I take it you guys want it then
Here it is, in all its glory:
Interview between Johnny Depp and Arizona Dream producer, Claudie Ossard. Claudie Ossard = CO
Johnny Depp = JD
(I hope you don't mind that I didn't highlight when the speech was in French...I can do that if you like)
CO: Today’s wrap day for “Arizona Dream”
JD: Yes
CO: It has only taken us 10 years. The shooting itself lasted about a year. There was a 3 month break when Emir was in a state of deep depression.
JD: Yes
CO: You could have done another film. You could go. You were free.
JD: Yes. That’s right.
CO: And so you did a music video.
JD: Yes. A video.
CO: With…Faye Dunaway.
JD: That’s right.
CO: We waited for Emir to get into some sort of shape to shoot his film. It was a big thing ‘Arizona Dream’. Do you have good memories of it?
JD: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, it’s a great memory. It’s a great memory, a great experience, a great education….beautiful, beautiful. I remember when Emir was approaching this state of mind, you know, Jerry came to my trailer and he said ‘well kid, the director…’ We were waiting to shoot for, I don’t know, hours, hours…
CO: Yes, I know.
JD: And Jerry came to me and said ‘well kid’ he said ‘the director is sitting over there alone under a tree.’
CO: It was exactly like that.
JD: And I, you know, it was kind of like you’re surprised but not surprised. And so I said ‘why?’ So he said ‘well’ he said ‘I really don’t know.’ That was it. And then I spoke to Emir and he was…
CO: He didn’t want to shoot.
JD: No, he was having a hard time, you know. But it was a difficult time, you remember everything was happening in Yugoslavia at this moment and it was a very difficult time.
CO: It was a very difficult time for him and for us too, at the same time. Like you were saying…I remember arriving on the first day of shooting. He stood under a tree, very dark, his hair exactly like this, and said: “Claudie, I can’t work. I haven’t any ideas today.” We broke off for a week. Do you remember?
JD: Yes. Yes. And we changed the script. We met at his house every night. Yes. Yes
CO: Only then did we really start shooting.
JD: Yes, that’s right
CO: He told me he wanted to go over the script. If you compare Kusturica to Fellini, there are many parallels. Emir is like Fellini, in that he’s like a painter. Standing in front of his canvas he sometimes gets the feeling: “I cannot paint today.” But making a film involves many people, which makes it hard…
JD: Yes, a hundred people waiting for the painter to choose the paint.
CO: To find his inspiration.
JD: It’s exactly that. He’s…if it’s not there, if it’s not there, he refuses to…to lie. He won’t tell a lie, you know. So if it’s not there, it’s not there.
CO: It’s not there.
JD: And I think in fact for a film maker it’s a very healthy way to approach the work but…it’s not a very popular way to approach the work, I think.
CO: No, it’s terrible
JD: With regard to the business.
CO: Before making this film, I’d seen ‘Time of the Gypsies’. That’s why I wanted him. I asked him: “What are you like during a shoot?” He answered “Like a drowning man.”
[tries to explain herself to JD]
Like a man who’s…how do you put it in English? A man who’s in the water and can’t breathe, you know?
JD: Ah ok, ok, like a drowning man.
CO: Yes
JD: Yes
CO: I asked him what he meant. He said: “I breathe in and start sinking. I breathe in and start sinking again.” That really scared me. I thought ‘how terrible!’ But he really hates shooting. It makes him unhappy. He’s always afraid of not finding any inspiration.
JD: I remember so many things of him where you could say…you could say literally….anything, I mean, that you wanted to try something, anything. For instance, with the, there was this whole, sequence where Faye and I make love.
CO: Yes
JD: And there’s a kind of seduction, you know, that was necessary. And…I don’t know why but I always saw Axel as, I always saw my character as a kind of a, you know, like a chicken, you know. Like a chicken who is becoming a man, you know, is becoming a rooster, a cock. That’s why I did the hair like that, you know. So I came to Emir and I said, “I think maybe what I should try is to become the rooster, you know [makes chicken noises] He thought about it and he goes: “This is good idea. This is good idea. We’re going to do this.”
CO: That’s great.
JD: And that’s…that’s where the whole sequence came from where I was making the chicken noises.
CO: Yes, I remember.
JD: But if you go to another director and you say: “I would like to seduce her by becoming a chicken, a rooster.” You’re fired, get out.”
CO: …crazy. Yes, because there’s a connection between the two of you. You understand each other, you’re on the same wavelength.
JD: It was so great…
CO: That’s incredible.
JD: We felt, it felt very…er…
CO: Close?
JD: Yeah, very close. Very, very close. But you know it…we were, you know the first time we met, I think it was at the Beverley Wiltshire hotel and he was like this [sits back and folds arms] and I was like, you know, a little distant because he wasn’t speaking and er…he was kind of, I thought he was rude so I can remember leaving the meeting. I called my agent at the time, I said: “Hey, smeep this guy. You know, smeep him. I ain’t doing that smeeping movie…I’m not interested.” You know, and then, it was kind of mutual I think. And then, maybe three weeks or a month later we met again at a diner, a small diner. [clicks fingers] And it took, like that, it was fine. Perfect.
CO: The first time you met it was…
JD: Oh no, the first time I hated him, I hated him and he hated me…and that was it.
CO: No, it wasn’t hate, but nothing happened between the two of you.
JD: Yes. He said to me, he said to me in the first meeting, he said: “I’ve seen this movie ‘Edward Scissorhands’. I said: “Yeah?” He said: “Yes.” I said: “And?” You know. “What do you think?” And he said: “It’s…scary.” I made him scared. I said: “Ok, good.” [whistles] See ya.
[clip of Arizona Dream – the bar scene where Axel and Paul meet up]
JD: I wanna watch, it’s very strange, you know?
CO: You haven’t seen the film in a while?
JD: Oh…
CO: A long time.
JD: Yes, yes, yes. Somewhere I have the first version of the film which was like four hours, the first cut. Emir’s first cut.
CO: Did you see the four hour version?
JD: Yes, yes. Yeah, I have it somewhere on cassette. He gave it to me.
CO: It wasn’t bad, was it?
JD: It was good.
CO: Four hours…then it was cut to 140 minutes. It was strange or rather good, though remarkable. Emir didn’t regret cutting it.
JD: No
CO: Usually directors want to hang onto the longer version, but he didn’t. Not at all. He never missed the scenes that were cut.
JD: No, he’s brutal, brutal. Brutal with the cuts, which a director has to be. You can’t regret. I always found that amazing to like with that 12 minute shot at the end. He didn’t care at all, he just said: “No, no, no. It’s out.”
CO: He just felt a little embarrassed on my account.
JD: Huh?
CO: He felt sorry for me, because it cost so much…very much.
JD: Just to land on the floor.
CO: He threw it in the bin [or something like that!]
JD: But now it’s back…
CO: It’s on the DVD now, and I’m happy about that. But one of the co-producers, Alan Sussfeld of UGC, kept asking: “Will you show me the scenes that have been cut?” “Yes, yes.”
[watching the beginning sequence with the sledge being pulled by the huskies]
CO: Emir came up with this sequence when we were on Corsica.
JD: Yes?
CO: We happened to see a husky on Corsica. So he said, “It’d be good to start the film on pack ice.” I said: “Ok.” And that’s why the film starts with the Eskimo sequence.
JD: I remember when we were first in rehearsals, it wasn’t even really rehearsals, it as Emir and I and….Jerry one time, one time Jerry came. We were talking in the apartment in LA, Vlad’s flat…and I was learning to speak all these words in Yupik, in Eskimo, and Jerry said: “Oh no, we don’t need to do that. We don’t need to learn the Eskimo language, we’ll just make it up. We’ll just invent it as we go along.” You know and it’s Jerry Lewis. It’s easier for you Jerry, you know. So my first day of shooting, I’ll never forget, with Jerry Lewis, you know, this legend, was trying to be as creative as he was with this made up language, you know…to try and make it sound the same. I was…terrified.
CO: You like Jerry Lewis a lot, don’t you?
JD: Well, yeah…he’s, he’s…..
CO: The figure?
JD: The figure, the legend, the…a major talent, you know. He’s a…to say the least, he’s a very inventive guy, you know. He’s…
CO: Yes, it’s true. It’s wonderful. It was very funny though. Do you remember? He was so funny.
JD: Yes.
[watching the part in the film where Axel is introduced to Millie, his uncle’s fiancée]
JD: There was a beautiful moment here. Jerry, we were talking outside of the house…this was in the house also.
CO: Yes.
JD: We were talking outside the house and he said…we were speaking about his old friends, you know. About Sammy Davis Junior, and about…
CO: Dean Martin
JD: Dean Martin and this whole history, you know. We were speaking about them and he stayed in this, you know, he stayed in this mindset. He stayed in this mood, in this emotion…and he has a line here where he says: “Wonderful memories.”
CO: Yes
JD: Where everything just lifted out of his body. All those memories, all those…he just said wonderful memories, something like that. I remember I was very, very touched.