They just create all these things to sell a magazine. They’re put me in all kinds of situations, over the past 25 years. So, there was that side to him, that people expected, but the other side, when you spent time with him, was this very intelligent, highly intelligent, hyper-sensitive, beautiful man.ĭo you ever have the experience of people thinking that there’s a public persona of Johnny Depp that’s different from who you really are?ĭEPP: If they swat you around for long enough, there is a persona that’s cultivate by someone other than yourself. He did that for about 10 minutes, and it worked. He walked into a bar and cleared a path with a giant cattle prod and a taser gun. It was like, “What’s he gonna do now?” I witnessed it, the first time I met him. What everyone expected from Hunter Thompson was that the circus had come to town. He was a very hyper-sensitive man, hence the self-medication.ĭEPP: So, that’s a side that no one ever saw. And, no one ever sort of dared to look at that side of him, or was ever exposed to that side of him. He was, first and foremost, a southern gentleman. Johnny, as a friend of Hunter’s, who knew him more deeply than the public persona, what were the things about him that you wanted to communicate through this movie, that people might not necessarily appreciate or know about?ĭEPP: The main thing that no one really understood about Hunter, or realized about Hunter, was that he had a very strong, very thick moral fiber. No, we had as good technicians that were available on earth, and I did what I always did when I did it before, which was to work with the actors, and then technicians would photograph what we wanted to do. ROBINSON: I don’t know anything about any of that, in the first place. What about filmmaking and the industry had changed, since your last film? And, I don’t say that in a silly, facetious way. It was like getting back on a bicycle, but there was a great ease in there because I was working with such great people. When Kemp is recruited by Sanderson to write favorably about his latest unsavory scheme, the journalist is presented with a choice – to use his words for the corrupt businessmen’s financial benefit, or use them to take the bastards down.īruce, since there has been a significant gap of time since your prior efforts and this film, what was it like to return to directing?īRUCE ROBINSON: Well, I was a little bit wobbly and all over the place, but I was protected by my wonderful associates that I made the film with. Adopting the rum-soaked life of the island, Paul soon becomes obsessed with Chenault (Amber Heard), the wildly attractive Connecticut-born fiancé of Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), a businessman involved in shady property development deals, determined to convert Puerto Rico into a capitalist paradise in service of wealthy Americans. Settling into his job, Kemp meets Sala (Michael Rispoli), a talented but gone-to-seed photographer, and the two become drinking buddies and roommates, along with the eccentric Moberg (Giovanni Ribisi), while working on modest assignments for the paper. Tiring of the noise and madness of New York and the crushing conventions of late Eisenhower-era America, journalist Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) travels to the pristine island of Puerto Rico to write for a local newspaper, The San Juan Star, run by downtrodden editor Mr. Check out what they had to say after the jump.

Depp also talked about how he’s looking forward to getting started on The Lone Ranger, now that the budget has been worked out, and that The Thin Man is in the early stages, but is coming along. Thompson as a young man, prior to the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas character, the challenges of adapting the novel for the big screen, how impossible it is to get Hunter out of your blood stream once you play him, and that Hunter’s ability to voice his opinions is something that every generation should be exposed to. That same night, they decided to publish it and adapt it into a film, turning the project into a labor of love for both Depp and filmmaker Bruce Robinson, who came out of retirement to make the movie.ĭuring a press conference for the film’s release, Johnny Depp and Bruce Robinson talked about bringing a character to life that is loosely based on Hunter S. Thompson, inspired by his time in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1960, but it remained unpublished for decades until actor and close friend, Johnny Depp, accidentally discovered the manuscript while visiting Thompson’s house. The Rum Diary was a novel written by future Gonzo journalist Hunter S. The Rum Diary co-stars Amber Heard, Richard Jenkins, and Aaron Eckhart. Johnny Depp and Director Bruce Robinson talk The Rum Diary.

The rum diary