Johnny Depp on Recent Flops: 'I Don't Give a [Bleep]!'

By Antoinette Bueno

Though a few of Johnny Depp’s most recent films — The Lone Ranger, The Tourist, Transcendence, Dark Shadows — have not exactly been critical and box-office successes, the actor has gotten to a place in his career where the critics don’t bother him.

In a new interview with Details magazine, Depp gets especially blunt about his questionable choice of films.

"As Marlon once so beautifully f--king said to me, ‘Life is a birdsong.’ That’s stuck with me," he says, quoting his mentor, the legendary actor Marlon Brando. "What is really satisfying is, like Marlon, getting to that place where he just didn’t give a f--k."

At 51 years old, Depp says he has finally reached that place.

"First, I reached a point where I cared so much and was so diligent in terms of approaching the work," he reflects. "Then you get to where you care so f--king much that it gets goddamn beleaguering, you know? But then a great thing happens. Suddenly you care enough to not give a f--k, because not giving a f--k, that’s the total liberation. Being game to try anything."

One role he’s particularly excited about is his part as The Wolf in the highly anticipated musical Into the Woods, out Christmas Day.

"I delight in the approach we took with the Big Bad Wolf," he says. "There’s a wonderful dark humor throughout."

Known for totally immersing himself in his wide range of roles, Depp shares that he’s actually immensely “shy” in real-life.

"I’m f--kin’ shy, man," says Depp, who made headlines last week for an awkward presentation at the Hollywood Film Awards. "I’m living, in a sense, like a fugitive. I don’t like to be in social situations — it’s fine for me in a weird way, having to run and hide. Less and less, I have the opportunity to observe, because I’m the one being observed."

Though is the publicity that comes along with selling movies getting to be too much for the reclusive Depp?

"The process I love. The other stuff … I can deal with being a fugitive for a bit, but I don’t know how much longer a human being really wants to be that," he says. "Actors essentially have to peddle their ass to sell the movie. All the by-products or occupational hazards of the thing. At a certain point, one has to dig deep and go, ‘Man, it is a birdsong.’”