HOLLYWOOD -- Talking to actors can be deadly.
Take the case of Johnny Depp, who scurried in and out of a Beverly Hills hotel under the watchful eye of hovering bodyguards and shadowy -- perhaps menacing -- figures.
Here to promote Donnie Brasco, the true tale of undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone's six-year immersion into The Mob, Depp came armed with the real Pistone, a.k.a Donnie Brasco, who still carries a $500,000 bounty on his head.
Entering the room with head shaved, face un-shaven and clad in black, Depp tries unsuccessfully to put twitchy journalists -- half-joking we could get "bumped off" in the line of fire -- at ease.
"There were some guys around," admits the intense young actor, about Mafia street goons hanging around the film set last year in Brooklyn.
But after a mysterious, late-night telephone call ordering Depp and co-star Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs' bad boy) to show up for a clandestine street corner meeting, the actors did their own bit of infiltration.
"We had coffee and hung out with them," says Depp of their rounds of Italian social clubs and eateries with the killers. "You'd think they were just the sweetest guys."
As Brasco/Pistone, Depp plays the agent who has "conflicted loyalties" between work, family and his has-been Mafioso mentor `Lefty' (Al Pacino), who takes him under his wing and into the world of blood and bodybags.
It was Depp's curiosity after reading Pistone's "emotionless" book that led to a meeting between the actor and his real-life character.
"I couldn't figure out what kind of a guy he was," says Depp. "I thought there's no way we're gonna like each other. I'm going to meet the ultimate in `John Waynedom.'"
What he found was "one of the strongest people I've ever met in my life ... and a bleeding heart."
In preparation for the film, the two pumped iron together, cooked pasta and shot guns at the FBI Academy in Virginia.
"He's a very good shot. He surprised me," says Pistone, who donned baseball hat, dark glasses and a fake moustache for interviews.
True to life, though, are screen moments that give Pistone, living under an alias for the last 12 years, that deja vu feeling.
"It was eerie," says the now retired agent. "(Depp) was so much on the mark, it's like watching me talking."
For Depp, who says he's a risk-taker when choosing film work, the role is "a type of very real guy I've never attempted before" that he undertook "with the possibility of failing miserably." Such risks, like last year's box-office dud Dead Man, are "a big crap shoot," he says.
"There were films I did and thought, `Why wouldn't people want to go see this?' But they prefer big action things, explosives -- a formula."
Departing from usual form is Brit director Mike Newell, known for feely-touchy films like Four Weddings And A Funeral and Enchanted April.
"You think you don't get bored with girls and flowers?" laughs Newell. "I desperately wanted to make something that was about men," and about something as "romantic" as the Mob. "We don't have organized crime at home -- just the aristocracy."
His challenge, he says, was finding a new story within the old men's club.
"I thought, How could you possibly find anything more to do not done by Coppola or Scorsese? Yet here it was, it's about what happens when you don't make it."
One Brasco scene that will rival Coppola's famed horse head horror in The Godfather is a gruesome dismembering of dead bodies, in which Brasco/Pistone takes part.
"It's pretty intense," admits Depp, "but you needed to see how far he had gone. He'd become so unlike himself."
Depp's next project, The Brave, in which he stars and directs, is intense in that same way.
Based on the novel of the same name, it's about snuff films and "human sacrifice," he describes.
Directing for the first time, he says, was also about human sacrifice -- his own.
"I was very naive. I thought directing would be easy to do, but it's insane -- completely insane. You don't sleep when you're supposed to sleep, and when you're working, you're desperate to sleep. People ask you questions like, `What color would you like the red shoes to be?' when `red' would suffice. It's the most insane thing I've ever done."
Other insanities, like his well publicized bashing-up of hotel rooms with girlfriend/model Kate Moss, seem over.
The beautiful couple's more constructive next move, he says, may be to work together.
"She's not an actress -- yet. Though she could become a good one."
And maybe a good wife? Not yet.
"I was in England a few weeks ago and read I was already married," says Depp, of his romance with the waif-like mannequin. "We're not. It'd be a real shock if I woke up and was."
Raking in a reported $4 million for Brasco, and looking forward to only movie risk-taking in the near future, Depp's "happy where everything is at right now."
Even if it means he's gotta look over his shoulder.
THE DONNIE BRASCO FILE
HOW A NICE ITALIAN BOY CONVINCED THE MOB HE WAS FAMILY?: "I knew when to talk, I knew when to shut up," says Pistone, who grew up in the 'Hood. "I already had the street smarts."
HOW THEY REACTED WHEN HE TESTIFIED AGAINST THEM?: "If looks could kill, I'd be dead," says Pistone.
IF THE MOB WERE FILM CRITICS: "I already got my reviews," says Madsen. "They said if I wanted to give up acting, I was welcome ... That's a pretty good endorsement."
THE MOST FRUSTRATING PART ABOUT DIRECTING THE BRAVE?: "I wanted to fire myself," laughs Depp.
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