Fame isn’t easy for everyone.
Johnny Depp admitted in a new documentary about Tim Burton that he was “completely freaked out” by the media attention he received as a teen heartthrob early in his career.
Johnny Depp at the Nosotros Benefit in Los Angeles in 1988. WireImage
“Paparazzi would take pictures of me. People would whisper and point their finger and stuff,” the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor, 61, recalled, per People.
“I felt like sort of this raw nerve on display,” he added.
Depp rose to fame as a teen idol on the TV series “21 Jump Street,” before he broke through in film thanks to multiple collaborations with Burton, 66.
Johnny Depp in 1987. Getty Images
Johnny Depp signing an autograph at an event in 1988. WireImage
Johnny Depp at the “Lone Ranger” premiere in 2013. Getty Images
In archival footage from Tara Wood’s four-part docuseries, Burton described Depp as “very much not” the 𝓈ℯ𝓍 symbol that he was portrayed as in the media at the time.
Later in the doc, Depp spoke about the bond he formed with Burton when he was cast in 1990’s “Edward Scissorhands.”
“What I noticed the first time we met was he wasn’t saying very many words,” Depp said. “[Burton] would begin a sentence and I would go ‘Oh yeah,’ and then we would talk about Boris Karloff or something. We related on a lot of levels.”
Johnny Depp, Tim Burton at the “Dark Shadows” premiere in London in 2012. Getty Images
Depp also said that he beat out Tom Cruise and others actors for the lead role in the film, a job he didn’t think he’d get.
“After about three-and-a-half hours of a really great yak with the guy [Burton], I still thought, ‘No chance, man. No chance,’ ” the Oscar nominee recalled.
Speaking more about his experience doing “Edward Scissorhands,” Depp said, “I was cast in the film but I was stepping into a kind of family that I hadn’t been totally brought into yet. I was absolutely convinced that I was blowing it. Tim had rehearsed everyone else in the cast. Everyone. Not me. He didn’t rehearse me. He was excluding me from the cast and crew, isolating me.”
Tim Burton, Winona Ryder, Johnny Depp and Danny Elfman in 1990. WireImage
Depp said that eventually he realized Burton wanted him to experience the loneliness that his character deals with. However, he was still fearful during the audition process.
“It was scary. I was uber paranoid,” he recalled. “Why is [Burton] not rehearsing me? Maybe he trusts me. No he doesn’t. He doesn’t trust you, what are you nuts? He’s going to cast someone else, man.”
Johnny Depp at a SiriusXM Town Hall in October 2022. Getty Images for SiriusXM
Depp and Burton have also worked together on 1994’s “Ed Wood,” 1999’s “Sleepy Hallow,” 2005’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” 2007’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” 2010’s “Alice in Wonderland” and more.
Depp has done less acting work in recent years following his infamous 2022 defamation case against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, that ended in his favor.
His first movie after the trial was “Jeanne du Barry,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023. He also directed a 2024 biographic film about Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani.