NEW YORK -- Johnny Depp has two new gold teeth, but that's not what puts the real glitter in his smile.
Earlier this year, Depp became a father when his live-in lover, French singer Vanessa Paradis, gave birth to their daughter, Lily-Rose Melody Depp.
"I know I'm going to sound like the most cliched father in the universe, but I have never in my life even thought it was possible to feel such profound, deep love," says Depp.
"It is this incredible connection to an amazing, beautiful little human being. Lily-Rose is my angel."
Depp, 36, admits he still has trouble believing he's a dad.
"I never thought of myself as a father and I didn't plan on becoming one. I really believe that Lily-Rose chose to come to us, rather than Vanessa and I deciding to conceive a child."
He's adamant there are no marriage plans in the foreseeable future.
"The whole marriage thing will be up to Lily-Rose. She'll rule our roost."
For the past two years, Depp has lived in Paris, where he met Paradis shortly after the collapse of his tumultuous affair with supermodel Kate Moss.
"For the most part, life in Paris is amazing. Vanessa and I have to deal with the paparazzi trying to take photos of us wherever we go, but it's infinitely better than living in Los Angeles," he says.
Depp still has his house in L.A., which once belonged to horror king Bela Lugosi, and he still owns the Viper Club nightclub on Sunset Blvd.
"I miss certain things about L.A., but I certainly don't miss turning on the TV for the evening news. All you get is kidnappings, murders and horrible disasters. There are similar things in France, but on a much smaller scale."
Depp hasn't exactly been on a two-year continental holiday.
He filmed the supernatural thriller The Ninth Gate for exiled director Roman Polanski, a sensuous gypsy drama called The Man Who Cried and Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, a gothic retelling of the Washington Irving classic story of the Headless Horseman, which opens Friday.
"It never ceases to amaze me that I get so much work. It wasn't planned this way, but I've built my career on failure.
"My movies never seem to make any money. I'm going to have to be a little more circumspect about my film choices because I have a family to support. In the past, money just represented freedom. Now it means security."
In Sleepy Hollow, Depp plays Ichabod Crane as a dedicated forensic detective assigned to find a killer who beheads
his victims. The villagers claim it is a demon known as the Headless Horseman.
"Growing up, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was a Halloween tradition in our house, so I knew the story. I'd also been raised on the Disney cartoon version, so I knew what Ichabod should look like."
Depp was excited about the prospect of undergoing a complete physical transformation similar to the one he made for Edward Scissorhands.
"I called Paramount and said: 'When can I get together with the makeup people to create the prosthetics? I envision a long, sniped nose and huge ears plus extensions on my fingers.' "
Depp says there was silence on the other end of the phone.
"The message was that it was bad enough Tim was casting Johnny Depp without making me any creepier than I am normally."
Paramount got a suave-looking hero, but one who is decidedly klutzy and keeps fainting at the sight of blood.
Depp's love interest in Sleepy Hollow is played by Christina Ricci. He met her on the set of Cher's tearjerker Mermaids 11 years ago when Ricci was eight. Depp was dating Christina's co-star Winona Ryder at the time.
"It was very difficult to look at Christina as a love interest, but at least in Sleepy Hollow the passion is expressed through glances," he says.
This was not the case when Depp and Ricci were reunited for Sally Potter's The Man Who Cried.
"I play a Romanian gypsy who initiates Christina's character to love. We were simulating sex all over Paris."
It's to The Man Who Cried that Depp owes his gold teeth. They could have been props, but Depp insisted on having his own teeth temporarily capped. "I'm waiting until the last possible second to have the caps removed. It's only now that they tell me it's a really violent process to take them off."
Which probably means Depp will be flashing his 24-karat gold smile for a while yet.
Fatherhood will have him glowing considerably longer.
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