BY EMILY ZHANG
Johnny Depp has embraced his roles as a whole plethora of characters, from the Edward Scissorhands to the slightly crazy yet charming Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean to the vampire Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows.
His charisma extends off the screen as well, having been twice named “Sexiest Man Alive” by People Magazine and the highest-paid actor in 2012. Depp has tackled another role, Tonto, a Native American spirit warrior in the newly released film “The Lone Ranger.”
Depp did everything he could to prepare for the role and has fully embraced the character’s culture. When he first saw himself in makeup, he said, “I saw my great-grandmother. She apparently had Indian blood and wore the braids and had the tobacco down her bosom, so the idea was just to scope in the era of my grand-grandmother. And Joel Harwell, a magnificent makeup technician, killed it, he just killed it.”
As an honorary member of the Comanche tribe, Depp declares; “I do smoke a peace pipe. As often as possible. Because I like peace.”
He feels the history of the Native Americans can really be seen through the film. “The period was a horrific period in terms of the Indigenous peoples of America, who forged like prisoners westward. And they were forced to become Christians and Catholics and abandon their culture and their beliefs and their religion, so it was a very insane time for those people,” he explains.
“What I loved about the idea of Tonto was that he’s a band apart. He feels that there was done a horrible act on his people; therefore, shamed, he goes out on his own to avenge that. To be able to show these people as warriors, which is what they are, even in the face of some hideous corporal smacking them around or shooting them in the foot or raping their women. There was a whole lot of history and Fort Sill is filled with it,” he shares.
The filming process has taught him a great deal about Native Americans. “I learned, generation after generation of what their ancestors have been through, that they have come out of it, yes some have fallen along the way, but the majority, the elders, some kids, are trying to hold onto that heritage, and keep it alive. I learned that they are warriors, still. Even if you lose your way, now and again, you are still a war hero. And they are. They have made it this far. It’s incredible.” Depp has incredible respect for Native American people and for everything they’ve gone through.
But perhaps his admiration for this group of warriors can be shown best through his goal in The Lone Ranger. “I was told I was Cherokee as a kid, I was told I was Creek as a kid, Chickasaw, so many things in Kentucky,” he details. “I mean growing up, you just knew that somebody told you what they told you, but I have always had a fascination and a connection with them, and this film was a great opportunity to be able to try to at least chip away a little bit at the cliché.”
For those who have criticized Tonto as a cliché, Depp has an explanation. “My hope was to embrace the cliché so that it’s recognized by people who have been conditioned to watch the Native American and see how they have been represented in film.”
“So it was a kind of trick in a weird way to suck them in, then take them on a different path,” he explains. “So in a way, I had to embrace what is deemed as a cliché for Tonto. I wanted to convey that Native Americans were only deemed savages when Christopher Columbus hit the wrong fucking place and decided that was in India.” Flipping the conception of Tonto, he in fact brings them closer to the truth, giving them the ability to break the clichés themselves.
Playing Tonto hasn’t been all daisies and roses. “There have been some repercussions of my portrayal, and it’s okay. I expected it, I still expect it, but as long as I know that I have done no harm and represented at the very least the Comanche Nation in a proper light … ” He shrugs, keeping a positive attitude.
“There’s always going to be naysayers, there’s always going to be. Everybody has got an opinion. People can critique and dissect and do what they want. I know that I approached it in the right way. And that’s all I can do.” And truly, that’s all anyone can do.
