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He is famous for trying to avoid both. "I've certainly tried, but here I am!" Depp says in an interview thrust upon him to publicize the Friday release of Tim Burton's scary new movie about the legendary headless horseman, Sleepy Hollow. It is Depp's third time around with Burton.
Depp, a congenial, soft-spoken fellow despite his reluctance to talk about himself, plays Ichabod Crane in Burton's reworking of the famous Washington Irving short story. "And suddenly there's an Ichabod Crane doll," Depp continues, "which is frightening. Here I go! Now put me on a lunch box."
Depp grins, flashing gold teeth. He had them permanently installed to play a gypsy in a movie called The Man Who Cried, co-starring with Christina Ricci, his love interest in Sleepy Hollow. They just wrapped the film in Europe in October.
Depp has messed around with his teeth before. He has covered parts of his body with tattoos, including having Winona Ryder's first name scrolled into one arm when they were dating (it was later removed, one letter at a time). Depp has also been naughty, getting involved in drugs and incidents with the police and with paparazzi. How could he not be (in)famous?
Surprise!
"I've done my best to fight any kind of labels or images or whatever they try to give to me," Depp offers. "Most people generally who meet me -- and if they've never met me before and just read things about me -- they go: 'Hey, you're not such a shithead at all! You're not a bad guy!'
"Because of the tabloids, I'm the hotel-trashing, stick-wielding, drunken, fiendish actor-idiot," Depp says. "Some of those things are true, but it doesn't make me a bad guy.
"But magazines are not interested in doing me any favours in terms of publicity. They just want to sell magazines. You know, it doesn't sell any magazines to say: 'Johnny Depp spotted on the street giving $200 to a homeless man!'
"It's better (to say): 'Johnny Depp ran down a street, jammed a pencil into a man's kidney and escaped into the night.' Look, I'm not an idiot, I'd rather read that story too. But when you've got to live with it every day ..."
'FICTION WRITERS'
It helps that he lives in France now, so is somewhat removed from U.S. tabloids. "But they've got some really interesting fiction writers over there too," he laments. Depp shares his life with French singer-actress Vanessa Paradis. They have a six-month-old daughter, Lily-Rose, whose birth led to a stick-swinging incident involving photographers.
"I just go back and forth," Depp explains of working in both Europe and Hollywood. "Because of this business, it's always been a fairly transient life. So I just go back and forth, as little as possible because I'm not a big fan of airplanes."
His daughter, Depp enthuses, is now a light in his life. "Boy, I want everything for her. I want her to have no fear. I want her to have total, complete happiness. I want blue skies for my girl. I want white puffy clouds."
For himself, the 36-year-old actor is happy with the way things have turned out, despite the publicity game.
"I've had the opportunity to do all the things I've wanted to do and work with all the people I've wanted to work with. I know I've said this before and it sounds really stupid but, heck, I love sounding stupid. But I really am still shocked when I get jobs.
"Probably a lot of people are shocked when I get jobs."