Thursday, February 27, 1997

In the upcoming film 'Donnie Brasco' Johnny Depp stars as an undercover FBI agent. With Depp's talent, plus help from co-star Al Pacino and the determination of director Mike Newell, the next step in the evolution of the Mafia movie has arrived.

By Emily Forster

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

After starring in a hit television series and several surprisingly successful, rather eccentric films, an actor should have a good hold on the ins and outs of the entertainment industry.

Johnny Depp, however, freely admits that he doesn't have a clue. After running with the popular '80s television series "21 Jumpstreet," and then easing into films with a grace that current television stars must envy, Depp is a three-time Golden Globe Best Actor nominee who has been compared to screen legend James Dean.

Yet he insists that he does not plot out his career. As for the James Dean comparison, the 33-year-old actor thinks of it as a narrowly escaped obstacle, not a compliment.

"Martin (Landau, Depp's co-star in the critically acclaimed "Ed Wood") is a great man and a dear friend, but I was shocked when he said that I was like James Dean," Depp says. "I was very, very shocked. I thought it was very sweet, but I do believe initially, when one's career is starting and you are a certain type, they stick you with a label and you spend the next three years trying to fight it. I got very lucky that I didn't get stuck with that label for too long. And now I'm too old to be compared to him anymore."

Depp is the perfect age, however, to star with Al Pacino in the upcoming mobster movie "Donnie Brasco." In the movie, based on the true story of FBI agent Joe Pistone, Depp plays an undercover FBI agent vying to bust the mob, going by the alias of Donnie Brasco.

Dressed in a wrinkled white shirt partially hidden beneath a navy sports coat, and with a recently shaved head, Depp is exhausted from editing "The Brave," his directorial debut. But he makes time from his schedule to explain why he did "Donnie Brasco," and though it looks like the film was a wise step in the furthering of his career, he swears that he picked the movie for entirely different reasons.

"I don't ever think about films in terms of the career and what's expected of one's career path," Depp says. "I don't and I can't begin to try and guess what 'Donnie Brasco' will do at the box office or how commercial it is or if it's a big movie or not. It just felt like the right thing. It felt like a really interesting character, with some very good people, Al Pacino obviously being one of them. Also Mike Newell was a very interesting choice for director.

"It was just something I couldn't get away from. There was always that thing in the back of my head saying, 'Well, this is something you've never never tackled before. This is a type of guy, a very real guy, that you've never attempted before.' So that was very attractive."

While this genre is new territory for Depp, Pacino is a veteran. A four-time Academy Award winner and an eight-time nominee, Pacino has played an integral part in the evolution of the American mob movie. But through all his experiences with Mafia films, including "The Godfather" trilogy, "Serpico" and "Scarface," Pacino had never encountered a mafioso role quite like his character of Lefty in "Donnie Brasco."

"I think (Paul) Attanasio (who last wrote the Academy Award-winning "Quiz Show") wrote a script and a story that had in it something appealing to me. You choose your scripts for different reasons. For me, I've been involved in this genre before, but I saw something that was different in the character. Lefty was interested in other things than most of the mob characters I've played. Also I enjoyed the idea of Johnny Depp, working with him, and Mike Newell, who is from another world in terms of the environment of this film. It had in it all these aspects so I thought I'd take a try for it."

But Pacino did not accept the role right away. In fact the script floated by him years earlier and he had passed it up long before it came back to him.

"This script has been around for a while," Pacino says. "When you enter this genre, you're having to say, 'This has been done, we've been around this territory, I've been around this territory myself. So why would I wanna embark on this kind of thing again?' It took some time. I remember passing it over at one point years ago, but it had different directors attached to it. I think (producer) Mark Johnson kept it alive, and what happened is as time went on, the relevance of the piece became a little more distanced. The fact that it was in 1979, I sort of appreciated that aspect and that made it a little more interesting for me. So that's why I did it."

After Pacino signed on, the filmmakers needed to find an actor to play Donnie Brasco, and that actor had to possess several distinct qualities. He needed to hold his own on screen with an acting powerhouse like Pacino, he needed to make an inactive role interesting, and he needed to be the right age. Despite the limiting criteria, "Brasco" director Mike Newell ("Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Enchanted April") found his star in no time at all.

"We wanted somebody who was Johnny's age, and as soon as you started to think, really only one name popped out, and it was him," Newell recalls. "He has this ability to stand still and absorb and be very interesting while he is simply watching. He's actually very passive in the movie. He simply watches, and toward the end, he suffers, but he's very interesting doing it. He also, by the way, has a fantastic track record in being a straight man to great older actors. He was brilliant in 'Ed Wood' because he was so generous to Martin Landau. He was the same with Marlon Brando in 'Don Juan de Marco.' He's able to do that ­ he works very well with older people."

Depp's relationship with Al Pacino is no exception. While Pacino played a professional and Depp a protege on screen, their relationship was not so conditional off screen. One might think that the much-experienced Pacino would serve as a mentor for the novice Depp, but in fact the two simply became friends.

"I think I've rarely enjoyed working with anyone as much as Johnny," Pacino says. "We've become friends. What can I say? I really truly found working with him a joy. He was fun to be with all the time. He's a very interesting person and he did make me laugh all the time. That's his nature. I don't know how his image is projected, but he's really fun to be around."

But Depp claims he does not project any image. He does not even bother with these manipulations of his career because, according to Depp, it is impossible to manufacture any aspect of a film career. Everything is left up to chance.

"It's all a big crap shoot really," Depp says. "As far as trying to make decisions based on what I need to do within that career thing, I can't do that because you never know what's going to happen. You never know. There were films that I did which I thought, after they were done, 'Why wouldn't people want to go see this? Why wouldn't they?' But they prefer big action things and explosions and any formula thing."

Depp is not sorry that he has chosen such off-beat projects in the past, despite a general audience preference for more mainstream, formulaic films. If people will not want to see "Donnie Brasco," Depp is not concerned because to him, being an actor is just another job.

"No regrets whatsoever. No way. I'm very happy with where everything is at right now. Everything is exactly where it needs to be. If it all goes away tomorrow, I just get another job somewhere doing something else."

FILM: "Donnie Brasco" opens this Friday.

Columbia/TriStar

Al Pacino (right) takes Donnie (Johnny Depp) under his wing in "Donnie Brasco."Johnny Depp stars as FBI agent Joe Pistone, alias Donnie Brasco, in "Donnie Brasco."

Columbia/TriStar