No singing lessons for Johnny - Nov 5 2007
Johnny Depp has admitted he didn't take singing lessons for his upcoming role in Tim Burton musical movie Sweeney Todd.

Instead, he gambled on practising the vocal techniques himself.

"I was talking to people and they were saying, well of course you're going to need a singing teacher," he told Entertainment Weekly magazine. "And I said yeah, yeah, of course I will, yeah.

"But I didn't see the character developing with me doing scales in front of a piano," he added.

"That kind of thing would have been a disaster. I would still be rehearsing right now. Or I'd have been fired."

Instead, Johnny and a friend made demo recordings in a West Hollywood studio, with the actor playing tracks to his girlfriend Vanessa Paradis.

"When I was doing the demos in Los Angeles, I came home and played it for Vanessa. That was one of the more frightening moments. You go; 'I'm going to fall on my face.' But they said is that you?'"



Johnny’s joy at daughter’s recovery - Nov 2 2007
Johnny Depp says his eight-year-old daughter is now healthy and well following her stay in a London hospital earlier this year.

"Now every single millisecond is a mini-celebration," the 44-year-old actor tells Entertainment Weekly in its November 9 issue.

"Every time we get to breathe in and exhale is a huge victory. She pulled through beautifully, perfectly, with no lasting anything."

Lily-Rose, the daughter of Depp and French singer Vanessa Paradis, was admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital with an undisclosed illness about three weeks after Depp started work on Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The film is Tim Burton’s adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical.

"To say it was the darkest moment, that’s nothing," Depp tells the magazine.

"It doesn’t come close to describing it. Words are so small. But knowing that those people, Tim and the crew, shut down and stood by and waited ... I didn’t know if I was coming back. I remember talking with Tim, saying, ’Maybe you need to recast’."

"Once we were given the all-clear, I had to dive back into the work," he says. "I had to get back in there for Tim."

Sweeney Todd is set for limited release in the US next month.

Depp and Paradis also have a five-year-old son, Jack.



Johnny Depp’s Hackney night out - 29/01/02
Johnny Depp jetted in to Hackney to present his favourite band with an award at Radio 3’s inaugural World Music Awards last night. The hunky actor, soon to be seen terrorizing the East End as Jack the Ripper in From Hell, flew in from his Paris home to give the award to a virtually unknown Romanian outfit who usually perform at weddings and funerals.

He was first introduced to the musicians Taraf de Haidouks (Band of Outlaws) two years ago when they were cast as his gipsy family in The Man Who Couldn’t Cry, by British film-maker Sally Potter. He loved the band so much, he flew them in to perform at his exclusive club The Viper Room, to mark the launch of his film Sleepy Hollow.

Last night at Ocean he described them as "the greatest musicians I know" and danced with his girlfriend Vanessa Paradis, as the group performed at the after-show party. "These guys can play a music which expresses the most intense joy," said Depp. The band, whose members range in age from mid-20s to late-70s, remain almost unknown in Romania because of their gipsy blood. But, said Depp: "They have this gift to make you feel alive.