The actor sat down for a rare intimate interview, conducted inside his home, for the North American release of his French film, in which he plays King Louis XV.
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Johnny Depp with Mark Salisbury. PHOTO:
GINA DEUTERS
Johnny Depp is giving a peek into a personal connection to his latest role.
The actor, 60, stars as King Louis XV in the French film Jeanne du Barry, which is getting a U.S. release beginning May 2 after opening the Cannes Film Festival in 2023. With the theatrical release comes a sit-down interview with Depp, conducted by Mark Salisbury inside the actor’s home in London. The interview plays alongside each screening of the film.
About his real-life character, Depp said, “I think for someone in that position, and again, some of this stuff resonates for me — not that I’m a king of any sort.”
“But it resonates just in the sense that this guy, within his circle, let’s say, within his world, he had to be available kind of at all times. And yet he was, in a sense, hidden away and living his life that way,” said the actor. “So the layers between him and the real world, they start to get thicker and weirder.”
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Maïwenn and Johnny Depp in “Jeanne du Barry”.
LE PACTE
Added Depp, “It has been something like that for me at times. … I certainly wouldn’t complain about it ever, but there is a part of you that is kind of cut off from the world. Where, if you go out, it gets weird, you know? It just gets weird.”
Maïwenn, who also co-wrote and directed the film, stars alongside Depp in the title role of Jeanne du Barry, the king’s controversial mistress. She was a working-class woman climbing the social ladder, but when she’s made the king’s last official mistress, “scandal erupts as no one at Court will accept a girl from the streets into their rarified world,” per a synopsis.
Depp celebrated the stateside release of Jeanne du Barry and the new interview on Instagram, writing, “Sat down with the delightful Mark Salisbury for a chat about my role as Louis XV in Maïwenn’s ‘Jeanne du Barry’, opening tomorrow for US & Canadian audiences.”
Jeanne du Barry is in select theaters now.
