A collection of Johnny Depp quotes regarding the film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

"... It's Tim's version of Roald Dahl's classic book and it's gonna be a wild ride. Tim and I have had a couple of meetings, sat down and had some talks about where he wants to go, where we need to go. And I think it's gonna be great, you know? Big shoes [to fill], though. Gene Wilder did such an awesome job in that film in the early '70s, so I mean, taking that character of Willy Wonka and going somewhere completely different is ... he sort of made the job infinitely more difficult for me."*

"For me it's really exciting to go back to working with Tim (Burton) again. It will be our fourth film together. The fact that it's from a Roald Dahl masterpiece, the fact that it's Willy Wonka I'm very excited. They're big shoes to fill - it's a great challenge."*

"We had been shooting Charlie for about a month, and I was beginning to get nervous because there weren't any phone calls. I called my agent and asked, Has no one called from the studio to complain or say, 'Hey, what's he doing?' or 'Hey, he's freaking us out?' And when she said no, I thought, 'Christ, I'm not doing enough! Something's wrong!' Then some of the studio brass came over to the set, and they were sitting in my trailer and I was all decked out as Wonka with the little bangs. And I just had to know. So I said, 'Okay, who was the first one, when you started seeing the dailies, that got a little worried?' And there was this beautiful 30-second silence. And [Warner Bros. president] Alan Horn finally said, 'Yeah, that was me.' I felt better instantly."**

[on Gene Wilder's comment on the remake of Willy Wonka] "Hearing about that was disappointing, but I can understand where he's coming from, I guess. The one thing I didn't understand was that apparently he was quoted as saying 'Well, they just did this for money.' Well, hey, man, where have you been? When didn't they ever do anything for money? Nobody's ever made a film in the history of cinema where they weren't expecting some return on their dough."**

"How easy was it getting into the character of Willy Wonka?

'Well obviously we're all very lucky to have the book as our source material. Using Roald Dahl's work was an amazing help in building the character. And then it was really just down to conversations with Tim. We talked about various things like memories of growing up, of childrens' show hosts. That strange cadence with which they spoke to children, "hello kiddies", and game show hosts, with that kind of mask that they put on, like a perpetual grimace. We went from there.'

Did you draw on any one person?

'There was this guy called Captain Kangaroo. Even then it was strange, but if you go back now and watch it, it's really out there. He had his pal Mr Green Jeans and Bunny Rabbit. So it was memories of watching those guys as a child, the game show guys who were always smiling. But no-one specific.'

What about the resemblance between Willy Wonka and Michael Jackson?

'Honestly, when we were doing the film it never dawned on me that there would be any comparisons made. I don't know what more I can say about that.'

What else did you do to develop the character?

'For me, when I'm reading a script I start getting images, you know, ideas start coming into my head so I write everything down. The hairdo I saw early on, but it took a long time before I could see or hear Wonka. I don't know, that's pretty much it. You build layer upon layer as you find him. Even when we started shooting I think it probably took me about ten days to really feel like I clicked with the guy. The false teeth were very helpful.'

Have your children seen all your films?

'Some of them, yeah. I'm not sure my kids are ready for all of them. They saw Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, which made me nervous because I was scared what they were going to come home and just go, "Nah Dad, better luck next time". But they came home quoting it, which was really nice.'

If you were as poor as Charlie Bucket is in the film, do you think you could be happy?

'When I was growing up we weren't particularly overflowing with money. I never expected to last so long in this racket to be honest. I always expected to go back to playing guitar or pumping gas or whatever. And it still could happen. As long as you have the ability to breathe, and life for your kids and your girl, you just keep moving forward.'"***





Sources:
*Oh Johnny
**Celebstrate
***BBC