Even though a multi-billion dollar blockbuster franchise turned him into an A-list superstar and the highest-paid actor in the industry, Johnny Depp has never really been interested in even attempting to become a conventional action hero.
The Pirates of the Caribbean series may have carried massive budgets and boasted plenty of eye-popping spectacle, but the swashbucklers were rooted more in epic fantasy than anything else. Even in movies that required a more straightforward notion of running and gunning, such as Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Public Enemies, Depp played supporting roles and real-life figures.
That makes 1995’s Nick of Time something of an anomaly, then, with Depp foregoing his established reputation as the eccentric darling of independent cinema to play the lead role in a high-concept action thriller backed by a major studio. It’s a story unfolding in real-time that finds his accountant ordered to assassinate a politician within the next 75 minutes, or his daughter will be killed.
The results weren’t great, to put it lightly, with Nick of Time being cold-shouldered by critics and ignored by audiences on its way to box office disaster. However, Depp wasn’t concerned in the slightest with how the film fared because he’d signed on for the purpose of getting the chance to showcase a new side of himself and work with Christopher Walken.
As he put it to The Washington Post: “I liked the script. I thought it was a good time to make a change… I figured I’d do something else after being accused by everybody of playing weirdos. It was an opportunity to play the straight man.” Even at that, he was aware there would be accusations of selling out.
Refuting those allegations, Depp defended his involvement in Nick of Time to Gainesville, even while admitting he was aware critical and commercial disaster was lurking just over the horizon. “I did that film not for money or not to sell out. I didn’t think it was going to be successful at all. I didn’t care,” he explained. “I did it because I wanted to work with Christopher Walken and I wanted to work with John Badham.”
Although he did praise the “intriguing” script for how it felt “very much like an old school Hitchcock film,” the driving forces behind Nick of Time on a personal and professional level were Walken and Badham first and foremost. Ironically, he’d end up collaborating with the former again just a few short years later, and things would turn out much better the second time around.
Reuniting as the protagonist and antagonist of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, the lavish Gothic fantasy would win an Academy Award and earn over 25 times as much from cinemas as Nick of Time, leaving the latter as little more than a forgotten footnote in Depp’s extensive filmography.
