Johnny Depp is one of the most versatile and respected actors working in Hollywood today.  Playing such diverse roles in his career as Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka and Captain Jack Sparrow, he spoke about his new role as the famed depression-era bank robber, John Dillinger in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies.

Q: I think it’s fair to say that John Dillinger is an absolutely bona fide film hero but what was the draw playing this outlaw whose name was virtually synonymous with gunslinger American past?
Johnny Depp:  First and foremost, when I was 9 or 10 years old, I had a fascination with John Dillinger.  I think it was something about the twinkle in his eye, there was something mischievous about him that intrigued me.  But in terms of taking on the role, the idea the guy who was called Public Enemy Number One but if you really think about it was never an enemy of the public, ever. That I found intriguing and challenging.

Q: What is it about this sort of character that the public always are fascinated with?  Dillinger saw Manhattan Melodrama as his last ever film.  If you had to have a last ever film, what would it be?
JD: If I had to see a last ever film it would be Withnail and I, without question.  I think that especially with a character like John Dillinger, if you think about where we were in 1933, well it’s not too far away from where we are now.  The banks were the enemy; they were taking the knees out from under everyone.  Displacement was a kind way of putting it; lives were being ripped from people. There’s John Dillinger who’s spent 10 years in prison for some youthful, ignorant, drunken crime.  10 years.  And he arrives on the scene in the ultimate existential arena and says, “I’m going to stand up against these people.”  So I think for me what’s fascinating is the guy who says, “I ain’t taking it.  I ain’t taking it.  I don’t care who you are, I’m not taking it.”

Q:  First Sweeny Todd and now this, it was almost as if you were trying to crowbar some singing.
JD:  I almost feel like I could dance. I just might now!
Q:  Have you been bitten by the singing bug?  Is it something you’d like to continue with?
JD:  I’ve only been bitten once and it was an indirect bite.  No. I sang the one time on screen because basically I had no choice.
Q: But you sang well in this, only a few lines...
JD:  Oh yeah, I did sing in the film.  Is it in?  I haven’t seen it.  I do remember singing...
Q: No recording contracts come your way yet?
JD: No, I think it’s better to stay in your own arena.

Q:  What did your research entail for this film?  Did you look at any previous films to get a flavour of it?
JD:  I certainly had a strong memory of Warren Oates as John Dillinger in John Millius film [Dillinger 1973].  I hadn’t seen it for years, but I do remember there was certain...palette that was limited and I felt that there were more colours to be offered without meaning to get too esoteric about it.  The information that has come out since, some of Dillinger’s own words have surfaced so there’s a bit more story , there’s a bit more dimension to it and that was what I was hoping for - to add some of that.

Q: Stephen Graham, our rising star who’s in the film [playing Baby Face Nelson] - how did you two get on?
JD: We hated each other.  We hated each other and we fought constantly.  I think he’s magnificent Stephen Graham, he’s one of my favourite actors of all time.  What he did in This Is England absolutely destroyed me.  What he did in that film of Shane Meadows took me to my knees.  I’m going to force him to be in all my films now, even at gunpoint.

Q:  You mentioned that you’d not seen the film and you did a double-take when you saw your image when you first walked in.  Do you not like looking at yourself?  Can you not get your head around the fact that you are now this massive star?
JD: If I can avoid the mirror when I brush my teeth in the morning, I will.   I find security and safety in the most profound degree of ignorance.  If you can just stay ignorant to almost everything, I think you’d be ok - just keep walking forward.  It’s ok to notice things and look at things, but I think judge things can bog you down.  I don’t like watching myself in the movies; I don’t like to be aware of the product.  I like the process, I enjoy that.   [Glancing at the poster of him behind him] - that is...I mean...not my fault.  I didn’t do it!  I was there but I didn’t do it.

Q:  Did you think your time would always come?
JD:  I went through 20 years of basically what the industry defined as failures.   So for 20 years I was defined as box office poison and I didn’t change anything in term s of my process, I didn’t change a thing.  That little film Pirates of the Caribbean came around and I thought it would be fun to play a pirate for my kiddies and I created the character in the same way that I’ve created all the other characters and nearly got fired and thank god I didn’t because it’s changed my life.  I’m super thankful that that radical turn happened but it’s not like I went out of my way to make it happen.

Q: You’ve played a lot of biographical figures in Blow and Donnie Brasco and now Dillinger. What is it that draws you to these real life figures and who would you like to play next?
JD:  Hmm...Who would I like to play next?  Carol Channing.  Carol Channing maybe.  I do like Carol Channing.  I do.  In a digital age, anything’s possible.  I could play a 12 year old girl at this rate.

Q: Approaching someone like Dillinger and approaching someone like Jack Sparrow.  Is the process as in depth - getting your mind into it.
JD: It is.  It’s potentially even more so because of the amount of responsibility that you have to that person who did exist. There’s  some sense of responsibility to their legacy.  John Dillinger - there’s an enormous amount of information about the guy.  We know where he was at 12.02 and when all the banks were robbed and all that, but there’s a great gap with regards to really who he was.  There’s footage of him, there’s endless photographs of him but there’s no audio of him.   There’s just an attitude you get.  So that was the dig - how do I find this man?  When he speaks, what does he sound like?   John Dillinger was born in Indiana and raised in Mooresville, Indiana, about two hours from where I was born and raised, and at that point I though, ah, I hear his voice now, now I know what he sounds like because it’s not all that different.  He was my grandfather who drove a bus in the day and ran moonshine at night. He was my stepfather who did time at Statesville Penitentiary. I knew his voice then.

Q:  Looking at you in this film, you don’t seem to have changed that much over the years; you’ve really kept your looks.  Do you have any particular skin care regimes...?
JD: Clean living. Oh yeah.  Most definitely. Well, I’d say if you can avoid wine, I’d do it.  And liquor definitely, avoid liquor.  Most definitely smoke.  Anything, don’t smoke anything. Stay in your room.  And watch the television.  That’s how I do it.

Q: Looking at the extraordinary range of  characters you’ve played, what’s the one that’s closest to the one you are and what’s been the furthest away and might have been all the more intriguing for being that?
JD: The furthest away...oh boy, there’s been a couple of them.  Might be Willy Wonka.  Let’s hope that’s the furthest away!  Closest to me would probably be...there’s probably three.  Edward Scissorhands, John Wilmot from the Libertine and maybe John Dillinger.

Q:  On a biographical point, what does it lend your performance to know that you were in a location where Dillinger himself was all those year before.
JD:  That was one of the most amazing things that Michael Mann provided for us.   To be able to break through the exact doors that John Dillinger broke through as opposed to just shooting it on some sound stage because it’s cheaper or handier.  Michael was a real stickler for that sort of thing and I will thank him forever for that.  To be able to fire my Thompson out the very window that John Dillinger would have fired his Thompson out of, the gun battle at Little Bohemia - you can’t put a price on that.   
To be able to walk in the same footsteps that he took, to walk the walk outside the Biograph Theatre and land exactly to the tiny millimetre to where John Dillinger’s head fell was magical.  You almost feel him arriving.  Not to be moony or spooky about it or anything like that, but there were moments where I felt a certain amount of approval from the guy.  When you go to that umpteenth detail, something’s going on.

Q:  You only shared one scene with Christian Bale.  How did you find the dynamics of working with him and are your acting styles very different?
JD:  I don’t know if our acting styles are different.
Q: Christian tends to stay in character and kept up the Southern accent we’ve heard.
JD: Oh that kind of thing.  Oh, I don’t do that.  If you have to do that, that’s ok.  I enjoyed working with him, I truly enjoyed it.  We had one scene together aside from when he and his cronies croaked me outside the Biograph, that was the scene in the jail cell and I enjoyed it very much.  It was like...how would you describe it.  It was like a sparring match.  Two guys in there with a similar respect for one another and trying to present different angles to each other.  I enjoyed it very much, obviously he’s a very gifted gifted actor and a great talent.  When Christian and I spent most of our time was when we saw each other, which wasn’t very much, we talked about our kids, we talked about being dads and that’s where we really connected.

Q: Could you talk a little about Michael Mann.  Did you feel your styles complemented each other and how does he compare with other directors that you’ve worked with?
JD:  I think ultimately Michael’s style and my approach did complement each other.  Initially there were moments when...when you’re building something, there are things that will be discarded, things will get broken along the way.  It wasn’t right off the bat the easiest but I think in the long run what we were able to figure out together was, he’d present something, I’d present something, we’d find a happy middle and we’d get it and we’d always get out there.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for Michael, as a human being and as a filmmaker. He’s not joking, he means it, he truly means it.

Q: How difficult was it to let go of Dillinger when the film was finished and over the course of your career, which has been the hardest to say goodbye to?
JD: Boy oh boy, there’s been a few.  Well saying goodbye to Dillinger was...The funny thing is, you never really say goodbye because there’s like a chest of drawers that you can access, they’re always around. I’m not sure if that’s healthy but they’re always there.  Dillinger was tough because it was like saying goodbye to a relative.  
The most difficult to say goodbye to?  Scissorhands was rough.  The safety of allowing yourself to be that honest and to be that pure, to be that exposed, that was hard to say goodbye to.  Wilmot, Earl of Rochester on the Libertine was really tough because I felt there was a very intense 40-something days where I had the opportunity to be that guy and I felt a deep sense of responsibility and at the end, the light goes out and it goes black.

Words by Jez Sands.

Public Enemies is out now.