The career advice Marlon Brando gave to Johnny Depp
Although their generations seem so impermeably separated, the Hollywood icons Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp crossed paths in the 1990s and made a rather intriguing impression on one another. In 1994, ten years before Brando’s death, the pair collaborated on the romantic comedy-drama Don Juan DeMarco alongside Faye Dunaway.
During the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2016, Depp remembered working with Brando on the movie, cheekily claiming that he “owned him” on screen. “Well, first of all, I really love the idea of playing opposite Marlon Brando and being the crazy one. How many times has that job come around?” Depp asked in humorous rhetoric.
The interviewer quipped, “He’s your straight man, isn’t he?” to which the actor responded: “Pretty much. I owned him.”
“He was so charming, I mean, well, he was charming on screen, for sure,” Depp continued. “He was charming when we were setting up shots and things like that. Suddenly, you’d see like 17 make-up chicks over there just listening to Marlon telling these amazing stories – probably lies… No,” correcting himself, “He was a fascinating individual. I learned a lot.”
Depp maintained that, although it was by no means the most successful movie of either of the actors’ careers, Don Juan DeMarco was a pivotal moment in his career. “That movie was key for me. They asked me who should play the doctor; they had other actors in mind. I don’t know why, I just said Marlon Brando. They laughed, and I didn’t (laughs). They kept saying, ‘He’ll never, no, no, he’ll never, he doesn’t care’.”
He added: “I was in New York at the time, and I came back to my hotel… and you’re reading the thing, and you see this thing that says, ‘Marlon Brando called at 9:37, here’s his number’, and you’re like, ‘None of this shit’s happening. I’m nine months into a deep coma, and this is some weird shit that you really would like to happen, but it’s not gonna happen.'”
“So I called him,” Depp continued. “And he was great. He was the absolute opposite of everything that they told me he was gonna be, which was some testy guy who wants to know that he’s in control and a lot of stuff. That’s not at all what the man was. No matter what he did, going to work, whatever, the most important thing on his mind was justice. Equality, justice, just justice.”
After collaborating together on Don Juan DeMarco, Depp and Brando maintained a friendship wherein the latter would mentor the former. Speaking at ASU Gammage in front of a live audience in 2016, Depp recalled a conversation he once had with his idol about the number of movies he was undertaking.
“He said, ‘How many films do you average per year that you do?'” Depp said. “And I said, ‘I don’t know. Maybe two or three. He said, ‘No, that’s too much.’ So I said, ‘Well, why is that too much?’ And he said, ‘Because we only have so many faces in our pockets.'”
Brando, clearly worried his protégé would run out of steam, gave some respectable advice. However, Depp was convinced that, due to his particular degree of insanity, he had more pocket depth than the average actor.
“Unfortunately, because of my madness, I feel like there’s still a lot of faces in my pockets,” Depp concluded.
