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First there is the mysterious stalker (John Turturro) who claims Mort plagiarized a short story of his and then there is Mort's own angst over his recent divorce and the memory of a time he did steal another man's ideas.
"When this creepy stranger accuses Mort of stealing his short story and then stalks Mort, he takes my character to places no man should go," says Depp of the tortured soul he plays.
"I think Mort is a serious victim of all the stresses in his life and when he goes to live in the remote cabin he's not just becoming a recluse as much as he is trying to disappear and cut himself off from feelings."
Wait now.
Is Depp, 40, just talking about Mort or is he talking about the Johnny Depp, who abused alcohol, drugs and hotel rooms.
"I think I lived the first 35 years of my life in a fog. I didn't really know what I wanted or who I was. After I'd become an actor I just knew I didn't want celebrity," says Depp,
He says his life turned around seven years ago when he met French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis while he was shooting Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate.
"I pretty much fell in love with Vanessa the moment I set eyes on her. As a person I was pretty much a lost cause at that point of my life.
"She turned all that around for me with her incredible tenderness and understanding. Very quickly, I realized I couldn't live without her. She made me feel like a real human being instead of someone Hollywood had manufactured."
A few months after Depp and Paradis began their affair she discovered she was pregnant with his daughter Lily-Rose.
"The birth of our daughter was happiness piled upon happiness. It was at that moment that I decided to move to France and begin a new life with Vanessa and Lily-Rose."
Paradis and Depp have been together for six years and two years ago added son Jack to their family.
"Vanessa and I have considered ourselves husband and wife since the day we moved in together. We just haven't gone through the formalities of legalizing our union."
It's been an incredible 12 months for Depp. His Pirates of the Caribbean became an international blockbuster winning him a Screen Actors Guild award for best actor and his first Oscar nomination in an amazing career that spans almost 20 years.
"My family has made me a better person and consequently a better actor. It's only because of them that I could enjoy and appreciate the success Pirates of the Caribbean brought to me. I'm much more centred than I've ever been. I've lost most of the confusion that dominated my life. I didn't know what happiness was so I couldn't possibly have appreciated the happiness that my career is bringing me."
Depp says the great irony of his life is he never intended to be an actor: "I wanted to be a musician. In 1983 when I was 20, I moved from Florida to L.A. with my band called The Kids. We thought we were going to make it big but we ended up clearing about $25 each a week."
Depp was working as a telemarketer when Nicolas Cage, who had become his buddy, hooked Depp up with an acting agent.
"The first job she got me was in A Nightmare on Elm Street. They paid me scale so I went from making $25 a week to making $1,200 a week. My intention was to pour that money back into the band but roles kept coming and pretty soon I discovered I was an actor."
Some 30 pictures later, Depp is on top of his game and more in demand than he's ever been.
Later this year he will be seen playing Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie in Neverland and he is currently playing a disturbed, self-destructive poet opposite John Malkovich and Samantha Morton in The Libertine.
When that is completed he'll team up with Tim Burton for the fourth time to play Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
He's also committed to join Benico Del Toro, Nick Nolte and Josh Hartnett in The Rum Diary based on a Hunter S. Thompson novel. He'll also have to squeeze in Pirates of the Caribbean 2 which he says will make his daughter happy. "Lily-Rose thinks I am a pirate. She tells us that when she grows up she wants to be a pirate just like daddy."