Storytime with Johnny Depp - ASMR - testimony w/isolated voice

um i had a very interesting childhood um one that i thought was normal until a certain age my mother um i was born in kentucky and um then we moved in which we moved around quite a lot um when i was a kid so you were always just my mom had this uh her feet were on fire and she had to move you know so we moved constantly so you were always the new kid and that wasn't ever particularly pleasant then we moved to florida south florida when i was about seven or eight and again moved several several times but my mother was quite unpredictable she was very unpredictable um she was a she had the ability to be as as cruel as anyone can be with all of us that is to say my sister christy and my my brother danny and my sister debbie and also my father so um essentially she was she could become quite violent and she was quite violent and she was quite cruel and she and though there was physical abuse certainly um which could uh be in the form of uh an ashtray being flung at you you know it hits you in the head or you'd get beat with a high-heeled shoe or a telephone or whatever's handy so in our house there was no we were never exposed to any type of safety um or security the the um the only thing that one could do really um was to try to stay out of the line of fire you um i started to um be able to observe and i could see i could start to see when she was about to head head into a uh head into a situation where she was going to get riled up and somebody was going to get it and generally it was me were the various categories i suppose are there are there's there's physical violence of course there's physical abuse um to which she was um that was a constant that was just a constant you know we were all somewhat shell-shocked you know even if you just walked past us you'd sort of shield yourself because you didn't know what was gonna happen and so there was there was the physical abuse which was was a constant um there was quite a lot of verbal abuse it was quite a lot of name calling and um bullying you know making fun of making fun of whatever defect you know one might have you know my brother wore glasses so of course he was four eyes and he had his teeth were messed up in the front so he was buck tooth as well my sister christy which this is such a a hideous psychological play my my my father's uh parents were quite refined my mother comes from eastern kentucky which is is uh where you grow up in shacks and holla and hollers you know and uh my my mother despised my father's parents and my grandmother's name was violet and every now and again you would hear my mother just scream across the house give me your violin get into your violet and christy my sister knew very well that that was uh a deep a deep cut psychologically emotionally but we had to take it yeah i mean you you just had to take the pain um i i was born with a very strange is a very rare uh thing in my eye as the the the back of the lens is spherical uh normally um is spherical is when this eye isn't normal this eye i was born with a more conical lens so my brain never learned to see out of my left eye and they noticed when i was about uh three four five three four that i had a lazy eye a wandering eye and um she would call me and she would call me kakai one eye um any anything anything she could get to to uh demean humiliate i even had to wear um i had to wear an eye patch on my good eye to strengthen my my bad eye so that it would cease to wander it with a muscle it was exercising the muscles of the eye though the brain had never learned to see so i still my vision and my left eye is i'm legally blind in my left eye but so yeah the the the verbal abuse the psychological abuse was uh was almost worse than the the then the the beatings because the beatings were just physical pain and the physical pain you learn to deal with you learn to accept it you learn to deal with it but the psychological and emotional abuse that's what that's what kind of tore us up i think my father my father was a very kind man in fact my father's still alive he's he's a very kind man um he's a very quiet man in fact he's very shy [Music] not a confrontational person in any way and when betty sue my mother would go off on on a tangent toward my my father um and and and of course in front of the kids it was no matter to her uh he would he would um he amazingly remained very very stoic and uh never as she was rationing him with horrible um things he stood there and just looked at her while she delivered the pain and he swallowed it he took it there was never one moment never a moment when my father um lost control and attacked my mother or hit my mother or even said he even said a bad thing to my mother what what i the things that i witnessed were there were a couple of times when it got too far that i i would see his i could see his eyes welling up as he was staring at her saying nothing um and then the most that he would do is he would he would he would punch a wall i i once saw him punch a wall and um shatter his hand because it wasn't it wasn't drywall it was proper concrete and steel wire and rebar and things of that nature and but still never never touched her never um argued with her he uh he he remained a gentleman and to me as a five-year-old boy i kept thinking to myself i kept wondering why why does he take it how does he how does he take this and and and and why doesn't he leave her but he didn't you know he was able to maintain his calm and his composure he was able to maintain uh his relationship with his children um he was uh he was he was a good man he is a good man i mean out of out of i couldn't count the amount of fights that they had but i i i know that i s i've seen my father strike a wall um two or three times tops once when he broke his hand um but he had two two three times at tops you know my father was never my father was not an abusive man at the same time my father was also to some degree at the mercy of betty sue because if he argued with what she wanted done that would just turn into another um barrage of of hatred uh towards him so i can remember my father coming home from work and maybe i'd i'd gotten a bad report card or maybe i'd gotten in trouble at school or something like that and my father would arrive home from work and the first thing she would say was john take take him out there he gets the belt give him the belt and he wanted to know what it was about so he'd take me out to the garage and uh i'll never forget the uh this white thick leather 1970s era thick leather white belt that he would um take off and and um and then he would commence to uh inflict the punishment on on me um but interestingly there was there was one time when my father i i kept telling him i i didn't do this it was another incident i kept swearing to him that i i did not do what betty sue my mom had said that i'd done but he went through with the punishment anyway and then not long after he found out that i had been telling the truth and that i hadn't done what i what my mom had said that i'd done um and he he came to me and uh apologized to me for um for having gone through with the weapon you know the belt and um i have to say my mom never did that she couldn't she knew what she knew she was raised how she was raised and um i had no power to change what was inside of her you know um when my father left i i didn't realize that he had left he left for i was 15 i had already left school and i was a musician i was playing in clubs and such and he left for work one morning just like every day and was packing his car and then he left and then hours later my mom betty sue came home from work it was about 3 30 in the afternoon and she walked in the door and stopped and and just looked around like she felt something and she just i said what's wrong she said your daddy's gone i said well yeah i seen him leave for work this morning she said no no no no he's gone he's gone and she ran into the uh into their bedroom and into their closet and i followed her and i she opened the door and there was one yeah his side his rack of clothing and all his belongings were gone and she was quite upset and i took her car and drove to my father's work and i sat down in front of him at 15 and i said listen seems as though somebody stole all your clothes out of the closet and um and he said he said yeah yeah he said uh i'm done i i can't i can't do it anymore i can't i can't live it anymore you're the man you're the man now and uh those words didn't didn't quite sit well with me i i didn't feel like i was ready to hear those words but that's what i got um then my mom got very went into a very very dark uh place a very deep dark depression as you can imagine and um and uh one afternoon i woke up i i'd fallen asleep and i woke up and walked out into the living room and i saw my my mother um like very feebly um and like almost it was like a slow motion crawl if i could stand up i could show you just the what i saw um i saw i saw my my mother you know in that in that mode so instantly i knew that something was dreadfully wrong and um there's drool coming out of her mouth and she had swallowed a multitude of of pills to to to try to take herself out to try to commit suicide and uh when she got out of the hospital she was a small firecracker of a woman she was about five foot two but when she got out of the hospital the depression was so deep she she was down to like she lived on the couch and she weighed about 70 pounds and that all that imagery spun into my head at that time that i thought that was a very in my head at the time i thought that that was a cowardly way for my father to have left and i i was uh deeply upset by that um until my father and i had a conversation um years later where i asked him what really happened what how did it happen when i was older i was i was i was very disappointed in him because i started to believe that his exit was was sneaky cowardly he didn't when he said goodbye to me when he left for work that morning he said goodbye you know goodbye bob and i went see you later pop that was it until um i learned the truth from uh from him i learned that i was wrong about my first impressions of his his exit from the family um very wrong and [Music] i'll tell you i'll tell you one thing that i learned that was that was uh one of the best lessons i believe i've ever learned in my life ever could learn in your life in my life was based on my experiences as a child and what i'd seen and experienced i knew exactly how to raise children um when when uh when my girl vanessa got pregnant um i knew exactly how to raise children which was to do the opposite of what they did of what betty sue did never raise your voice in front of the children never um screaming out the word no to them i never wanted to tell my kids no i i wanted to tell them that i wanted to show them that there were options you don't have to stick the coat hanger in the electrical socket you know saying no is an abrupt thing but to talk to them and say if you understand the repercussions of something then you won't go there so maybe think about this as opposed to this give this some thought you know but that will clearly um that could kill you so i i would ease them away from um things of that nature with a more more of an more of a conversation as opposed to a a a you know a flat out don't you ever do that again and threats and things of that nature i i did not raise my children that way nor nor did vanessa we and we never raised our voices in front of our children ever um i ended up acting by accident i was a musician and i moved out to los angeles with my band when i was 20 years old and then there were a couple of things that happened in the bat where the bands split up and um i remember i was filling out job applications and then nick with a friend of mine and who happens to be he haven't he was an actor uh less known then than he is now nicholas cage um and i was filling out job applications at any video stores clothing stores anything and just to be able to pay the rent and um nick cage said uh you know why don't you meet my agent you know because i i think you're an actor i think you could be an actor i said look i'll meet anybody you know i'll do anything at this point and so he sent me to his his agent eileen feldman and i met with her um she sent me to read for a casting director named annette benson who was casting a film called the nightmare on elm street and they brought me back to read for the director wes craven and um i read for wes craven and somehow got the job but i mean i was by no means an actor i didn't have any desire to be an actor i was a musician uh but the fact that these people were going to pay me what i found to be a ludicrous sum of money which was uh it was kind of the sag minimum uh it was 1284 dollars a week which i mean you know i'd never seen that kind of dough before in my life um and so i i suddenly you know then i did some other couple of dumb movies because i i i still in my mind i was a musician and this was just a way to uh pay the rent pay the bills live um then suddenly i found myself on that road i had been placed on that road as a as an actor and then i one thing led to another from film to film and then i was cast in a tv series called 21 jump street when i was 22 i believe it was foreign to me it was foreign to me but i i didn't i didn't have any great ambition to be an actor i i'm a uh naturally normally i'm uh i've always been quite a shy person i've always been quite introverted and so there was a very strange metamorphosis from being one of four that is to say one of four in a band where you have this fraternity or this brotherhood and you're out there fighting the world together to try to get that record deal or whatever you're looking for and uh when the when i got on the series and my life started to change in various ways that is to say that people started to you know you go into a restaurant you'd see people whispering and pointing and all that i was uh i was very uncomfortable with it i was very uncomfortable with it and i didn't like it um just just because it i i never wanted to be the lead singer and the guy out front and uh we'll get all the attention and i i didn't so suddenly i was on my own and i was uh having to deal with this uh this this this newfound sort of notoriety and it was it was odd it was very odd and it was yeah it was a very uncomfortable thing i mean i don't think it's anything that one can get used to i don't i i i'm not i'm still not used to it now and i which i'm actually glad that i'm not used to it because if i were i don't think i'd be the same person that i am once i realized that i that that's the road that i was on and that any attempt at going back to music would would have been i hated the idea that since the television series had come out and i had been exposed as this this character or this actor uh um i had to realize in in my own mind and heart that there was no going back to music because i i didn't want to you know i didn't want to i didn't want to use whatever amount of success that i had um attained from the tv series and that sort of thing i didn't want to use that to influence you know some career in music i i had far too much respect for music um than to just to become what they wanted me to become which was a you know teen idol or a teeny you know that that's that sort of thing i um i fought that with uh with everything in my being so once i realized that music was no longer an option then i began to study at various places in the loft studio which is now long gone in in los angeles i studied with some other teachers saunders c cat [Music] i read all the books that you could read and all that was great but you realize that the only way to the only way to learn or the the only way to learn how to it's not act necessarily the only way to learn how to react and behave because it's just behavior and its reaction um was to do it you it's on the job training it's trial by fire so um i did my best to to work up work my work up my own approach towards the towards uh a character and such i would say i i i would say that the the first film that i had done that i really took um where i really felt okay i've done the work i i i know what i need to do um i would say that was that without where i considered myself an actor i suppose was was was when um oliver stone cast me in uh platoon in 1986 uh well that's that's many years later but uh i i had been um disney had offered me a film um called hidalgo when it was about a man his horse in the desert and stuff and i i read the the screenplay and i just didn't think it was for me um but i wanted to have a meeting with them because i at that point i had a um two-year-old uh yeah two year two two and a half year old daughter and or three and and and for three years i watched nothing but animated films uh cartoons from texas avery to bugs bunny to um that was all i i watched with my with my little girl and i received the screenplay for pirates and it was i i somehow in my mind i saw this opportunity like a way to mesh characters like cart black cartoon characters for example wiley coyote gets a boulder dropped on his head and he's completely crushed but in the cut to the next scene and he's just got a little bandage on his head so i i started thinking about the the parameters uh that are that were available to cartoon characters and if they were available to cartoon characters and and and nobody ever asked a question whether you were 5 or 95 you didn't ask a question oh well of course he's still alive so i tried to incorporate these uh these kind of ideas into the character of captain jack sparrow so that so so that i could try to push those parameters and and and control the sort of suspension of disbelief the to be able to control the um characters actions words movements and put them in a place where the things that he would do or say were so either ludicrous or um mainly something that also something the cartoon characters can get away with things we can't captain jack sparrow can do things that i could never do he could say things that i could never say so it was for me a way to stretch the parameters of of a character and and take uh take a risk uh in doing that but if it if it panned out i i and i felt i was on a pretty good mission if it panned out i thought that it might be a character who would be accepted by five-year-olds and 45 year olds and 65 year olds and 85 year olds and in the same way that bugs bunny is uh you know the first screenplay i i received was uh 2002 i believe yeah 2002. um i thought that it had all the kind of hallmarks of a of a of a disney film that is to say a kind of a predict predictable predictable three-act structure um with um with and the character of captain jack was was more um he was more like a swashbuckler type that would kind of swing in shirtless and you know be the hero um and i i had quite different ideas about the characters so i incorporated my notes into character and brought that character to life um much to the chagrin of disney initially um just you know in preparation you know the the same the very same way that i've ever approached any character you you you look for a back history you base it on um you know it could be anything like edward scissorhands for example was i based on a dog that i'd had and newborn babies my sister had a couple of new babies and i watched them you know because i thought that edward would see things from the this sort of uncle from a place of innocence and not knowing exactly what things meant or were and and also that that look of a a pure innocent child when they experienced something for the first time um those those were the the two main ingredients that i thought would serve the character and with captain jack again the cartoons you know the pepe le pew it was it was a uh it's like it's like making a soup you know it's ingredients it's just ingredients um there's some pepula pew in there there's some keith richards in there um there's a bit of a you know i figured this is a guy who's been on the sea for the majority of his life quite possibly his brains may have been scrambled a bit by the sun and also i thought that he'd been on the sea for so long that he had his sea legs but when he got on land he just didn't have his land legs so he could never quite stand still um i didn't see it but uh i believe that the film well i mean the film did pretty well apparently and uh and uh they wanted to keep going uh making uh making more and i was fine to do that uh as uh it was it there's great freedom in in being able to it's not like you become that person but if if you know that character to the degree that i did because he was not what the writers wrote so they really weren't able to write for him so once you know a character better than the writers that's when you um you have to uh be true to the character and add your words at the uh the rewrites um i was uh i yeah i know i i i believed in the character wholeheartedly and the uh initially the disney uh folks were somewhat upset um though i'd been around for many years already and people people knew who i was and all that um after pirates one came out there was a completely different it was a completely different uh way of life was was was being sort of you know my family and i were being plunged into that is to say you know at our house in los angeles you would have you would have people trying to climb the gates to get into [Music] sea captain jack sparrow um you would you would have people trying to bust in the gates dressed as captain jack sparrow you would ha and follow you or follow you and your family so that was that was the moment when um there was no other way but to uh we had to hire more security guards and i was certainly worried for my kids um safety and so then we that's when the instead of just the one guy there were you know they were started there became several security people because i wanted to make sure that my kids were safe when they went to school or when they went to disneyland or when they went to the mall or whatever um so yes more security and you know then just getting followed you know by hordes of paparazzi and things like that it's it's it's uh i've had worse jobs certainly i can't complain about it but um yeah after a while you realize that anonymity uh has left the building a long time ago you know the anonymity's gone um and that's it that's an odd thing to deal with um when you just i mean you can't just drive down to the diner and get a cup of coffee or something it's not possible it turns into something else all together so it's you know it's acceptance and of course there's a bit of sacrifice uh involved i i can't complain about the uh work that i've been given i can't complain about any of that um i have no right to but it does make you have to think very creatively with when you've got little kids about how to take them to the park or you know to the swings or to this or that or movie or you know it becomes uh it becomes a strategic mission and and and that's what happened after pirates vanessa um parody the mother of my children um who we were together for 14 15 years um myself uh our daughter lily rose and um our boy jack there have been more films prior to that a number of films prior to that so i was i was uh recognized i was known so if you wanted to attempt to have any experience that might be normal you sort of had to have somebody around to get you out of a squirrely situation should it arise so i had security prior to that for who would travel with myself and my family um but not like you know when i was at work i back then i didn't have security yet work so much not before pirates pirates was really the uh that was the thing that everything um it all turned around it all just went went uh weird well like i said with anything it had become more strategic and you had to have more guys or gals because um because if if vanessa if vanessa for example she worked in france quite a lot and if she was in france um and i was in l.a with the kitties then um and working security would security would basically pick my kids up at school or whatever and bring them home so that became the routine driving them to school bringing them home um um so so yeah and then if i went somewhere so it just the security guards kind of multiplied because you needed to protect your street your house your kids endless um jerry judge was was with me for oh boy over 20 years um jerry judge is we've mentioned him before he um it was a year or two ago he um he jerry would go on film sets with me he would he would do reconnaissance missions you know that is to say he would go to a country before we would go there make sure all the hotel rooms were all taken care of and such um or when i went on tour with say the hollywood vampires which is a band that i've played with he would come on the road with me with another security guard so there was jerry judge there was malcolm connolly who's been with me for 20 years or more leonard damien sean pett travis mcgivern mark gibbs i mean there are a few jerry has gone on to uh somewhere else he's jerry maid uh jerry jerry passed away uh from cancer so jerry jerry made his exit um but the majority of the no i believe all of those fellas are still with me yes [Music] i i believe it was two two years ago roughly maybe a little less than two years ago now that jerry is um jerry and malcolm had worked together for a very long time so i met malcolm through jerry after after jerry's passing malcolm obviously took over for jerry and so he would uh he would he took on extra responsibilities he would have to make sure that there was someone on the ground wherever we were going that had done their their uh um recon you know the reconnaissance and to make sure that uh um everything was set up by the time we got there and that it would be a straight shot into the hotel without a gaggle of paparazzi um you know you didn't have to walk through 50 screaming hollering photographers so you know you'd go in through a garage door and through a slippery kitchen and you were then you were taken to your room where you stayed malcolm had joined i mean jerry brought him on so malcolm has been with me for over 20 years uh now endless countless all over the world um all over the world everywhere los angeles japan um serbia you know films tour um malcolm was my uh he you know he he when we were on the vampires tour in europe throughout europe and malcolm was on the bus with me we we lived on the bus together basically it depends if if there's a or if there was a a premiere you know where um you know where it had to be worked out so that it didn't turn into a chaotic uh and or dangerous event because sometimes they're between you and the people there are these barriers and uh sometimes the professional uh photographers or the professional autograph people will surge forward and in the front rows of these behind these berries you have you have little kids and older women and older men and so when the professionals would surge forward these people would start getting kind of crushed against the this metal deterrent and um that that that was the that was the most uh worrisome thing when when when when you're at a premiere and there are thousands and thousands of people there and i've always called it running the gauntlet essentially what it is is that people are there to um to say hi and to support the film or the cast or whatever so i um i've always gone out and signed for those people i've always gone out and signed for all or as many as i possibly could i mean to the point sometimes jerry judge would literally pick me up off the ground to make me stop signing take me away [Music] so yeah it was uh those those those kind of things again you don't you don't really get used to that you know my my kids are now 20 23 leonard's leonard damien's been with me i believe roughly the same time as mr bat uh somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 17 years i i yeah i can't be precise but they were very young my children were very young when when they uh joined the team which was really after pirates was released in 2003 the first then it is leonard damien and um and sean bet for for quite a while were both um sort of assigned as it were to to my kids um taking them to school picking them up from school if if vanessa and i were unable to do it or even if we were there we would drive with them to take the kids to school um and over the the years obviously your your children uh my children have taken taken quite a shine to to to them and they've become like um another set of parents in a way travis i believe a little bit less than that i believe i i couldn't i couldn't really speculate uh it's a little less maybe it's 13 years i don't know i would never complain about the the repercussions let's say or yeah the repercussions of the success of that film but of course as i said there are sacrifices that one one has to make um sacrifices that you're you're not nearly ready for um just simply when when you check into a when you go to a town or go on a press tour or something and you're staying in a hotel people stay in hotels all the time i stay i stay in the hotel i it's we've found that it's just a lot easier if i stay put in a hotel and um not kind of again especially if it's with the kids or something i don't want them to i've never wanted them to see me as as a novelty i just wanted to be dad you know um now they're well aware of uh a lot and they're well aware of pretty much everything um but no you you you know you when you get when you get recognized uh wherever you go um the the basic the basic truth is it's pretty simple people are generally kind and curious um and if if you've if they've grown up with you in their living room um from a television series or from various films that that they've seen um there's there's nothing menacing about being recognized as sometimes it can be sometimes people can get go get weird and but but uh um we've found that it's it's just uh it's it's better all around if if i um stay in my hotel room and and don't go out to too many restaurants or anything because it generally causes a bit of a hubbub if you go to a restaurant someone calls the paparazzi and you go in for a meal and you come out and there's 30 guys out there it's uh it can be a little overwhelming it's not it's not something i think i said it before it's it's not something that i that that it's not something that i've ever gotten used to and it's something that i hope never get used to because i don't think of myself in those terms i used to be i used to be johnny if if that makes sense i used to be johnny and then my name full name which i i honestly find still it's difficult if i it's uncomfortable to say my own name because i when i say it i hear the commodity i hear the product so i just i went from johnny to johnny depp and and then that name um with that name johnny depp and some image was cultivated um certainly not by me but but the the the media um especially in those days they must label you they have to give you a label um and labels one of the things that i've fought vigorously with regard to my work i i i never wanted to be um the poster boy i never wanted to be the uh i don't have i you know i'm not built with that kind of hubris i don't i don't have that kind of uh confidence i i can do virtually anything playing a character i can become the character in my work um and that character may be able to maybe be able to spit out a hundred words a minute but me myself johnny i cannot so that therein lies the difference you know well i've remained a musician i've been a musician um i started playing the guitar when i was 12 years old and that saved my life because i locked myself into a in my bedroom at the age of 12 uh listening to you know records moving the needle back and then learning that piece and then learning it again so uh so much so i mean that i i i don't remember uh i i have no memory of going through puberty i i i was just playing the guitar i was just i was obsessed with my guitar i yeah i mean i've always drawn since i was very small since i was very little um and always enjoyed drawing and then began to paint um and so there started learning about painting and trying to um um it i suppose different ways of of expressing oneself different ways to different ways to release the things that are living in in your head whether they be beautiful memories whether they be horrific memories whether they be um i i i have a um i need to create it's it's a need it's a of course i want to create as well but i i actually need to create because i need to summon whatever whatever it is that i need to summon to whether then whether that's within a film or a painting or a guitar note um all of those things should come from a place of an organic place a place of truth because if they don't well then you're just lying aren't you i i every bit of truth a person doesn't have to say anything on film what's important is what's behind the eyes and if they do say something what's important is not necessarily the words that they say it's very easy to say i love you but what brings it into the realm of truth is what's underneath it what's not being said the subtext if you will so um any artistic or creative venture any film any thing that i do that's um that's where i'm coming from that's that's my approach when i was young when i was about 12 years old my my elder brother danny walked into my room and ripped the peter frampton record off my record player threw it across the room and said you got to stop listening to this stuff and he put this record on and it started and i'd never heard anything like it was called astral weeks by van morrison so i'm a kid you know 12 years old so my brother turned me on to van morris and then he turned me on to soundtracks like clockwork orange or um last tango in paris he turned me onto books by jack kerouac he turned me onto books by ginsburg um philip k dick i mean salinger i mean the whole james joyce the hemingway the whole thing so um so i became very interested in vocabulary and and the the the unique voices of these writers um and then i started reading people like tom robbins and hunter s thompson and then ended up becoming very close uh friends with with um with hunter thompson for the last 10 12 years of his life and uh hunter's riding of course because of the amount i spent of time i spent with him it has influenced my writing greatly hunter was known for inventing a thing called gonzo journalism which is it's it's it's uh the author putting himself in the situation um as opposed to writing it from the author's point of view he writes it with him in it um and there are great um embellishments and embellishments are great sort of ways that he would twist things and um express um his his his feelings um and so he he became a huge hero of course to me and a great friend i uh uh in my texts and in my emails or sometimes just even in my writing um you do you take you you take the subject and you um try to express it in your own vernacular and and in that um for example with the text messages that i apologize that everyone's had to experience i am ashamed of of some of the references made i'm embarrassed that at the time the heat of the moment the heat of the pain that i was feeling um went to [Music] went to dark places this is there is no if you're riding there is no set place that you have to stay in you can travel and sometimes pain can be has to be dealt with with humor and sometimes dark very dark humor um i i grew up watching monty python you know so yes it can tend to get into dark humor it can tend to get words are used that for emphasis um [Music] and words are used to express what what you're feeling at the time and it's just like growing up you learn from those mistakes you learn from those things and you move forward you know [Music] and that that's how you that's how you start to understand your own vernacular and what's important you know what's necessary and what's not necessary i tend to be quite expressive in my writing and after after the uh after the unfortunate um words of misheard [Music] made their way into my heart and my head those are those are two very opposing things so you're you're trying to you you're trying to find the best way to express something to a friend sometimes you're exaggerating you know something that you've done um just to make it sound just to make him understand that uh you know i'm on i'm on planet question mark here i don't know what's going on and i but i know i'm in this situation and i know that it cannot continue again this this goes back to when i was a young boy um excuse me um at about the age of i don't know four or five years old i i can remember vividly my my mom telling me to go get her nerve pills you know um out of her purse that was hanging on the back of the door so i'd go get the nerve pills and i'd bring her the nerve pill to take it and um you know after a few years you start to notice well you start to think about nerve pills nerve pill and then she seemed to calm down after she took those nerve pills so when i was 11 years old i wanted to calm down and i didn't know how to so i i'd bring my mom her nerve pill i would walk away and i would take one myself to escape caring so much feeling so much to escape the [Music] the chaotic um nature of what what we were living uh through um so that that was the beginning when i realized that nerve pills calmed the nerves um pretty young age to do that i uh i can't say that i'm proud of admitting to that but but i i have to say that i knew not what else to do i knew nothing else that i could do um so as we were all growing up there was always those kids who would say let's party let's go party i want to party i've never used the word party in my life i've never i've never taken any substance at for a party i have taken these substances over the years on and off um to numb to numb myself of of of the the ghosts the wraiths that were still with me and um from from from my youth so um i needed yeah i they were everything it was essentially it was just self-medication um one of those get me out of here moments and you know where you want to escape from is your own brain your own head um having started with my mother's nerve pills at 11. of course the you know that's around the age that you're introduced to marijuana you're introduced to and also depending on where you're living and where you're um associating with who's around the neighborhood um i know i wasn't shy to try a substance for to see if the effect of it would maybe even take a bit more of the edge off so i i started um at 11 and i mean i even mentioned this in an interview and tv guide if anyone remembers tv guide in 1989 where i was asked by the journalist why i believed that kids who were watching the show 21 jump street about police officers in school under as undercover undercover cops but but as students um i was asked why people why these kids or whoever should should should believe me or trust me or listen to me and i said look i i i could because i've experienced it and i can tell them that there is no future in it that there's nothing but a a a kind of an uh postponing of the inevitable that one day you're going to have to face those feelings one day you will meet those let's call them demons from your youth um so i i was i was i was straight up open and honest at that time in in a very i mean tv guide was it was right at the register when you checked out at the grocery store it was like the most popular thing and it was a very straight magazine a little magazine but i i had told them i'd pretty much done all the drugs that i was aware of by the time i was 15 years old and which is true now that doesn't mean to say that i continued into that you know forest of of uh possibilities with regard to substances um i wasn't uh dropping ass at every five minutes i wasn't i there were many years that i didn't touch it substance and no drugs there were many years that i didn't have a drink um so it's as i said it's never been for the sort of party effect it's been for trying to numb the things inside that have that that plague that can plague plague someone's uh who's who's experienced trauma um but it the the characterization of the characterization of my substance quote-unquote substance abuse um that's been delivered by ms hurd is is uh is is is grossly embellished um [Music] and i'm sorry to say but um a lot of it is uh it's just plainly false i think that it was easy it wasn't easy i think it was an easy target for her to hit because once you've trusted somebody for a certain amount of years and you've told them all the secrets of your life um that information then of course can be used against you especially if it's taken to a point that is teetering on impossible and tears over impossible in fact at times it's so i i am not um some [Music] maniac who needs to be high or loaded all the time i i in fact the the in austral from before australia and in australia i had been um off of alcohol for i believe it was about 18 months well if you're familiar with hunter thompson's book fear and loathing in las vegas which i i was lucky enough to make into a film and with terry gilliam the the film calls for myself and my attorney to be absolutely blotto out of our heads constantly uh throughout the film and most people just assume that well they just got wasted and they filmed them there would have been no way to you couldn't act that you couldn't i mean you couldn't make that film with two actors who were loaded there would be no way um and then to the other extreme donnie brasco a film that i made about a an fbi agent i i had to uh i had to go and go into a training regime where i i had to eat five meals a day drink five shakes a day you know these protein shakes per day um work out three to four hours a day because i had to gain 20 to 30 pounds of muscle there was certainly no abuse of substances then i there's been no abusive substances on film sets there have been no there's been no there's been no moments where i would have been considered out of control never in fact it's not been mentioned that like i'm sure they don't want to mention it but i remember that because we when i was with miss heard and her friends and we were all drinking wine and i smoking marijuana um they would they used to tease me because because of what they said was a a ludicrous tolerance because i because i never appeared bloated or high or any of that i i i um even if even if i felt a little spinny i know no one would have ever known you know roxy codone or roxy cotton which is um it's an opiate it's i think i think oxycodone has the opiate and then some pain like a paracetamol or something and then the roxies are just the opiate as far as i uh remember and um when i was i was working on pirates four and uh there there was a scene in which i had to um grab this large gold and gold and red you know stately guilt chair pick it up and throw it chuck it out this big giant window and so i did it and as i swung around to throw the throw the chair out the window i felt this immediate electricity from from the bottom of my spine down to down my left leg and it was like an electricity that burned it so i had obviously done it was sciatica so i had obviously pinched something done something so i went to i saw a chiropractor or a kidney or whatever i saw chiropractors and and uh to no avail then i saw a doctor and the only pain medication that she recommended and prescribed to me was a roxy codon and there was a part of me that was a little bit worried just in a sense that i i know i've witnessed uh friends and people over the years who have um [Music] who've had problems with heroin you know and i i didn't want to get bit by that snake and i started taking the roxies and i was bit by the snake and then before you know it that that monkey is on your back to stay and it's not like you take those pills to get high you you take them to [Music] once once once the addiction has grabbed hold of you you you're not taking those pills to get high you're taking those pills to get well or to get better because if you're without the pill your body will start to go into various uh you'll withdrawals and um so i was i was on the roxy is roxy's for a number of years uh four or five years i think maybe more i don't know but um the key was that i i if you take two you will be um what they call on the not you will be that you'll you'll just drop into sleep um uh so um yes i i i didn't like being dependent on on these on these pills i didn't like being dependent on on a on a drug that would you take only so you wouldn't get withdrawals that's what it becomes it's like a junkie the the reason why so many uh well now there's a huge fentanyl problem but the reason why junkies generally why they end up overdosing is because they're looking for the first high again and you you don't get that you don't get your first high again so what you do you up the stakes and you put more you take more and and that's what makes uh them that's what makes things go dark for them because they overestimated the amount that they that their body could tolerate and they go blue and they die so yeah didn't want that once you've been bit you'll be bit again so no i with any i mean even with my finger uh i i think that it was like motrin 800 uh you know but no opiates no i have not taken an opiate since and i won't unless i plan on going through the the hell of the pure horror of detoxing of coming off those drugs now

Channel: ASMR Gold

Views: 313,300

Keywords: Johnny Depp, trial, Amber Heard, testimony, ASMR, court, defamation, case, soothing, calming, voice, captain jack, jack sparrow, pirates, carribean, actor, acting, Gilbert Grape, Willy Wonka, Edward Scissorhands, Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing, Hollywood Vampires, tingles, mic, gold

Id: rqL1Sc284h8

Length: 94min 15sec (5655 seconds)

Published: Thu May 05 2022