Robert Pattinson vs Johnny Depp

What stars are really thinking...
By Psychic Scott

Just tonight I discovered a gift - I can read the thoughts of celebrities.
That's right, the actual minds of almost actual celebrities.
I actually know EXACTLY what they are thinking at any given time. Spookily enough, it is usually the kind of thing they are far too scared to say aloud.
Lucky I'm here to share their deepest thoughts on their behalf!

Robert Pattinson

"Hello I'm Robert Pattinson! I'm kinda like 1989 Johnny Depp, but no charisma or shampoo."

Shakira

"Hello I'm Shakira! My new single 'She Wolf' has disco guitars AND disco strings in it. Brilliant, right? Unfortunately it also has me singing. FAIL."

Sugababes

"Hi we're the Sugababes! We were so busy ripping off Right Said Fred in our new single 'Get Sexy' that we forgot to write a chorus. Oops!"

So there you have it readers - the TRUTH!
You can bet Psychic Scott will be back with some more readings soon!

Scott Keenan
Zing! o'clock

Johnny Depp owns an island!

"No man is an island!" *

* But if you're Johnny Depp, you can just buy one.

The only thing I hate more than unfamous people (ie. reality contestants) is actual famous people who complain about being famous. Sure, it would be a pain to be followed around and stuff... but you get free stuff to make up for it so be quiet. Don't be famous if you don't want to be. I wouldn't want to have my picture taken while I'm eating, so that's why I'm not famous.

I also hate it when stars lie and say that true happiness can't be bought and all that. Hell, yes it can be bought. So, I'm pleased that my worship of Johnny Depp doesn't have to cease here and now because thankfully he understands how things work.

Sure, in his new interview for Vanity Fair's July issue he still prattles on about how ecentric he is (“What I love to do is paint people’s faces, y’know, their eyes. Because you want to find that emotion, see what’s going on behind their eyes.”) but at the core, he isn't going to lie about how rich he is. He says, "Money doesn’t buy you happiness, but it buys you a big enough yacht to sail right up to it.”

Thank you. Honest, to the point and way-true.

Meanwhile, I have to admit that I knew JD was "happy" but I didn't quite realise just how "happy" he is. Turns out he is actually 45-acre-private-Bahamian-island-"happy". He owns Little Hall’s Pond Cay, which is an island with six inidividual beaches on it.

He owns an island (how very Beatles of him!).

With SIX. BEACHES.

"[The island] is my decompression," explains Johnny. "It's my way of trying to return to normalcy.... Escapism is survival to me."

Riiiight. Anyway, just when you thought having an island to retreat to might tone down the crazy a notch (CLICK ON ME), JD goes on to reveal that he's named the six beaches. Oh no. Just stop. Please don't list them, Johnny... but no, he's actually saying what he's named the beaches. The six beaches on the island are named: Gonzo (after Hunter S. Thompson), Brando, after mentor Marlon Brando and Paradis, Lily Rose and Jack after girlfriend Vanessa and their two children. He has also named one of his snorkeling spots, "Heath's Place," after the late Heath Ledger.

What, no River Phoenix Cove? Basically only family members or the dead can get a name-check at Depp Island so I feel sad for old man River. On the up side, it's kinda lucky that Johnny got the island this century cos renaming a beach Wino Forever Shores after you'd already had the towels made up saying Winona Forever could be quite costly.

Mmm, all this talk has made me kinda want an island so it actually might be worth a couple of snaps of me with spinach in my teeth if this is the prize at the end of it, right?

PS: I love Johnny Depp more than is normal but that cover pic is the worst I've ever seen him look. He never ages and then all of a sudden he looks 157-years-old. Do Vanity Fair usually get their cover stars to stare directly at the sun during a shoot... after they've baked in that exact sun for seven weeks straight? Sigh. Oh, I guess the George-Hamilton-uber-tan could be one of the perils of island-ownership! Lucky I don't own an island, then - I didn't really meant that... just in case the lords o' island-giving-out are reading this.

--
Carolyn Stewart
I want a Hemsworth for Christmas o'clock, June 2, 2009

Johnny Depp is crazy

Shows Off His Tatt

Plus he's gonna be on SpongeBob Squarepants!

At last year's MTV Movie awards, it was apparent that Johnny Depp had added to his 13-plus-strong tattoo arrangement by getting yet another one. This week, while filming The Rum Diary, the tatt that reads "Silence Exile Cunning" was once again clearly visible on his arm. The three words are part of an extended quote from the James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. [The full quote goes: “I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use - silence, exile, and cunning.”]

Nice enough. But it's so large. Like, an Angelina-style large tattoo. Isn't that a weird choice, especially for someone who is meant to be a blank canvas because they totally inhabit their acting roles? It brought back memories of the cast of Charmed - Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs and Rose McGowan era - who were pretty much completely covered with giant tattoos all over their bodies. Even so, the trio continued to get even more tattoos and the situation became so ridiculous that the show's makeup department outright refused to go on painstakingly covering their art every morning... so overnight their once-clean-skinned witch characters became simultaneously tattooed!

The "Silence Exile Cunning" (it's advised you don't say this too many times in a row) tattoo also reminded me of how crazy Johnny Depp secretly is. It's all a very quaint-kooky kind of crazy but crazy it is. Don't get me wrong, Johnny Depp is a lot of things. He's cool. He's good-looking. He's perfect in so many ways.

It's just that he's also a lot of other things. He was a serial engager (Sherilyn Fenn, Winona Ryder). He thinks he's a musician (remember his horrible band P?). He busted up his hotel room in New York cos he claimed he saw bugs everywhere (it must be noted that this is actually one of my favourite stories ever. It is also the best ever cover of Interview magazine complete with the most awesome coverline ever, in my humble opinion*). He's a raving lunatic, basically. Fortunately for the Deppster's agent, he doesn't give that many interviews so he's able to keep the crazy relatively under wraps - kinda like a pre-Scientology-spouting Tom Cruise. Plus, I can forgive just about anything JD does thanks to a tiny phrase that Tom Cruise will never have available as a life line: 21 Jump Street.

Still not convinced he's not all there? Par example: "My body is a journal in a way. It's like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist."

Do it yourself? With a knife? Ack!

Speaking of tattoos, Johnny always had a lot but, admittedly, some ended up turning out better than others. His "Winona Forever" one - inked for then-girlfriend Winona Ryder - obviously wasn't the best idea for sadly love can fade... but, luckily for him, tattoos can be altered! The odd part is that he still thinks it's funny - like he actually laughs out loud when he retells the story - that he got the inscription famously converted to read "Wino Forrever." Really? That's still funny? O... K...

Despite the obvious and often delightful crazy, I still wonder how long it took after the epic fail of the Winona Forever situation before he was next able to take the monumental, body-altering step of getting a tattoo again. I imagine your average person would be quite hesitant. But, given Johnny's body of work, clearly he didn't suffer any of these hang-ups as he seemingly gets a new mark about as often as Lindsay Lohan heads back into rehab. ie. A LOT. Still, while he's had no issue adding the names of his darling kids, Lily-Rose and Jack, to his tattoo collection, long-time love Vanessa Paradis has not made the cut. Maybe he's had a hard time working out what high-larious variation the name "Vanessa" could be turned into were they ever to split? "Undresser", anyone?

More importantly than all of this - and, if I were honest, the actual reason I started this post but then got, ahem, side-tracked - JD has lent his gravelly voice to the episode of SpongeBob Squarepants that airs in the US this week. He guest-stars as the voice of Jack Kahuna Laguna (hee hee), a legendary surfer who lives on an island where SpongeBob and his friends find themselves stranded after being swept away by a wave.

He's done 21 Jump Street AND SpongeBob SquarePants? I think we all now know that it is entirely possible for a hot person to earn two lifetime passes!

* This is the best excerpt from Interview magazine's Brendan Lemon interview with Johnny Depp from 1995 re: his arrest

BL: I want to ask you about your arrest last year for busting up a Manhattan hotel room. Now as one who was arrested once myself in New York, and who spent the night in a holding pen, I want to say that it was the most humiliating experience of my life. But at least I had the cover of anonymity. You did not.
JD: No, I didn't. I did to some extent, thought, because people didn't expect to see me there. (laughs) They had other things on their mind, and seeing me there was not so important. The New York cops that I experienced were pretty nice. They were just doing their job and some goofy actor decided to get into a little bit of trouble and ended up in the pokey.

BL: When you were arrested, did the police realize immediately that you were Johnny Depp? Or did it take them a while to figure it out, like it did when Hugh Grant was arrested last summer?
JD: No. They knew my name.

BL: I won't ask you to rehash the scene of you in jail, which I understood involved the other prisoners screaming your name and the cops asking you for autographs. But I would like to know: Were you taken aback by being arrested in a situation like that?
JD: I just thought, I've done much worse things and not been arrested for them. As a kid you get into stuff and you get away with it. The idea that some guy, like everybody else, gets upset, freaks out, smashes a couple of things, and goes to jail for it -- that's one thing. But for these kinds of things to turn into the media frenzy is another thing. OK, Hugh Grant got busted with a prostitute. Fine. Leave it at that. What'd I do? Broke a couple of things. I paid for it.

BL: You said that at the hotel that night you just sort of freaked out for a moment. Had you had too much coffee? An argument with your girlfriend (Kate Moss)? A really bad day?
JD: There's one thing I do want to clarify. It had nothing to do with an argument with Kate. It had to do with me.

BL: So no one thing set it off?
JD: OK. There was a bug in the place that I was trying to kill. This thing had tried to attack me and to suck my blood -- a big cockroach. And I tried to get it, I tried to whack it. I'd miss and I'd smash a lamp.

BL: So this was all about trying to kill a bug?
JD: One very big bug.

BL: Big-as-a-Buick bug?
JD: Yeah.

BL: Do you have a thing about bugs, generally?
JD: I like bugs, normally.

Carolyn Stewart
My heart wants pancakes for breakfast but my brain says oats o'clock, April 23, 2009

George Clooney returns to ER

Famous Folk? Y'all Could Learn Something From George Clooney.

Short of getting Johnny Depp to do a 21 Jump St remake, scoring all-six stars for a Friends reunion or global pop princess Kylie Minogue returning to humble Ramsay Street for a guest-spot on Neighbours, ER getting George Clooney back on ER as his original character Dr Doug Ross is possibly the biggest "get" of recent times. He hadn't been seen in his scrubs since 2000 and in the interim has an Oceans trilogy plus responsibilities as every other year's World's Most Sexy Man. My point is, he didn't need to come back to the show. On top of that, I have to agree with most of the unofficial reviews I've read that have involved the person/blogger stating that they didn't even realise they were still even *making* ER until they heard about George's return. So, you know, it's not like it's the best or most-watched show on television anymore.

Although I need no such proof of what I'm about to say, but his lack of airs and graces once again reminds me that George is one of the world's best people. Sometimes when a star returns to a show - eg. Nathan Fillion returning to One Life To Live or House's Jesse Spencer popping into Neighbours for their 20th birthday - it's only their obsessive followers who realise what a big thing that is and just how much it means to fans. For George, he's one of the biggest stars in the world... and yet still he can return to the series that made him a star? What a tops guy!

You Don't Really Need Proof But Here's Top 5 Reasons Why George Clooney Is The World's Best Person (reasons other than his looks, intellect and do-gooderness that have been widely noted elsewhere):

1. From all reports, George's decision to return to ER was based on a brief conversation with former co-star Julianna Margulies. It was a conversation that seemingly went a little like this. GC: "Hi, it's me, George. Are you going back?" JM: ‘If you do it, I’ll do it." GC: "Well, if you do it, I’ll do it!"

2. As soon as the rumours began swirling about George returning to ER, I just knew he would. He's just that kind of guy. However, the first hint I had that George may well remain gracious while others enjoying life at the top would not was a comment he made some time ago while doing promo for Solaris. While plenty of stars get antsy and refuse to talk about their early projects, George welcomes - and thankfully is in on the joke about - talk of his early roles on The Facts of Life or Return of The Killer Tomatoes. After one such discussion, George recounted a story that every actor (of any level of success) would do well to take damn close note of: "When I did One Fine Day and Michelle Pfeiffer and I were doing press, somebody brought up Grease 2 and she said, 'Oh, please don’t, don’t, don’t.' And I said, 'Oh, come on. 1982, you come home, turn your answering machine on and your agent says, ‘You got Grease 2.’ You jumped up and down and screamed and danced, going, ‘I got Grease 2!’' Things just change. It doesn’t matter. It’s all part of the process. I’m sure Isabelle Adjani screamed when she got Ishtar. 'I’m working with those guys!' It’s one of those things where you just go, 'Look, it was at a period of time in your life when you needed a job.' I’m so not ashamed of those. I’m embarrassed at times because I had this horrible Facts of Life thing where you get the worst case of overconfidence and bad acting you’ve ever seen in your life. So, it’s not just bad, it’s big. You go, 'Oh, my God, it’s horrible.' But it’s all part of the building blocks of this business and probably the best lessons are that you can look back at those and go, 'Okay, I don’t want to do that anymore.'" And that, friends, is when I went from being in love with George Clooney to being *IN LOVE* with George Clooney.

3. His friends are not just hot, they're Brad-Pitt-hot or Matt-Damon-smart-and-hot. More guys could stand to run in packs like that, I say.

4. CloFu. George is literally good enough to, erm, eat. [learn about the full horror @: CloFu]

5. Remember when he had that little-that-turned-freaking-giant-but-still-cute pig called Max?? Well, that pig was loved. Awww. Poor Max.

So, not that it means much of anything but I had to put out into the ether/internets that I am just so proud of George for returning to ER. He didn't have to. But he did. And that, friends, is the difference.

I now hand over to my interweb colleague, SK, to be contrary (as is regularly his whim) re: George or to discuss at length exactly how Alyssa Milano went from a 300 year run on the rather-excellent Charmed to be making unneccsarily bizarre makeup infommercials. His call.

--
Carolyn Stewart
Too-late-o'clock, Monday, March 16, 2009