down the set of course you know but uh because i wouldn't take it off but that but they still wouldn't fire me i tried everything but so i felt like i was imprisoned and and you vowed never i essentially about never to be do that again and and that's why the choice of characters is always gone and do you think it's because i was going to talk about this later but maybe now is a good time that because i mean the more intense the characters the more strange the characters the more you had to put yourself into those characters and get out of the rest of your life and do you think there's some some aspect of that definitely i i i knew that i i felt i had something to offer he did i wasn't sure if i was right or wrong but i knew that i had to try and i knew that that was going to require paving or actually hacking your way through uh a jungle that would i needed to pave my own road cry baby you know they they offered me all kinds of movies where basically you know the head of my agency said look here's what you have to do to to to be successful you must carry a gun and shoot people and you have to you know do things with girls [Laughter] gee that's a shame on camera so when he said that yeah i was really worried because i thought god damn this guy has no idea what i'm going to try to do you know so i waited and waited for a film and then john waters offered me cry baby which i thought perfect opportunity oh thanks a long time again but he offered me crybaby and i thought it was the perfect opportunity to make fun of the image that they had chosen for me so crybaby happened did another season on the show tried to get fired no luck was cast in edward scissorhands by tim you know i want to i want to let these people know something it amazes me when sometime after we first met but um and i think it relates to your attitude towards acting and and the intensity of acting um two things one and tonight we're gonna force you to do a little bit although the monitor is only small you've never seen any of your films ever i tried to see one once because the director asked me to my wife amber can attest to this because her elbow was very busy that night i was uh sitting next to her director's wife is here director's here i fell asleep 35 times and i got this maybe there we go but part of the reason is is being in the moment when you're acting and after i mean you don't want to i feel the experience i'm happy with the process is what i'm interested in the process of creating the process of of of exploring the process of breaking formula the process of dropping the bottom out of a scene because it because [Music] people can get stale yeah and i feel that's the wrong place to be so i'm interested and always have been interested in trying to avoid what was expected and edward scissorhands was certainly the the first real opportunity for me to feel like i was uh standing on firm ground cry baby was important edward scissorhands was was the first time that i felt okay i i'm i'm i'm i'm solid yeah we'll get there i can start hacking through you know paving my way i want to get to edwards hands a bit but but i want to take some time to get there because i want there's another thing you told me which i think is particularly telling which is that you read a script and then and then you never after i know that you you uh improvise a lot of lines in the scripts but but that you never read the screen directions after the first time you read it you'd never read what the character is supposed to do and and i and i i think i understand that now but but why why don't you talk about a little bit when you when i read a script what happens to me are you guys bored shitless i mean they don't here's the pur here's the here's pure madness and creativity he was very creative and very brave to invite me up here to do this i'm [ __ ] mad they're accepting such a wonderful offer um i thought i was gonna i might say it but it's self-serving but i'm gonna say anyway so i got to act in a in a movie i just did a movie with verner herzog and and it'll come out later this year when i played a villain and for the first time and so um and uh but but the process by not reading the screen directions it seems to me what the real that means you actually have to think about instead of being told what the character is supposed to do which sort of takes the reality out of it you have to think about what you're saying and then do it and i and i can really understand that well the thing is it's i mean with with the work with the process which is my it's the only thing i'm interested in is being in the trenches in terms of film which is which is a i don't care what anybody says it's a collaborative effort everyone the real like i said the real artists are those people the focus puller the operator the dp when i'm in that process i'm free as a character i can do anything in the world i have no shame embarra clearly i can do anything as a character as myself do you think you need that crumble do you think you need that that freedom that you get as a character oh i i definitely need it it's good because that's good i want to show a clip um um i'll just keep my head this is what's behind me i don't have to no i think this is because it's interesting when i when you play a character that i think expresses what you were saying and and i don't know there's a movie called the libertine that you did and um and there's a clip i want to show from that which i think that character needed that and and and we'll talk about how you related to that character and why you did it so let's watch a clip you can avert your eyes okay okay [Music] thank you we're gonna we're gonna torture you a lot tonight it's gonna be good but no but i think that i mean it's a beautiful we'll actually i have another clip from that later but it's an amazing role but okay but it it you really you chose to do that character and i think you related to that character many different ways which you'll talk about but but the need the the in some sense the need as as someone who's troubled in real life perhaps to be able to be able to go to the theater and be able to express that creativity and that freedom that allows you to be whatever you want and not be called crazy well that's the key is be to be being is mostly reacting it's not acting necessarily it's it's the ability to be it's the ability to accept whatever comes at you to react yeah um and to apply truths your own truths um to various uh moments and one of the reasons why i don't read screen direction um i go through a screenplay and i and i it's the kerouac sort of thing it's a first thought best thought so i allow myself to to just scratch out i could dialogue anything um but screen direction i don't think much of only in a sense that i don't want to know what they want me to do i i'd like to find it because the charac because it's true to the character you know there's no don't tell me to walk over and pick up a pencil because you find that interesting man i i i need to find what that character believes in what that character needs to do i i don't like the idea of uh any choreographed or staged or fraudulent uh um expression yeah well and i think that's a characteristic of your life that people well that i've come to realize we'll talk about later is this is this need for truth and i i admire tremendously and and i think it's one of the reasons why you're so powerful and one and so remarkable in what you do but uh and you should applaud at that by the way but um anyway but but this this idea of this relationship between creativity and madness which we're sort of talking about and skirting around goes back a long way in terms of theater and artists and and uh it in fact dionysus i know i know uh you are fond of because he's the god of wine and i also discovered the god of hallucinogenic mushrooms i didn't know that who knew yeah but he was also insane and he was he's sort of characteristic he was he was the the both of those things but even in socrates socrates said madness provided it comes as the gift of heaven is the channel by which we receive the greatest blessings yeah you want to comment on that i think you know i think the beauty of those quotes is that um if you're aware of your we'll call it madness um if you're aware of it your madness or your insanity it can be quite painful if you're not aware of it what a gas what a gas so i wish i hadn't been aware of it because i'd probably just been doing snoopy dances at this moment yeah um and i think what those i believe what that comes down for me how i interpret it is i knew at a certain point i needed to accept that everything that happened had happened to me in my life every experience bad good what a difficult emotional i i knew that that needed to be accepted to incorporate it into my life because otherwise i would be in the bug house to keep one foot in that circle one foot in the circle and then one foot if he gets out of the circle there's a question i mean for a long time in fact it was quite quite uh accepted or a romantic idea that you had to be mad and and in fact it that also goes back to classical times it it goes back to to uh lord byron as well but well before that i think in fact socrates said if if a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the muses believing that technique alone will make him a good poet he and his sane compositions never reach perfection but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman you know that's one of those things if you could have written that you just drop the mic and walk away it's over then you you know peter somebody asked you what do you what do you do nothing why because i wrote that this this i but you know i think it but we but it's we shouldn't i i think it's unfair to suggest as and i know we've talked about it's one foot in not both feet in and it's and it's not necessary to be mad i think that's the point there's this romantic notion that there is a romantic notion about it and it's and just like ambition or the term the term rebel yeah which they always try to stick you with when you first come out who's a rebel what does that even mean anymore um but if you've got some if you have the inability to shut down that circus and when silence becomes the loudest thing you ever hear there's a cacophony of silence in your head which means it's non-stop noise visitation let's say from um from your past from your future from your present from your you can't escape it and i i think that that that's the key if you have it you have it if you don't have it great but don't romanticize it and and and and and and present to yourself but use it and deal with it and find a way to make it finally make make it part of your life it's your truth and the truth is just like we were talking about my my early when i was a little kid on public service television or whatever public broadcasting you know pbs was a little kid every saturday night they'd have uh uh that have horror films you know the hammer horror film christopher lee and peter cushing uh and they would show silent films and i i got to learn and i got to watch and learn from uh great silent film actors such as lon chaney senior who was known as the man of a thousand faces a character actor uh charlie chaplin but most of all buster keaton for me because it was so subtle and he didn't push it but what i realized what is that those those actors had they did not have the luxury of words it's easy to say i love you but if it's not behind the eyes if it's not in there if it's not your truth that you applied from whatever you got then it's then it's [ __ ] and the audience will see it now thank you but you know it's interesting i know you like the solid actors but i think you said silence is death and and and and it's silence is very difficult for you for a variety of reasons i don't know what you want to talk about but we can it's cool silence you know i played music for for a billion years i started playing music at the age of 12 i started playing clubs at the age of 13. you know they'd sneak me in the back door i'd play a set i'd go out the back door i'd wait for the next set sneak back in place so that was my early early life and i did that until i was about 20 or so so loud music is what i wanted because it was the absolute killer of silence however tinnitus then comes into the picture and so you develop this ringing in your ears and and a ringing in your ear is all right if it's one note let's say it's an a you have an a the key of a is right here if you have b flat here there's a dissonance and it's a very noticeable dissonance and it's a disturbing dissonance and it oscillates and even without the circus that alone i i could send me to the bug house easy and when you and you when you something that also surprised me we may talk about the music listener but you act you listen to music when you're acting when you listen to me i do yeah yeah because because i think we all go through life with some species of soundtrack in our heads you know um some song gets stuck in your head and it means something to you and i i believe that music for me music is the close it's the fastest most efficient way to memory old memories that that you apply to the work and if i have that music in my head i can stay there um as opposed to you know you're exposed to you know people working doing things i'm able to stay in my own world you know and keep my keep my work going you know the someone wants to applaud okay but um yeah but it's true i think it's true okay all of this you know and i think it's interesting fastest way to an emotion yeah and well i wanna i know that i and we were talking about one song and i think i have a clip from that later so we'll get there we'll get there by the way we're gonna go a little long it's clear to me but i don't really care okay um but um when in terms of of creating madness i want to talk about life experiences and when one talks about madness and your life experience i think we cannot not talk about hunter thompson and and um yes talk about yeah yeah he deserves you thank you talk about todd let's talk about talk about your relationship to hunter and and the things well in some ways as a mentor but a friend and and how he affected your thoughts about it hunter was a lot of things to me and um we when i met him it was at the woody creek tavern and which i've been to yeah i took stephen hawking there once actually yeah i did anyway that's the difference anyway ma'am dude gonna fly on the wall but also how i wish hunter had been there me too me too actually i i met hunter uh through a friend mutual friend uh i was at the woody creek tavern as far back in the back as i could get to avoid the novelty syndrome and next thing i know the front door bursts open he's kicked it open and i see nothing but kind of electricity because in his right hand he had a cattle prod it's about yay big and uh he's swinging that around and in his left he had a stun gun [Laughter] and threatening so when a man walks in with that much power and screaming get out of my way out of my way you bastards he found his way to the to my uh table walked up introduced took his hand out we shook hands he introduced himself hi i'm hunter i'll say yeah johnny hey you know immediately we started talking about we're both from kentucky he was from louisville and uh i don't know it clicked so he invited me to his house that night and we were spending time together and uh i noticed there was a beautiful nickel plated shotgun uh smith you know 12 gauge and uh i said well that's a that's a beautiful shotgun he says oh yeah it was wonderful uh you want to want to fire it it's about 2 33 in the morning so of course i wanted to fire of course um so then he uh arrived into his kitchen which was what he called his you know sort of command post um and he handed me a propane tank i had a cigarette hanging out in my mouth see i've got the propane tank and then he hands me a small box about yay big look like a box of matches or something i didn't know what it was so he says yeah tape this to the side so i'm taping it to the side i did a couple of them i said what is the what are these little boxes oh that's nitroglycerin okay [Laughter] the cigarette went into the sink and uh we took him outside he handed me the shotgun it was almost like i felt like it was being um like it was a test in a way so i aimed the deal it was about i don't know 30 yards away i hit the target the nitroglycerin the explosion was an 80 foot fireball [Laughter] straight into the air and uh which included shrapnel and uh that was it that's where we that's right that's why you bonded yeah [Laughter] but you bond over more than that i mean i mean hunter was crazy but he was he was a remarkable writer and you and also a reader and you guys used to read together you used to we didn't read to each other or something yeah what hunter would do is uh we can one of the one of the things that he found most fascinating was that i was not only aware of a writer called nathaniel west but i'd read the four books only four books nathaniel west data locusts uh the dream life of ball system i mean you know a wonderful writer and he was shocked that i knew who knew nathanael west's uh work so we would read for he would he would he would read a bit and then he would have me read and then we started reading his works things he was working on at the time and what he would do to me is uh he he he became a conductor you know i would read you know uh from whatever the work was you know uh and he what he he would he would you know i'd read he'd go yeah and so basically he hunter taught me how he wanted his work read and which is a i mean if there's anything such as a blessing that was it but then you learned as a result you sort of got to well i mean you had the opportunity to play him in front of him in a sense yeah and then you got to play him on the screen yeah and i got i got to show a clip from from this okay okay so from fear and loathing in las vegas [Applause] [Applause] um even if i didn't or hadn't known hunter at the time that we did that film the the the pleasure the the the the it was succulent to be able to say those words um drop to the floor and scream no we haven't done anything yet [Laughter] and you would there's so many beautiful you know it's his masterpiece and and he was he was aware of that but he and and one can't help but notice that there were some drugs involved in that particularly yes um and there were drugs involved in in and and his in his life in all ways i guess and drugs and alcohol you could say that yeah and and there there had there were drugs and alcohol involved in in your life when you were younger too and and um and it and the knee again what can one talk about the need i mean acting is an escape but so are in fact one of the things that in our in our meeting that we're having here one of the one of the people in earlier early on talked about that that single chemicals and and you can scan the brain create new patterns that you've never experienced before talking about pattern recognition as part of consciousness and that drugs produce can single chemicals can produce new patterns you've never experienced before and is is is it that is that sort of something one is driven to once again because reality is sometimes intolerable yeah yeah i would say i mean you so you weren't you didn't do drugs and younger to party never i mean i you know like we all grew up you know the parties uh when you were a kid in school i mean i i didn't take part in any of that because it was the drugs that i started very early you know maybe 12 you know stealing what was called back then nerve pills from from my mom's purse [Laughter] and never did i take a drug never did i take a drink never did i do any of that to for that you know the term which i despise let's party because i i was self-medicating i was i was trying to numb myself i was trying to calm the circus i was trying to calm the brain i was trying to feel better than i did and um so i believe myself there's a very important quote that people uh it's not that people take for granted but it it's it's it's not noticed enough for people to really understand hunter thompson um who hunter did exactly the same as myself yeah we talked about it extensively um hunter was never one of those guys yes let's get real he never never heard him say the word party or anything like that it was a necessity it was self-medicating and there's a quote at the beginning of fear and loading it says he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man and that quote a lot of people don't realize it that quote is hunter you know that quote is hunter because he had to get rid of the pain of being a man he had he was plagued as a lot of us were plagued what hunter had two things that people didn't know about hunter they thought he was just a savage and it could be but he was he was an extreme gentleman he was a southern gentleman and aside from that he was a hyper hyper hypersensitive human being who [Music] had no way of releasing the demons that would never you know and never come back um so hunters again talk about truth yeah i lived with hunter i lived i lived three months i've he made a bedroom for me in his basement and i lived there for about three months on and off and my my nightstand was it was this beautiful keg and that's where i kept my ashtray what not then i realized it was an actual live keg of gunpowder i like that [Laughter] when i realized what it was you know the brown recluse that i was living with in that room [Laughter] that was nothing so i ran the hunter upstairs and i said come here you got to come here you got to come here and i showed him the nightstand gunpowder and he said oh jesus that's where that went well there's other hunter stories about us hypersensitive we will get to them in the question period but but but i want to relate this the the drug aspect to something that's interesting that when we've talked about our own lives which have had especially our young periods for which there were stress we had a really interesting talk today by someone who i think i see in the audience perhaps but um at our meeting um that showed something really interesting which is that stress affects brain development when you're young and that sure of course and it's really fascinating because in in many different ways but in particular it seems clear to that if you and i went up and asked her this afterwards because i was thinking about talking about this that if you are exposed to a lot of stress that your brain develops ways to respond to it the stress hormones and that some people may therefore only function efficiently if they're under stress if they're used to being stressful as a child and i think i think we both share that i mean both our mothers are alive and we we apologize to both of you out there if you're watching but it was pretty but it was pretty stressful as well what was that we probably have to thank them yeah we'll have to thank them as well exactly that's true but but do you think that you that that that do you agree that that sort of uh affects the the way i think it's everything i think it's i think i believe it's exactly the reason i ended up what i am i think it's you know listen uh childhood is an interesting thing but when you live what is called childhood and it's not a childhood necessarily no sense of security no no real and we moved constantly i when i was a kid we moved like gypsies man you know one time we moved from one house to the house next door it's true uh so we moved around a lot and i i never had that sense of home or security or whatever so and and and you know it was it was a bit you know somewhat violent uh upbringing um so that stress that that begins actually at a very young age because i mean it's i think it's been the fact and proven that we are exactly who we're going to be at the age of three and you know raising my kids uh my my daughter is now 16 about to be 17. my boy's 13 about to be 14. they are exactly who they were then um and they've lived a life i mean when i had kids the first decision i made was i will raise them i will do everything in the opposite yeah my mother's been very useful to me for that reason too yeah you know so my kids have turned out semi normal [Laughter] but you know you just at a certain point you must accept it you know yeah you know and there's something i was going to talk about later but i've seen you with your kids and and your wonderful father but thank you but uh um one of the things that you said we're doing it's the only thing that i aspire to be good at but we're doing a bunch of things together and and and and some i can talk about some i can't but we're going to do um the the reason rally together in in in june and in washington d.c and um and uh be fun and and and he said he said to me once and i i was going to have to talk about much later but it's appropriate now because i think it's important when you talk about the reason you want to do the reason rally because he said you want truth and whatever the cost yes and i think when i when we talked about why we're doing the reason rally one of the reasons you said related to your children to go to the reason rally and speak and to express your truth which is all important it's everything why do we have to skirt around lies why do we have to figure out or at an early age because you observe people to the degree that it's like ill um and you see the lie coming around the corner i i can't and no one should accept anything but the truth yeah i think you're achieved because to have to suffer the ignorance of someone lying to you for some type of gain and i don't know i i i only know that you know when lawrence and i talked about doing the reason rally my only reason to be involved was i love my kids you know yeah i care about my children and uh as we all do and they deserve a different world you know yeah i mean that's all you need to say that's all you need to say and i can't think of a better reason look i i went over i i got to show this because like because i just love your performance in it so i'm trying to think of a reason to show what's going to happen and um but no no but going back so one of the reasons you could father it is because you wanted to not have the upbringing you had and we talked about you and hunter and that being driven to drugs and and and or alcohol or whatever um and both of you managed in some ways him maybe more destructively i don't know to channel it into creativity again to go back to this character that i know you felt close to in different ways the libertine character we saw the need for him to do the theater but now we can see the other side of him and i wanted to show this clip which i think is really powerful cool okay good luck that was a that's a very powerful scene it's a very powerful scene but you can't help but get the sense that that's that you could that you relate to that character in some way that that the intensity that need the drive for that sort of thing and uh and so you know he was an interesting character because he was creative he was a writer and a and an a and he was a great poet you know uh john wilmet the earl of rochester he was a great great poet and oh good and he is if he's thought of at all with regard to history he's thought of as you know this a member of the court of king charles ii as a a satire a writer of somewhat unimportant little you know and clever little insults and he was allowed to get away with it but the man was a poet of of monumental importance and so my ins my intention in playing wilma because i loved him was to bring his truth to the people and i knew at the time you know there's uh you make certain choices in terms of your films you make it's not in my business if a film is successful you know i i can't think about box office or any of this i don't care i really don't care because it's just not that's not part of my job you know that's someone else's thing and i've got plenty to carry so i don't i just don't care you know when you said bring him to his truth that you were telling me that there was there was a moment a moment yeah why don't you talk about that you know it was a moment when it actually happened because i couldn't that i'm pretty good at memorizing dialogue and i'm pretty good at taking the man's words and and and bringing the truth to them bringing in honesty to them that that that that unfortunately you have to draw from within and i knew that the film was going to be painful to make because i was going to have to travel travel in a sense of pull things from my past and i don't like doing that because it hurts [Laughter] it hurts man so but i knew that the man was worthy of it and i was trying to memorize this one particular speech it was a five-page speech and i just couldn't get it and i knew something was wrong so i went back into his works and i realized that what they had done the writer had done was he took a section of this particular writing he took a section of this particular writing this particular any any any any any piecemeal them together and it just didn't work for me and i've i almost felt like uh and i'm not like moony or new age or you know ghost i i i i felt that the man was telling me don't [ __ ] with my work and he was right so what i did was i just took those pieces took out the others and and made his speech that he'd written and instantly it was i could memorize it because it flowed because it was his because it was written because he cared about it then you can't it's like the melange or some sort of you know taking three songs and mixing them together it just doesn't you talked about by the way i want to get go we're going to go about 15 more minutes so hold your bladders okay and then we'll take a break but um i stutter that's why i talked yeah yeah that's right [Music] you talked how difficult it was and and i've always wondered well about how do you you have to dredge up these experiences like left right and center to play and how it affects you in your life and how you can do that and so that was painful but you had another experience with the person who was also kind of a little odd and marlon brando and and and who was a yeah and that's less painful because marlon i know you love marlon and your worship from yeah and i still do um i'm still very close with the family and marlin became again like hunter although he didn't make me shoot her nitroglycerin propane tank but marlon marlon and i met over the phone because i wanted to do don juan demarco with him and um so we met over the phone we spoke for three hours on the telephone i was in new york he was in los angeles we went back the next week he invited me for dinner we sat we talked and it was we we connected on many levels uh especially the fact that no one wants to be a novelty um but one of the things that happened was we i asked him about uh there was a quote by william saroyan that it's the pr basically is it a quote it's a preface of uh in the time of your life the play which the play i i don't read the play read the preface it's something that had touched me you know in a large way like a philosophical like the way to live your life a real road map as to live your life and so i asked him about it and he said yeah he knew you know and uh so he said how well do you know and i so i began to recite it because at that time i had memorized it and so i began to recite this preface in the time of your life and uh i got to a certain point and he finished it oh verbatim and i was somewhat stupefied i said that's incredible and i pulled down my wallet i said i've carried this this dog-eared thing that i had ripped out of a book i've carried this for years on my wall and he said hang on a second [Laughter] but he and he got up and he grabbed a frame that was just by his bed and he came to me and he showed it to me and he had a very similar dog-eared uh folded well well-used version of it was the it was the same thing that he had carried in his wallet for all those years so there was this he understood me very well instantly and i understood him and i was very lucky to become so close with the man you know he he said to you why he asked about how many films you did in terms of thinking about characters yeah that was that was that that was quite a moment because that's one of those things that seared onto your brain forever you know and you know the the the moments before you become smoke it'll come to you he asked me how many films john either called me john or johann it was very rarely johnny and he said how many films do you uh average per year that you do i saw maybe two or three he said no that's too much he says well why is that too much man he said because we only have so many faces in our pockets we only have so many faces in our pocket you've had a lot of faces and and i want to spend the last few minutes going through some of the faces unfortunately because of my madness um i feel like there's still a lot of faces in my pocket speaking speaking [Music] i do speaking of a lot of faces in your pocket also in your head there's a line in in in that the matt hatter says in alice about um like you probably remember better than me there's a moment in um alice in wonderland the first one with tim the one that tim directed tim burton i was chained to a floor by the red queen to make her hats she wanted hats so um alice comes to rescue me and she says let's go let's go had her we have to go and i refused uh the hatter refuses at a certain point she grabs me and looks into my eyes and first thing that came into my mind was i i believe it pointed to my head and i said i don't like it in here it's too crowded [Laughter] and uh it was one of those things that just happened it was it wasn't in the script you know but there was there was a lot of truth in it and i and i thought it applied to that character implied that character seemed to apply to a bunch of other characters and i and and and i wanna i wanna show some clips from that seem to be recurring in some of the movies one one from secret window and another from the pirates so let's let's let's watch that [Applause] so my favorite thing the idea of that all these various sides of jack were obsessed with the peanuts and one of my favorite lines that that uh that you know happened uh in that was my pain now [Laughter] because i love the idea that something so huge is going on but at the very center of it is this insignificant little nothing that becomes everything you know well i i it jack spare we we talked about why you made jack sparrow the way he did but but this but i was surprised to see in so many movies the fact that you talk you see different versions of yourself and when you talk about the faces one talks about the impact the characters play on you does does it ever happen to you in real life that you look around and see lots of versions of yourself has ever happened in in in terms of like if you looked out of the audience for example would you would you you know would if you looked out say at the audience would you see lots of versions of yourself i'm sorry i couldn't now i know now i know for sure but i'm actually lying in a hospital bed in a i've coma been in this coma for about 23 years and uh none of this is happening i why why you know they're all hand colored everyone spent the time beforehand calling you guys are mad yeah there you go this is madness that's amazing too many faces so much for the character characters of having you i want to just close by talking about the various characters and and sort of how you draw from them and and uh because we are we are going late and i want to end now in a few minutes but let me just ask you about these characters so oh in fact you said before i want to mention edward scissorhands because that was the first character that liberated you from from and and what what did you draw from to to do edward scissorhands i remember i remember reading the the screenplay to edward scissorhands for the first time and i was up in vancouver and i was doing that tv show and i was absolutely i read the screenplay and i was devastated by it because it represented exactly how i felt growing up like i said not necessarily outside but for sure not inside i didn't want to choose any side i just wanted to be and edward when i read the screenplay i found myself at the end of the thing but you know i i hate to say it but yeah crying you know sobbing when i read that screenplay and i knew that i would never be chosen as a great scissor house to play that part even though i knew it was me um because everybody in hollywood was gagging for it you know tom cruise was talked about which by the way i think they should do a remake with tom cruise why not um but but what i drew upon with regard to edward was um i had a dog you know once and it was the most loving caring had the kindest eyes i i think i've ever seen um dog does something bad whenever you scold it it goes to the corner the second you call it back it's there unconditional love innocence so that dog became the part of the foundation of the character so the character really was based on a dog that i had and i know right that's madness it's not creativity and the and babies they're not newborn babies because uh this this this character was was the challenge was to see things for the first time new a new and as to be fascinated with them so [Music] that's not part of me that's it so you know there was i was trying to figure out a way to really get to the place where i could understand what that might feel like you know the newness or the fascination of things that are most mundane um so what i did was uh i dropped two hits of ecstasy i don't think i've ever told this story before um i was living at the time i'd rented a house in malibu to escape from hollywood and i was living around the beach so the first thing i did was made a big note taped it to the glass window that would take me to the beach and my death and i wrote on it do not go into the ocean [Laughter] just in case i forgot and i dropped two hits ecstasy and i strapped the hands on and you know attempted to make coffee with these enormous scissors on uh attempted to to to to to to to to to uh you know run the remote control of the television um and then of course at a certain point when the when the the the drug kicks in really kicks in um things become vivid or became vivid and beautiful and and i could see things anew and i could appreciate where they came from because i i think i think of edward as that as those babies you know when my sister had kids and i'd hang out with these babies the the everything was fascinating yeah no and you didn't read it i found great stuff didn't you read a book was it by oliver sacks or something at the time there was there was a book that i'd read at the time by oliver sachs called uh the man who miss hey well i've been cut off that's it you've been cut off the drugs no can you hear can you can we get a mic because this is neat is it working now okay working it's working so the man play music some more times code it's working isn't it how are we doing you're very kind thank you very much thank you good speak softly and carry once um the man who missed oliver sacks oh so yeah there was an oliver sachs book called the man who mistook his wife for a hat it's it's a great book that's incredible and um i thought it was i found these incidences very beautiful the guy who was literally attempting to pull his wife's head off in in the office you know as he was leaving because he was going to put it on his head as a hat and and and then it goes on and on as a wonderful book i also read a book by bruno bettelheim that was about uh essentially uh fairy tales and uh the importance of fairy tales is this gone too no no it's there um so the importance of fairy tales and that was very helpful also there was also a a german thing john waters gave me called destroy peter and it was a kid who refused to cut his nails and you know comb his hair and uh you know this this sort of fight against normalcy and what people wanted so those things were very very very it was and while i was such i wanted to spend time it was such an important role for you because that that set you on a different trajectory let's do quickly some others just you know one or two words willy wonka who who did yeah what who's [Applause] when i was approaching the character of uh willy wonka i you know we all grew up with the gene wilder version and it's and it's fantastic i mean yeah it's fantastic but you know i mean why go in that direction it's been done why repeat why so i found my own version and my version was i kept thinking of children's television hosts that scared me because yeah we they were unpredictable you know and they had that very everything was okay and and it wasn't okay but so so i i used these children's television host sort of ideas and then the other ingredient that i thought was was really what found the character i thought of george w bush [Laughter] [Applause] if he were incredibly stoned but like not just uncomfortably stoned past what could have been the uncomfortable paranoia states where he just sort of doesn't know what he's saying okay matt hatter who was your matt hatter um the the the the mad hatter was basically um uh a kind of a yeah it might this is real weird so my kids had a tutor and we were on the road you know i'm working and stuff like that so they had this tutor her name was catherine and she was one of those english people very proper but katherine would talk to you she had a little bit of a thing in her voice in it so i sponged her up as much as i could because what i loved about her was she would he would sort of talk to you like this you know and really it's one of those people who like you know it's not that they avert their eyes they actually close their eyes when they're looking at you right you guys have felt that before it's weird so so i used katherine because when she her eyes and she's looking at you i mean everything was very very important i i had to see that i had it [Applause] [Music] she'll find this out tomorrow and probably there'll be a lawsuit [Laughter] okay two more quickly um edwards edward um thank you thank you yeah that was one of those moments where you know what are you doing johnny well i'm i'm i'm doing fun with tim what is it about it's about a someone who is called the worst film director of all time uh who happened to [Music] be a transvestite and uh and we're doing in black and white edward was born really in my what with the ingredients that went into my head were uh the tin man from the wizard of oz that sort of you know uh attack verbal local attack of casey kasem where everything was just sort of that [Laughter] and then the blind optimism of ronald reagan you know yes well every mommy you know um so they when they came together those ingredients it kind of became that guy where everything was fine okay that's the problem see the that's the problem i think in terms of uh what could be considered madness is if you think of yourself right as i mouse has a chest of drawers they're all in there and they're all accessible i'm not sure that's healthy i really don't know well let's let's take the craziest one of all you just added to the chest um donald trump [Applause] he was difficult because how do you approach that you know how do you how do you approach that um i approach donald trump as uh [Music] and it's not just about being a rich kid or anything like that i approach donald trump as what you kind of see in him when you really watch him there's a pretense there's something created about him in a sense of bullying but what he is i believe is a brat [Applause] okay look also also the absurdity of where his sentences might travel because you know i mean really no i mean so no no because everything is mine even if i don't own it yet oh hi bae you've got reagan who this kills me reagan back in the day mr garbage off tear down that wall donald trump i'm going to build a wall there no mexico okay no no a fabulous wall some sort of and all of my billions are not going to have to pay for it no really no because you know why mexico is going to pay for it brilliant [Applause] [Music] regarding creativity you may be mad but you're very creative and and in the workshop that we just had um there's a there's an interesting another discussion about connectivity in the brain and can relationship between connectivity and and and and creativity and one of the people in the workshop asked if um if we could image your brain is that okay no i'd actually love that it's it's a it's sort of it's going to be good to know what's going on actually [Laughter] i mean yeah it falls back into that you know truth at all costs i don't mind what comes out i i because i can't change it let's do it yeah i'm in okay great you heard it you heard it here look i know we've gone we've gone over in case you hadn't noticed but yeah i ca there's not a there's not a day that i have spent with you when i i just didn't want to have more and and and and i say this i i feel remarkably lucky that you're in my life but but but but uh but i had i i wasn't going to say that but what i really want to say is and i think everyone in this audience is we are remarkably lucky in the world that you are here and it would be much less interesting [Applause] we'll be back you're going to any of you have questions if you're still can put up we'll we'll do a half an hour questions we'll take you know maybe 15 minute break and then and then pass down your questions we'll take some and we have a surprise uh so stick around thank you very much

Channel: ShirleyFilms

Views: 105,508

Rating: 4.8757105 out of 5

Keywords: Johnny Depp, Lawrence Krauss, Edward Scissorhands, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack Sparrow, Captain Jack, Capt Jack, Cap Jack, The Libertine, Thomas Paine, Hunter Thompson, Hunter S Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Earl of Rochester, Tim Burton, Science, Madness, Creativity, Film, Movies, Smoking, Donald Trump, Secret Window, Hollywood Vampires, Marlon Brando, Bad as I am, Amber Heard, John Wilmot

Id: 3lk5qUmXi4s

Length: 95min 10sec (5710 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 17 2020