READY, SET, 'BLOW';

Johnny Depp Embodies The Passion Of A Convicted Drug Dealer -- A Rebel, Not
Unlike Himself

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- Actor Johnny Depp, known for his curious
on-screen choices and his rather dubious and unorthodox -- by Hollywood
standards, anyway -- off-screen lifestyle, has really 'blown' it this time.

No, he's hasn't trashed another hotel room. Nor has he had to alter the
name of another ex-fiance on one of his already heavily decorated limbs
(his 'Winona [Ryder] Forever' imprint now reads 'Wino Forever'). And
thankfully, he hasn't signed on to do another horrible headless horseman movie.

Nope, this time he's willingly blown into director Ted Demme's'Blow' with
the force of a midsummer Kansas tornado.

The film, which hits theaters today, details the rise and fall of
imprisoned drug lord George Jung, who is credited with turning cocaine into
the drug of choice in the '60s and '70s. Unlike Steven Soderbergh's
award-winning 'Traffic,' a movie Demme's film will inevitably be compared
with, 'Blow' is based on the real deal. And because of that, Demme wanted
Depp to play Jung. In his mind, Johnny D. was the only actor who had the
range to play such a vilified and tragic figure.

Depp himself is an interesting character study. Professionally, it appears
he deliberately chooses projects that would be difficult to finance if he
weren't attached to them. 'Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Donnie Brasco,
What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' and last
year's 'Before Night Falls,' in which he played a transvestite, might all
have bombed at the box office without Depp.

Off-screen, his menacingly handsome face seems to mask a rather uninviting
and eccentric spirit, but he proved he's quite the charmer when he arrived
for an interview at the trendy Standard Hotel. "How's everyone doing?" he
asked as he plopped into a chair and immediately began rolling his own
cigarette in a brown wrapper. "So, who have you already talked to? Oh yeah,
Paul Reubens? Now that's a hard act to follow."

Wearing the 15-year-old combatlike boots that he's had since his '21 Jump
Street' days, Depp blended well into the hotel's retro '70s interior,
physically and spiritually. It appears that the 37-year-old Kentucky native
is finally at peace with who and what he is.

And his contradictions.

He's a highly respected actor (and accomplished musician) without one award
to validate his talent, but a reluctant movie star who could care less
about a piece of hardware. He never reads newspapers or tabloids like
'People,' but appears to be fully aware of what's going on in the world.
He's the owner of West Hollywood's Viper Room, a club where drugs and
alcohol are favored over soda pop and peanuts (River Phoenix overdosed and
died outside the club in 1993), but once threw out two patrons when he
overheard them talking about snorting coke. And though he admits to having
had some addictions in the past, the now clean and sober Depp says
America's so-called war on drugs is a big joke.

"I think there's so much money involved in the drug trade that it would be
pretty naive to believe that somewhere very high up in very plush offices
and maybe even in various branches of government, that their ain't some top
brass involved in the drug trade," Depp says, while taking a drag off his
third cigarette in less than 20 minutes. "C'mon we can spend billions of
dollars sending some piece of metal into space that we're never even going
to see again, but we can't stop substances from coming in from the borders
or being made in speed labs? Impossible."

And though he has fought for American-Indian rights and is into the
environment, he's now an American splitting his time between an apartment
in Paris and a farm in the south of France with his girlfriend, French pop
singer Vanessa Paradis and their nearly 2-year-old daughter, Lily-Rose.
Depp says he can no longer pledge allegiance to a country he feels has
become "far too violent. I don't want to raise any of my kids here."

But now that he's back in the good old U.S.A. promoting 'Blow,' Depp
appears to be on a crusade to get a convicted drug dealer released from
captivity.

"I don't think he's doing anybody any good being in prison," says Depp, who
visited Jung several times in New York's Otisville Federal Correctional
Institute before shooting the film. "Right now he won't get out of prison
until he's 72. Other people involved in the same bust got two to three
years. I think he's paid his debt."

Jung, who is serving a 20-year sentence until 2014 for parole violation, is
a curious fellow in his own right -- something Depp could relate to. "He
really saw himself as a modern-day pirate," Depp says. "He didn't believe
in the system or politics or rules or bosses."

Depp says he believes that Jung was just living out his version of the
American dream. 'He wanted the same things we all want.

"He's a very charming, very smart and very funny guy," adds Depp. "He's
really a man. He's in there and he's doing his time and not whining about
it. That was one of the things I wanted to get across about George. When I
met him, I thought, 'Yeah, OK, he did a lot of horrible things and he's one
of the people responsible for bringing cocaine en masse into this country.'
But I saw him as a victim of his upbringing. He became what he became
because of that."

Depp has played other real-life characters -- 'Donnie Brasco' (Joe
Pistone), 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' (Hunter Thompson), and 'Ed Wood'
(Ed Wood). But he was apprehensive about playing Jung. "I just didn't want
him to hate me afterward. But he was OK with what he's seen."

Despite the heavy subject matter of Blow , Depp says he had fun off screen
with his co-stars Penelope Cruz (who plays Jung's girlfriend, Mirtha),
Reubens, Ray Liotta and Rachel Griffiths. Cruz said Depp had them laughing
"all the time."

His sense of humor is just part of what draws people to Depp, Cruz says.
"Johnny . . . has that magic charisma and he doesn't have to force it. I
don't know if someone's born with that quality or if you have to work at
it, but it's very rare."

And curiously appealing, too.