Whether it’s Ed Wood, Captain Jack Sparrow or Willy Wonka, there’s always a lot of pizzazz and absurdity that lifts Johnny Depp’s on-screen personas off the screen.
However, in Maïwenn’s Cannes opening night film, Jeanne du Barry, the actor takes a definite less is more approach to his King Louis XV who is madly bewitched by his court mistress, Countess Jeanne du Barry, in the 18th century; that part played by the pic’s director.
It’s one of Depp’s more visually-driven performances sans any bouncy dialogue or offbeat behavior.
“We talked about this idea of…you can write a wonderful scene. The words can be absolutely gorgeous on paper, they may sound great in the air,” explained the 3x Oscar nominee.
“(But) what’s going on underneath the words are more important than the words themselves,” Depp continued.
“It’s a nicer thing to generate through yourself to each other, to deliver an honest moment to the audience,” the actor said explaining his process, “Words are my god — it’s the subtext and it’s the choices which interest me and why people do what they do.”
“The movie doesn’t talk so much, the movie has 50 minutes of music,” asserted Maïwenn.
Jeanne du Barry delves into the controversies of class, status and reputation, topics which rang far too true for both Depp coming away from tabloid-laden lawsuits with former spouse Amber Heard (over which the actor publicly said he was boycotted by Hollywood), and Maïwenn who recently admitted in a TV interview to assaulting a reporter in a restaurant. In fact today, Depp, when asked by Deadline whether he still feels boycotted by the industry, retorted: “Do I feel a boycott now? No, not at all. I don’t feel boycotted by Hollywood because I don’t think about Hollywood. I don’t have much further need for Hollywood myself.”
Maïwenn says there’s nothing allegorical going on in Jeanne Du Barry, mirroring their lives: “It’s more of a love story than a social class conflict” says the filmmaker.
Jeanne du Barry generated a lot of noise heading into the 76th edition of Cannes including, but not limited to, its Saudi financing, the media making hay over Depp’s alleged ‘wifebeater’ reputation, and Maïwenn being off the cuff. We asked Depp to comment on the current WGA Strike and writers’ plights in a streaming vs. theatrical world. The SAG-AFTRA contract expires at the end of June. As you can see in our interview above, after the pic’s tormented walk-up to Cannes, Maïwenn wanted no business chatting about anything else than her movie.
Depp agreed.
