Many Hollywood insiders think Johnny Depp could win an Oscar for his new movie, “Finding Neverland” – and if he does, you can thank a fart machine.
Well, maybe that’s exaggerating a bit.
But flatulence did play a big part in “Neverland,” which opens Friday.
In the film, Depp plays the real-life Victorian British author J.M. Barrie, who befriended a widow (Kate Winslet) and her four boys and wrote his classic, “Peter Pan,” for them.
Some of the movie’s best scenes involve Depp down on his hands and knees, playing pirates and Indians with the four child actors, aged 6 to 14.
And as any parent knows, fart jokes kill with that sort of crowd.
So while Depp was shooting “Neverland” in London two summers ago, he went to a novelty shop and bought an Ipod-sized gadget that made all sorts of blat, splat and fizzle sounds.
“These little boys had incredible concentration and focus,” recalls Depp. “Sometimes we had to loosen them up.”
Depp and “Neverland” director Marc Forster conspired to hide the fart machine under the table while they were shooting an important dinner scene in which Barrie and the boys crack each other up, to the annoyance of their prissy grandmother (Julie Christie).
“We put it right under Julie’s chair,” Forster recalls, with a laugh. “Johnny had the remote control, and whenever we went in for a close-up, he’d hit the button.
“It worked like a charm. The boys’ laughter was so natural.”
The moment was vintage Depp – artistically brilliant but also a whole lot of fun.
Depp, 41, has often said that his life only came into focus when he met his longtime partner, 31-year-old French pop star Vanessa Paradis, and he had children. The name of his 2-year-old son, Jack, is tattooed on his arm, and he wears a raggedy beaded bracelet that was made by his 5-year-old daughter, Lily Rose.
The actor took a long sabbatical from the screen when Lily was an infant, splitting his time between L.A., Paris and St. Tropez and “playing Barbies with my daughter.”
Still, Depp admits, “I have to bring home the bacon,” so he’s been working hard since last year’s triumphant return with an Oscar-nominated role in “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
We’ll see him next as a debauched 17th-century poet in “The Libertine,” an art-house film directed by his friend, John Malkovich.
Depp is currently in London, playing Willy Wonka in Burton’s remake of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
After that, he’ll start work on a “Pirates” sequel, reprising his role as the elegantly wasted rock-and-roll pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, a part famously inspired by Rolling Stones’ guitarist and “expensive wino” Keith Richards. And if all goes as planned, Keef himself will appear in the movie as Sparrow’s father.
Richards is a Depp pal – one of many for this ultimate cool guy, who people just want to be around.
The kids on “Finding Neverland” fell in love with Depp during the shoot.
“They really connected with him,” Forster recalls. “At the end of the summer, it was really traumatic because we had to break the family up. The kids were really sad, and they were crying.”
Well, who wouldn’t cry in that situation?
“They had had this amazing summer,” Forster says. “They had Johnny Depp to play with.”