"They kept asking me things like: 'Who are you wearing, Johnny?'. I said, 'The Italian guy,' so it must have been Armani. It felt like a do-or-die situation, like I was standing on the precipice of something very uncomfortable." The "something uncomfortable" was international stardom.
Forsaking Hollywood blockbusters, he opted to appear in a series of eclectic roles. "I made a decision to do only movies I wanted to do and to play only characters I wanted to play... I thought it was important to have integrity," he says. Turning in his Jump Street badge he went on to lampoon his own heart-throb status in John Water's Cry Baby.
He became a star almost in spite of himself, turning down parts which made international stars out of other Hollywood bucks, including Brad Pitt, who appeared in the Depp castoff Legends Of The Fall and Keanu Reeves, who picked up another of his rejects Speed.