Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr.

The OP started this thread solely to push her ongoing "Johnny Depp is a Woman Beater!" crusade. OP is the same psychotic frau who trolls all threads about Depp to scream about him allegedly beating his psycho ex Amber Herd.

Uh, no. OP started this thread to muse about two very talented and attractive actors, one of whom was cruising along at full speed while the other one landed head-first in the shit. Ten years later, that has been reversed.

I happen to like Depp's work as an actor and always thought he had his life in control while Downey was a complete mess.

C'est tout.

From what I recall, Johnny Depp kind of romanticized people like Marlon Brando and Keith Richards. He was frustrated with his his sex symbol/teen idol status and wanted to become an old eccentric wastoid. So he got what he wanted, I think.

RDJ must have had a better support system. Fewer yes men. Probably helped that he didn't start really making that $$$ until after he got sober.

I think Depp had a massive mid life crisis and never came out of it. Getting old upset him. His wife covered up a lot of his excesses, but when their kids started getting older and he was emotionally and physically abusive and the kids were watching him being all drugged up and using in the house, she threw him out. He was very generous to her, and she's old school so she will never attack him or do a tell all because of their two kids. And because he gave her money. Downey recognized he had a problem and struggled to overcome it. I read a few yeas ago that he was trying to help his son, Indio overcome addiction too. Johnny Depp 's idol is Keith Richards. He's an emotionally immature narcissist . Robert Downey has a humility about his struggle and an honesty Depp is not capable of. IMO.

R3, I think that's an interesting point about Depp's role models.

I wonder if Downey usually being cast as a comic foil rather than a romantic lead also had something to do with it.

Also I think Depp started out as more conventionally attractive an actor. I personally found the young Downey really amazingly beautiful but I don't think people knew what to do with it. He was too "feminine" and too punk. Thus the comic parts instead of the romantic ones. Or films like Less Than Zero, where he is sexualized but seen as a homoerotic train crash.

Downey got sober. Depp didn’t.

Thread closed.

With respect, Depp did not seem a mess (as far as I was aware) until recently.

It was the jail time, it can be quite humbling.

Sobriety. Everything good comes after. And you have a clearer sense when sociopaths like Amber Heard come gaming around.

I watched an Architectural Digest Youtube show where Downey and his wife give a tour of their house in the Hamptons, a Victorian with a windmill attached.

There seems to be consensus here that she is a beard and he is as gay as the wind but even if that's so they really do seem to have a rapport. Oddly, although she seems pretty grounded, I think she's not the stabilizing factor, or at least not solely. He seems pretty much in control.

Depp and Heard always seemed toxic together. Heard is attractive and I thought she was good in The Informers, but she is one of those dead-inside types as far as I can see.

RDJ is very intelligent and going to prison was a wake-up call. He learned from his mistakes once the consequence came in. It helped that he had Hollywood connections through his family. Plus RDJ did a lot of meaty or unconventional roles (Natural Born Killers, Chaplin, Tropic Thunder, Black and White, Ally McBeal, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) that thickened his resume at least until Iron Man. He kept himself sober enough to continue to enjoy a long contract with Marvel. He was also critically acclaimed for his role in Sherlock Holmes. RDJ grew up and moved on past his party days though he seems a bit bitter and resentful. He never lost his talent.

Johnny Depp isn't the most brightest bulb in the socket. He likens himself to intellectuals like Brando, Hunter Thompson, Kerouac, etc but he simply lacks their substance. Depp's true intentions were just fame, he came to LA with his band to make it big and he got lucky becoming friends with Nicholas Cage who offered Depp his role in Nightmare On Elm Street. Depp was doing typical teen movies until he became Tim Burton's muse and he did do very interesting roles in the 90s like Arizona Dream, The Brave, Benny & Joon, Dead Man, Donnie Brasco, Cry-Baby, etc. But he eventually got lazy and kept doing Pirate movies and other franchise blockbusters where he is phoning it in. He never grew up, he still parties, spends money beyond his means and never takes responsibility. That cost him his long-term relationship with Vanessa who left him and still takes care of their kids. Johnny marrying Amber was his desperate attempt to feel young again and it backfired horribly when she turned out to be a crazy bitch. He is in arrested development. You can take the hillbilly out of the holler but can't take the holler out of the hillbilly.

The one thing about Downey that makes me a bit sad is that I feel there's a lot of anger there and that a lot of it is based on the jail experience, which I gather involved abuse or at least the constant threat of abuse. That dewy, bright-eyed look he had when he was younger isn't there anymore. He's grown wary.

Of course a lot of that is just "getting older", but it seems extra notable in him.

RDJ was openly bisexual and actually seemed liberal (he made a documentary in the 90s basically bashing Republicans) but I guess getting raped in prison made him want to become a god-fearing conservative heterosexual.

I'm not quite seeing "God-fearing" in RDJ's wheelhouse.

Maybe, if you are a guy, getting raped by another guy might make you not want to have sex with guys anymore?

Just a thought.

R16 It doesn't work like that. RDJ is bisexual and he will die bisexual. He just chose to recreate his public image as strictly heterosexual after that prison experience. He probably associated gay sex with his years of drug abuse and partying.

Downey's wife Susan is a pretty smart cookie, too. In Hollywood she was known as the woman who saved RDJ when they first got together. Whether their marriage is lavender or not, it really seemed to steady him. Amber Heard isn't going to straighten anybody out: I believe that Depp was abusive to her, but she was an opportunistic golddigger who was in it for what she could get. The relationship was toxic and send him spiraling down further.

Why wasn't RDJ better protected in prison? These days any high-profile prisoner is housed separately to keep them out of danger. Was that not done in the 90s?

[quote] Johnny Depp isn't the most brightest bulb in the socket. He likens himself to intellectuals like Brando, Hunter Thompson, Kerouac, etc but he simply lacks their substance

Adding to that, he goes through money like a sieve. He spent $5 million on Thompson’s funeral, and used to spend $30,000 a month on wine, as well as owning something like nine homes. He’s pissed away several fortunes. B

R19 Probably. I've heard the same with Tupac. Both were too pretty to handle being in general population.

I have typed it before, but Amber Heard is a "wanna-be Grade A Lesbiana". She wants to be in the "Ellen, Jodie, Jada, Rosie, Melissa, Queen L Club". However, No MONEY!!. She marries Depp(using the famous I'm Bi now) to get a Giant settlement. She couldn't control Depp(so she made up abuse charges, used make-up).

Here to echo that Depp is just not that smart. Downey is, he's probably one of the smartest actors in Hollywood today actually. He learned and Depp did not.

RDJ made this documentary in 1993 called The Last Party. He was very full of life in his younger days and took interesting creative choices in his career. Nowadays, he plays it safe.

Consider also that RDJ, besides having had a lot of emotional trauma over the years, has also had a lot of physical trauma. You can't do that many hard drugs without consequences to your health. He may not have the energy to take a lot of chances in his career anymore. I'll be shocked if he lives longer than his early 70s.

If he never does another critically acclaimed film, he has an impressive body of work and an even more impressive bank account.

I heard RDJ has signed up for multiple roles in a series based on a contemporary work of Vietnamese fiction - he might have a few tricks up his sleeve yet.

I’ve always had a soft spot for RDJ-from a distant fan stance.

Johnny seemed like he was made for teen girls and not too interesting. Pretty, but just ok as an actor.

I hope he does, R26. I'd love to see RDJ get a late-career Oscar.

[quote] Adding to that, he goes through money like a sieve. He spent $5 million on Thompson’s funeral, and used to spend $30,000 a month on wine, as well as owning something like nine homes. He’s pissed away several fortunes. B

When I found out about that, it really killed that image he projected in the media about being humble and deep. He seems like a shallow and materialistic person at his core and only does movies to fund his extravagant lifestyle. I think Tim Burton really was the one who was responsible for Depp's oddball and poetic persona.

I hope RDJ writes his autobiography. If he's honest at all, it would be a helluva story.

Several years ago he was given an advance to write his autobiography. He changed his mind and gave the money back.

Depp is not a good man . A very disturbed and dark man.

I think Depp has plenty of talent and I confess I found his schtick in the Pirates films hilarious in the first movie. But he seems somehow less engaged with the idea of acting than RDJ is. When Depp is a cartoon he's a cartoon and sometimes he's perfect at that. Jack Sparrow was like watching a demented ballet. But when RDJ is a cartoon he's still a character. There's a arc. Tony Stark at the beginning is not Tony Stark at the end. Sparrow is the same creature from movie to movie.

I remember Orwell talking about how Charles Dickens created characters based solely on externalities. I think Depp is like that.

Both have always been media whores. In order to play successfully, they need melodrama.

An addiction, prison, rehabilitation, success route is just as good as hard partying dissolution.

All attention is good attention and we only know what they tell us.

So, R34...RDJ decided to go to jail for the press. Because going to jail - which wrecked his insurance rating and made him untouchable as an employed actor - was such a PR boost.

Yeah.

Sure.

Depp has always been a mess. He has had such a long career because society and press were different in his younger years. Smashing up hotel rooms was pitched as "edgy and daring" and the public swallowed it whole. Same with the drugs and his ridiculous scarfy-hobo chic outfit. Had the whole Voodoo Lounge/River Phoenix episode happened today, he would have been toast. His hubris and narcissism and drug addictions finally outstripped the reach of his management team. Downey, whoever he really is, is no longer a mess of keeps the mess out of public sight.

Assface R36, It's like seeing one wine bill for 30k and applying it to every other month.

Extrapolating life events into a stories that maintain viewer engagement is business.

Right now, we have a redeemed RDJ regardless of whether he's clean. We also have a down-for-the-count JD who may have plenty of equity we've never seen.

Shit, assface comment was for R35 and probably not for R36.

I regret the error.

R33 I heard that Depp found his character for Sleepy Hollow by combining Jessica Fletcher and Bugs Bunny.

No worries, R38.

I see what you're saying and in part I agree with you inasmuch as people fashion narratives from life experiences, but the idea that RDJ was young Henry V, allowing himself to be cloaked in vapors so better to throw his brilliance into later relief is a bit much.

I remember when he was in jail and all the funny, funny rape jokes he took a starring role in.

I think that wasn't part of a master plan.

I think it was talented brat face-plants after doing stupid shit.

RDJ has a full-time sober companion to keep him on the straight and narrow, not to mention a PA, trainer, etc. It takes an entire team to keep him sober and functioning, but whatever works for him, I guess.

I think it's working pretty well, R41. I don't get the feeling that it's all a front and he's hoovering rails and bathing in martinis every night.

But yeah, he has the resources to put together a support team.

So did Depp. He didn't, though.

The difference is that RDJ is smart enough to know that being an alcoholic and addict is a shitty way to live. Depp seems to still romanticize his debaucheries as part of his rock star lifestyle. He doesn't understand that what looked cool and edgy on a young movie star in the early 90s just looks pathetic now.

I don’t believe anyone in Hollywood who says they are sober 100% of the time, but thats just me. Depp is cognitively stunted from years of substances and yes men. Rdj is probably a pill in real life but he has a great publicist, wife and carefully constructed persona and reputation. Being Hollywood actors, no doubt they are both insufferable but RDJ does have the advantage of having been clear-headed long enough to set his career on track. Johnny is stuck in the seventies, eighties and nineties and maintains the veneer of the poets of that time.

Depp doesn't get it because he's D-U-M-B. RDJ is whip smart even if he is a mess.

Which one would you rather spend the evening with?

I don't mean sexually (necessarily, anyway).

Somehow I feel it's a draw.

RDJ would be far more interesting to talk to from a creative/personal history standpoint. But I think Depp would just blab whatever came into his head and that could be interesting too.

I think I vote for RDJ because if things did turn sexual I would be up for it and if they didn't I wouldn't have to subject myself to impromptu drum circles.

Only one of them has brushed his teeth on the regular in the last fifteen years and it isn't Johnny Depp.

If a man doesn't take care of his teeth, his anus must be like frat house toilet after a Taco Bell + kegger.

RDJ still kept his looks for the most part though he is past his prime. Depp has looked awful since the late 2000s due to all the alcohol and he lost his teeth.

R17, I don't mean that rape changes one's sexual orientation. What it might do is create a feeling of fear where physical contact is required.

RDJ could be attracted to men but unable to allow himself intimacy with them. Which I think is pretty horrible.

If that is the case, he may have walled it off as a chance to hone in on the wife and kid anyway.

Depp has to be on the hard stuff and I have a morbid curiosity of what that is.

I'll give you a hint, R50.

Not my cock.

I had no idea Downey went to jail but too lazy to look up why.

Downey dresses better and looks like he smells really good. Depp always looks ridiculous and like he reeks. Not even exaggerating, he looks like he'd smell like death.

Gen Z has no idea about Downey's drug past. To them he's Iron Man.

I hate to say it of an actor whose work I've enjoyed over the years, but Depp looks dirty.

Downey looks like he smells of waxed asshole and obscure avant-garde 1940s chewing gum.

R52, there was this parking ticket that he meant to pay but kept putting off.

R4 Vanessa Paradis, the mother of Depp kids never needed his money. For your information she was famous in France and Europe before him. She already had a lot of money when they started dating. She was a star at 14 yo. Plus, he became richer when she adviced him to produce POTC.

Here is the video where you all can clearly hear Amber Heard admiting hitting Depp

Amber Heard was arrested for domestic violence on her exe wive Tasya Van Ree, in 2009, long before she met Depp

I think we can all agree that Amber Heard is a deranged bitch.

We're discussing her not-that-much-better half and his obverse rival.

Lesbians usually beat up their spouses, no?

No, R61.

The "I Hate Lesbians" thread is six doors down.

This is the "Which late 20th century pretty boy actor/bimbo/psycho aged better" thread.

But thanks for stopping by!!!

Clearly RDJ's current public persona is not all there is to him and I don't think you get to be one of the super A list in Hollywood by only being a humble, well adjusted, really good guy but he's at the very least managed to keep it together publicly the last `15 years or so and earn the redemption narrative.

Johnny Depp is on record as basically wanting to be his The Libertine character, Rochester. And it's even less romantic in real life then it is in that film.

It also didn't help that the audience got board of his Jack Sparrow act by the 6th time and RDJ was able to take Tony Stark out on a high after a couple of more wobbly entries. And those are the two roles most people think of when thinking about them.

Plus the completely toxic, literally shitty relationship.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I wouldn't claim that RDJ is a humble, well-adjusted, really good guy. But I think he actually acknowledges as much and that is where the true redemption story lies.

Not gonna lie - I turned 50 this year and RDJ and Bojack Horseman were actually helpful with dealing with it. RDJ as an inspiration and Bojack as a cautionary tale.

Depp, not so much.

Not only a psycho. she is fucking LIAR!

Give it a rest, r66

R67 Why?? Are you scared?

R67 True hurts your feelings?

R68 this is not a thread about Amber Heard.

You want one, start one.

This is a thread about two actors, one of whom - the much, much smarter one, evidently - did not marry Amber Heard.

HTH

THIS THREAD IS NOT ABOUT AMBER TURD R68/9.

R70 R71 If it's not a thread about Amber Heard, why do several posts above mention her or that Depp abused her when it's totally false? You just don't like the truth to be revealed. In this case, don't start slandering people.

When you are spreading LIES don't complain the TRUE comes out! Period.

R72 you need to know that some people will never be swayed by facts or reasoning, even in the face of hard evidence.

R74 I know but these people have to deal with the fact that there are also people who know the true and that their propaganda don't work on eveyone.

I can’t remember the last good movie I saw Johnny Depp in. It’s been a while.

Yeah but at least he can act unlike Amber Heard.

NO ONE HAS MENTIONED AMBER EXCEPT TO SAY HOW TOXIC SHE IS.

NO ONE HAS SAID DEPP ABUSED HER.

WE'RE HAVING A DISCUSSION ABOUT TWO ACTUALLY INTERESTING PEOPLE.

REMOVE YOUR FINGER FROM YOUR CLIT AND GO BACK TO JEZEBEL.

YOU CAN'T READ, STFU R78

Well the loons have entered the thread...

I wonder if Depp would have done the RDJ 180 if he'd gone to jail as well.

I suspect not, but I don't know why.

I'm still shocked Downey did actual time. Depp would never have the sack to look at the judge, say what RDJ did and do the time, even to save his own life like that. Depp's a big old pussy.

OMFG. Yes, we all know Amber Heard is a psychotic, lying and violent bitch. But Depp still verbally abused her, still threatened her and may have put his hands on her. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Brando an intellectual? 😂😉🤣🥸

Johnny is also lucky River Phoenix didn't die. I could easily see River taking Johnny's roles (except for the Burton ones). I think Leo would have still been a star though. But Joaquin may not have happened (and I like him).

I meant to say Johnny was very lucky that River Phoenix died.

Truth R85. Also JD and River look like brothers in that pic. Good call.

R87 Answering to your own post? How pathetic. Seems like you're obsessed with an actor you apparently dislike. You look more like a fan tbh...

[quote] Well the loons have entered the thread...

This site is becoming more and more like Twitter and old Tumblr everyday with all the crazy stans who log in from 20 different devices.

...WTF!

And how long have you been on the Dl, R89? A few hours maybe?

I know Mel Gibson is a social pariah these days, but RDJ has credited him in the past for being very supportive when he was at his lowest and helped him to overcome his substance abuse.

Depp is a midget with no real personality.

That's an amazing picture of Depp and Phoenix. They really do look like kindred spirits.

I still feel bad about River.

Downey will end up like Depp, just wait and see.

Depp is not long for this world. He is so demented

R95, I wonder.

Once bitten, twice shy.

I hate to say something that seems to reward bad treatment, but I think Downey has been too scarred by his experiences to put his hand in the cookie jar again.

Now will he not end up bitter and alone?

That's a different story.

Anyone have any stories about working with Depp or RDJ?

RDJ give better head and swallowed.

RDJ seems like he’s on something. Maybe not as bad as Johnny.

Pretty soon they’re going to be like Pacino and De Niro. Falling asleep at award shows and acting worse with each movie. Us, wishing they would become Walmart greeters.

Depp was always a massive creep, he just had a good PR team covering for him. Remember that story how his ex business partner Anthony Fox from the Viper Room disappeared never to be seen again.

[quote] That's an amazing picture of Depp and Phoenix. They really do look like kindred spirits.

Nah. Johnny Depp was a bad influence on River. River was naive due to his weird upbringing as a traveling missionary for a Christian sex cult and he was forced into acting by his deadbeat hippy parents. He kept at it due to having the unfair responsibility of supporting his huge family. Hollywood really screwed him up and was surrounded by fake friends.

Hmm.

I’m not convinced RDJ is on something, R100.

Spending 5-10 years partying HARD will really do some damage.

Getting sober and staying sober does wonders and o can attest to the fact that the brain will bounce right back and even double as a basketball in a championship game, but it really does depend on age and what the person was on.

Also, relapse in midlife changes the game and what took 4-5 years of complete abstinence to wholly recover and become financially independent and emotionally resilient will take 5-7 years if you relapse at midpoint like I did.

There’s a noticeable difference. The lag is real and the failure to launch, fly and land on even the narrowest of strips, a d do all over again stat, day after day, is not easy to replicate and pull off as easily as the first round.

Rich or not, if you have to get on meds for shit you were never medicated for before, during the first try at sobriety, you will feel, look, and act “off”, because you most likely are “off”. Long term prescription treatment for things like depression or bipolar disorder or whatever, has to be changed up every few years and recalibrated because whatever you’re taking will eventually stop working and the readjustment can be significantly difficult on your body and obviously, your brain chemistry - and trust me, with some of us, it shows.

And YES, a solid, comprehensive and varied support system is the ONLY way through it for addicts/alcoholics like an RDJ a Depp, or even myself.

I cannot wait to move back home in a few months in order to reintegrate back into my AA groups where there are plenty of meetings and people to choose from and re establish relationships with sober AND emotionally healthy, mature ADULTS who take their lives and mental health seriously, as well as going back to therapy with someone I trust and form a strong support system I cannot hire as staff, as I am not wealthy. Nevertheless, it is available to anyone who wants it, if you know where to go and who is solid and who is full of shit. Pick the right people and your chances are better than average.

I haven’t any clue what these actors are up to or who is smarter of the two, however, one appears to have made way better choices, at least from what the public eye can see, than the other.

Johnny appears like he doesn’t want to get over the Amber domestic violence aspect of his breaking up bullshit, and seems stuck on that big ole resentment. I’m sure she fucked him over, yes, but he married a selfish kid who is obviously a full on lesbian, who was seeking fame and cash. WTF did he expect?

If he can’t overcome that pissy , “I have to prove my innocence” instinct, which perhaps drives him to wallow in the self pity of yesteryear, he will not have a snowball’s chance in hell of growing the fuck up and living a decent life. One must get over it, and sometimes that means having some unpleasantness stick. We take hits and getting back up doesn’t guarantee that we get back up without some cuts, bruises and scars.

At any rate, the rebel without or with a cause schtick hits an expiration date, just like we do.

RDJ surely has PLENTY of C-PTSD he’s had to work through, and perhaps he realized that either you face how uncomfortable that feels and get down to resolving it once and for all, or you stay stuck.

Recovering from trauma and the ravages it caused by way of addiction ain’t easy or comfortable but it beats staying stuck. There’s a way out. But you have to want a way out more than you want to be proven right, vindicated in the eyes of your peers, or even justified by way of the legal system and courts.

Validation is nice but it doesn’t pay the bills.

Wishing both gentlemen all the best. ✌🏽

I’m shocked they’re still both alive.

AA keeps you sick . It’s not healthy.

RDJ could have been blacklisted in Hollywood like all the others who have multiple arrests with public drug habits but the industry really like him and gave him numerous chances.

[quote] RDJ could have been blacklisted in Hollywood like all the others who have multiple arrests with public drug habits but the industry really like him and gave him numerous chances

Yes, he is liked, which in itself is something, but it’s not just that. I’ve so often heard him compared to Linsey Lohan, but the difference is: RDJ always showed up, on time, ready to work. Lohan cost people money with her unprofessional behavior. Its easy to forgive someone when their demons are strictly their problem and never made into yours.

I'm sure RDJ is bipolar. He's not stable mentally.

Did a studio have an axe to grind with Johnny? It’s been known for years that he has a alcohol and substance abuse problem plus and they usually swept it under the rug. It seems like when your time is up and the industry wants to get rid of you they would just like Ellen D.

RDJ has serious gayface

R110 I mean Johnny's whole appeal was his looks. He is old now, lost his beauty due to drugs and his weird antics and destructive behavior are no longer cute and can't be written off as just wild youthfulness. He isn't like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise or Will Smith where his name alone will fill up theaters.

There's this comedian, Doug Stanhope who used to be really, really funny. Then he met Johnny Depp. They started hanging out together and Doug's career crashed. Now Johnny produces his comedy shows. They're a disaster. Doug's doing half the shows he used to book 7 yrs ago and a lot of them are at smaller venues. I watched one of his comedy specials that johnny produced and it was embarrassing. It was also free to watch. none of his specials are on Netflix. They used to be, until johnny helped kill Doug's career

R108 Lindsay's partying was obnoxious. She was shrill and abusive. RDJ was evidently a genial drunk. He just got all kissy-faced.

Bret Easton Ellis talked about RDJ and mentioned that his sweetness of character made people eager to overlook the habits.

Neither here nor there, but RDJ has some of the weirdest fans on twitter. There are evidently an army of fat women who fetishize him as being "tiny".

RDJ was high on drugs in the entire movie of Home for the Holidays and he did a lot of “ad-libs”

RDJ's addled fat frau stans call him Tiny Meow Meow.

Since when is RDJ at the top of his career and the highest paid actor in America?

As of last year at $75 million, RDJ was reckoned the highest paid male actor in the US.

He's sober and has his pick of what to do next.

That seems pretty much top of his career to me, R118.

You're a class act, R104.

RDJr is a carefully crafted persona. His personality is held up by as many hooks, wires and winches as Marlene Dietrich's appearance in her 40s and beyond. He may very well be likeable and professional when on the job, but there is always a feeling with him that he's "on," even in interviews or candid videos of him showing his house. He seems angry and tense while trying hard not to look angry and tense.

[quote]Because going to jail - which wrecked his insurance rating and made him untouchable as an employed actor - was such a PR boost.

I wonder why it hit him harder than, say, Kelsey Grammer, who did jail time while on Cheers? Because it was a longer sentence, maybe?

RDJ went into prison a liberal addict and came out as an HIV-positive rape victim. That would make anybody more conservative.

Nobody wanted to rape Kelsey Grammar.

Well, that goes without saying, r124.

I just meant that I wondered how Grammer was able to keep getting jobs without massive insurance problems, while RDJr was uninsurable after his jail stint.

Does anyone know where the Downey raped in prison story came from? Was it just the usual jokes about pretty boys in jail or is there a real source for it?

IIRC he was assaulted and his celebrity friends started a petition to move him out of general population. Anthony Michael Hall visited him and said he wouldn't have survived what Robert had been through.

Rape wasn't actually said but it was heavily implied.

I read about the assault, r126. So the story goes he was working in the prison kitchen (which wasn’t properly surpervised), when two fellow convicts entered the area he was in and attacked him. Apparently he wasn’t seriously hurt, and afterwards he was put into some kind of protected custody.

That’s the story anyway, however, others have stated that’ it’s not true. According to people who where in the prison with him what actually happened was that he was violently assaulted and gang raped while he was in his cell.

The assault is supposed to have really messed him up and is what lead to lot of sympathy from fellow celebs in the business.

On an unrelated note the the Preppy Killer Robert Chambers was also raped in prison. If anyone is interested he ended up owing lots of money for drugs which he couldn’t repay, and as a consequence was beaten stabbed and raped for hours in the prison shower block.

R106, I 100% agree with you in some aspects, but I need sober people in my my life who have their shit together and are able to have a discussion beyond a 6th grade education.

I’ve been stuck in the south for nearly 5 years, & many folks out here are great but for me? It’s not about meeting people who are Republicans or Democrats & deciding what their character is as a result. Back in LA, plenty of my sober friends are conservatives, while still managing to have conversations & really good relationship with their progressive friends. Moi included.

That’s just not the case where I’ve been & with the CoViD shit hitting the fan in states where the majority of people have constructed their entire personalities around their Pandora’s Box politics, consistently pulling senseless FOX News assertions & propaganda out of Tucker Carlson’s ass, it’s gotten REALLY lonely for me, here.

AA or no AA, I need to be in an environment where I have friends who aren’t gonna size me up because I got vaccinated or wear a freakin’ mask.

As a sober person, for me, AA is the easiest place to connect to others who share this deal in common with me. IDGAF about a person’s political affiliations, because decent people with the ability to think logically, think logically and are able to see beyond their politics and find common ground with others who don’t share every single ideology with them, however, are also able to perceive and identify nuances which is what we call the Gray, instead of the all black and all white thinking many on both sides of the “aisle” have decided to permanently set up residency in.

Take what works for you and leave the rest behind is one of the best euphemisms AA touts, which is how I approach it.

AA is filled to the brim with tons of people who think a lot like people who wanna blow someone’s head off because they’re wearing a freakin’ anorexic Kotex pad across their face or ask them to do the same, in a privately owned business.

Tons of old timers running around talking shit left and right about this, that or the other. You have to put it all in its proper place and appreciate the zaniness of it all, and look around, watch, listen, & pick those you identify with who are also taking what works and then get up, go shoot the shit over some food with their so er pals, go home, hit the sack, and call it a day, while still sober.

I’m not a senseless follower of BS, and I know BS when I hear it and see it, but I’m still a person with a long history of remaining clean & sober for many years, and then relapsing.

The last dance with my demons almost took me OUT. I wasn’t able to put down the bottle and the liquor store 4 blocks away from my pad benefited GREATLY from my daily patronage. I don’t ever wanna see dozens upon dozens of assorted brands of empty vodka bottles strewn about my home, EVER again, so AA it is, and fortunately, this time, with a BS strainer, where I’ll be catching the BS, and leaving it behind before I drink my daily dose of “one day at a time” tea.

Sober people need support and friends. Being sober doesn’t mean I have to settle for shitty, sober friends, who are also stupid AF, with zero self awareness and zero professional therapy on their “done” or “to do” lists. Yeah. I can do sober life as a recluse living online, as I’ve been doing that since CoViD hit, but I no longer want to. It’s super unhealthy, & if this continues, I will become a permanent recluse, & never get laid again. 😒

But I totally appreciate your “heads up”. I agree with you 100% in that AA will and does keep an overwhelmingly amount of its regular attendees sick AF, which we know as “dry drunks”. They use AA as a place to grift cash, grift living accommodations, get rides, meet needy chicks or horny, predatory, old dudes with low self esteem & real estate. 😂 Been there, seen it, & now aware as fuck as a result of actually wanting to TRULY heal, recover and stay healed and recovered, this time around.

Salúd! ☕️☕️

It's amazing that he was ever in gen pop to begin with. Not only was he a pretty young man but a FAMOUS pretty young man. Of course he was going to be ice cream for freaks.

R120, thanks, buddy.

Haven’t heard that in a while & I appreciate the compliment simply because today, I can almost accept a compliment without balking or resisting.

Lol.

Best to you & stay well, also. 🙏🏽😘🙏🏽

That's horrible, R129. I can't fucking believe they put him in genpop. He never should have been in prison to begin with: He was an addict, not a criminal. It's like someone in the LA justice system really had it in for him.

This is what RDJ has to say about his prison experiences and how they affected him:

[quote]“I have a really interesting political point of view, and it’s not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can’t. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics every since.”

It does seem to support the idea that he was seriously abused in prison. You'd think seeing the misery of other prisoners might make him even more liberal and in favor of prison reform, UNLESS those prisoners viciously assaulted him. That could lead anyone to think that his attackers deserve to be penned up in prison and not given a fucking thing except punishment.

Fuck, R129. I always assumed it was worse for RDJ in prison than Whoopi’s “rape versus rape-rape” categories.

For those Bitches on here who have never experienced a violent, sexual assault, let me just say that this isn’t a slightly rougher version of DL’s much loved “anal surprise”., or a weekend on the swings.

99% of non violent offenders who get repeatedly busted, & finally locked up for ADDICTION, are used as cannon fodder for the media, crooked politicians and the fucked up courts and feeding the machine of America’s REAL horror story - prisons.

IDGAF how many times RDJ woke up in some kid’s bed in Malibu, in a house that wasn’t his. If a kid wasn’t in the bed with him, he’s still golden.

As a formerly embarrassingly sloppy drunk myself, who was sprinkling glitter and hugging every person I saw while wasted on the hard stuff, I am of the belief that UNLESS you drive drunk, slamming into another and permanently maiming or taking a life with you vehicle, prison is NO goddamned place for a sweet drunk who smokes crack.

It does nothing but get you brutally gang banged. That’s not getting scared straight, that’s getting violently sexually assaulted. You wanna scare someone straight? Send them to a fucking jungle in the middle of the South Pacific, put a rifle in his hand and tell him to watch out for mosquitoes.

FUCK.

And let’s crack the numbers. How many of the judges in seats they sit on for life just pander to whatever base has the most cash in their towns? All of “em. Furthermore, justice and the interpretation of it are two entirely different things than handing out sentences for the purposes of fueling up that money train with as much steam as possible, no matter what.

Liberal or conservative. Doesn’t matter one fucking iota. You’re sitting on a seat on Pasadena Superior Court or in DTLAs court? You are going to pursue your profits in favor of the judiciary and penal system or you’re not gonna get paid. Period. End of.

The world is riddled with psychopaths who should have been smothered at birth, yet weren’t. Prisons are made for them.

So why are we still insisting on placing repeat non-violent, non theft/fraud/grand larceny offenders who are addicts away fucking monsters who are doing time for gang banging their mom or microwaving their 3 days old infant?

This is where we are just as heartless as China and Russia. Prisons in America are fucking worse than being deployed to a senseless war in the desert. There’s nothing quite like it, and the people who belong there do major damage before finally getting in while a freakin’ addict who needed to be locked up in a drug treatment facility for 12 to 24 months for any real chance of recovery, got his life changed permanently in ways that most people will not be able to survive once they hit the streets with their brown paper bags with their dirty wife eater, flip flops, and swimming trunks they wore on the day they got cuffed and sent to the slammer.

Talk all the shit you want about someone like an RDJ appearing to have a just below the surface, affect of what some perceive as a bubbling rage, while getting interviews, while earning their keep. Unless you’ve been in that particular situation, you have ZERO appreciation of what it takes for someone to experience that kind of shit and make 75MM because he can carry that particular franchise on his back and is GOOD for it.

I’m that sense, if viewing it through the comparative lens this thread suggests we do, RDJ is a mother-fucking BOSS.

Johnny lost a finger to a lesbian who helped him smuggle two domesticated pups into a foreign country, and still, all he got was a co-starring role in a PSA about “animal customs”, which by the way, applies to no one but actual smugglers, since no average Joe is flying privately on Disney’s G-6 and bringing Fluffy & FiFi on the downlow, into OZ.

GMAFB. Sorry Johnny. I still love ya, but c’mon!!!!

[quote]you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal

That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. He was put into jail BECAUSE of the Republicans and their draconian drug laws. The Republicans are the ones who want a prison work force, who underfund and overcrowd prisons and actively want prisoners to be hurt while doing time.

The Republicans did this to him and he comes out of jail hating liberals? Screw this guy.

The Republicans screwed him, and then the other prisoners LITERALLY screwed him. Since the latter was more immediately traumatic, I can see why he carries a grudge. It may be misplaced since the Republicans made the system, but those weren't the dicks forcibly fucking him up the ass.

He didn't say he hated liberals. He said his prison experiences made him more conservative. There's a difference.

He said he didn't come out of prison a liberal, r138. That's not "I'm not as liberal as I used to be," that's "I'm conservative." Especially since he also said he wasn't able to talk about it out loud in Hollywood, that's pure 100% Hollywood right winger talk.

I've heard that quote from him before and it never made any sense to me either. Our prison system is incredibly conservative, if you dislike or disapprove don't blame the liberals.

That still doesn't mean he hates liberals. Not all conservatives hate liberals, and vice-versa. There's a spectrum.

David Carr (in the original interview) interpreted the whole thing as Downey saying he was a conservative.

[quote]“It has struck me lately that I don’t have to talk about last century at all,” he said with a dismissive wave. But he does so, obliquely.

[quote]“I have a really interesting political point of view, and it’s not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can’t. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics every since.”

[quote](Suffice it to say he is not one of the Hollywood types who weeps over innocents trapped behind bars.)

Sorry, the link:

He has more recently indicated that he has stepped away from that point of view. There's an interview he walked out of in the UK where he disassociates himself from the quote and says that his opinions have changed (although what they've changed to he doesn't reveal).

The UK interviewer was a complete asshole, BTW.

RDJ is likely medicated for whatever mental issues he has and he has a good support system with his wife and Hollywood friends. He has self-awareness which takes you a long way. Surprising actually that all the drugs and drinking didn't destroy the critical thinking part of his brain. He is not in the same delusional state of Charlie Sheen or Johnny Depp.

I suspect RDJ has a phobic abuse-based response to jail inmates and sees them as intrinsically bad. Maybe he's been able to mentally separate that response from reality, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the real cause of his "conservative" thinking.

Reading this thread, Depp sound more and more like an actual scumbag.

I had forgotten the whole Viper Room connection.

Depp is a pied piper of sorts . He loves to corrupt and destroy people. A very sick man.

Yep, R148. Just like his BFF Marilyn Manson.

RDJ and Johnny Depp have very different backgrounds. Despite the dysfunction in the Downey household it seems there was genuine affection and RDJ’s talent and intellect were nurtured by his parents. RDJ’s background was more privileged and he started out with more connections in the film business. Johnny’s mother waited tables in FL and KY, so things can’t have been easy for their family.

^ Therefore it is understandable the trappings of fame and fortune hold more allure and power for Johnny. I don’t mean drugs, I am referring to his crazy grand gestures and spending.

Johnny is pushing 60, and he's been famous since he was 24. At some point, he should have learned a thing or two and evolved beyond his hillbilly pretensions. The fact that he hasn't tells me there was never much beneath that beautiful face. Now the face isn't even beautiful.

In that Rolling Stone exposé about Depp that was published a few years ago. Depp admitted to being emotionally abused by his mother who was an alcoholic and how he grew up poor. If he is telling the truth about that, it would explain why obsession with appearing sophisticated and cultured and also his lavish spending habits. He's stereotypical nouveau riche. Obsessed with his external image despite having nothing going on inside.

Depp is a borderline who seriously envies others . That man is profoundly miserable.

What RDJ said about his prison time and not being a liberal anymore because of it doesn't make any sense.

I think he's severely screwed up and mental and possibly likes young boys on the side. That offensively talentless producer wife of his worked for Joel Silver and she strikes me as a lesbian. The whole marriage is probably an arrangement. They make money from RDJ and keep the bad press and sordid past away from him, in return he delivers the movie hits with Sherlock Holmes sequels.

I have never heard the ghost of a whisper that RDJ liked young boys. I think you are taking his time working with Tom Holland a step too far.

Now if you were to tell me TH had a mancrush boner for RDJ, that I could see.

RDJ seems like he would like muscular guys who could fuck him silly.

R155, I dunno about young boy. Never heard that particular rumor.

As for as the rest of what you wrote?

That’s what’s known as a “pretty sweet deal”, in Hollywood, if you can get it.

RDJ is too sexually passive to have a "thing" for young boys, even if we interpret that as young men of legal age.

I believe there was a story on the Homecoming set about Holland getting a little excited with him and RDJ telling him to knock it off.

[quote]I think he . . . possibly likes young boys on the side.

That's a disgusting allegation to make when there has never been even a hint of that attached to him.

Anyway, the rumor has always been that RDJ is an enthusiastic bottom when he swings that way. Hot muscle men (emphasis--MEN) would be a much fairer guess.

It sure is a win/win deal. RDJ delivered the movie hits and they keep the bad press away. In private RDJ can dress up in weird costumes and invite kids to his parties. It's interesting that his Hollywood friends are Jamie Foxx and Jeremy Renner. Dustin Hoffman attended his 50th Birthday party. Lot's of rumors that DH likes them young.

Old RDJ articles have always references about him being gay and several things do surface sometimes that show he's a very disturbed guy, I mean he's friends with Mel Gibson. He may like the marriage arrangement because he likes the stability of a family and the support system that it gives. He may even be bi. I do think he was a very talented actor, but all the money, greed and power ruined that and he doesn't get any intersting offers anymore because nobody wants to deal with him.

He had a personal assistant who was with him all the time for decades, who died recently in a car accident. The assist and was some Christian bible study type of guy and the rumor is that RDJ is on that trip too.

WTF does Dustin Hoffman have to do with RDJ's preferred gay sex partner? RDJ probably had hundreds of people at his 50th birthday party. You're really reaching, R161.

RDJ didn't seem to care about the gay rumors unlike Tom Cruise. RDJ played gay before. He was openly bisexual but chose to be visibly heterosexual for his marketability. Iron Man is popular franchise worldwide even in countries where homosexuality is still heavily taboo and illegal. He was probably advised by Marvel to crawl back into the closet.

OP, why can’t you be obsessed about positive things? About Marlon Brando? About the Costa Rica movie that was the hit of all of Europe and Cannes? About the film I did with Brando - and talk to that. Ya know?

R161 left out the bits about RDJ being a horn-wearing Satanist who drinks the blood of Christians (Bale and Slater, mostly).

R161, is straight up jealous of Downey

I remember when RDJ chose a gay rehab because he felt more comfortable there. The Dupont twins attended that rehab place at the same time with RDJ.

When they were working to make him a movie star he was constantly in the press and there were tons of PDA pictures of him and his wife. They went on vacation with Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal who were a couple at the time. RDJ's wife is good friends with RW.

Oh please R166, don't be ridiculous!

R161

The stories of Depp's spending are absurd. A village in France, an entire cul de sac in the Hollywood Hills, 5 penthouses in DTLA? He's determined to burn money and it caught up to him.

"I do think he was a very talented actor, but all the money, greed and power ruined that and he doesn't get any intersting offers anymore because nobody wants to deal with him."

I could see this being said of Depp but not Downey.

Depp eyes look haunted and raging.

Oh, now R172! That's just the liver failure you're seeing.

What interesting movieshas RDJ been in after Iron Man, R170? He was lucky Jon Favrauv gave him a 5 minute scene in Chef. Every other movie outside of Marvel was terrible.

I actually like RDJ a lot as Sherlock Holmes. Did the third one ever come out?

RDJ's movie choices are lousy but they've always been lousy, I've read articles on him where they talk about his poor choices

R171 - that article is three years old - I wonder how things have progressed since then!

I would guess they're not great, R177

I wonder what Depp and Downey think of each other.

At the least, Downey probably looks at Depp and is thankful for Crest.

Are Depp's choppers really all that bad?

Downey had wonky teeth when he was younger. He must have had them straightened out at some point, although they were sort of charming.

Maybe his buddy Tim Burton can save him. He needs to go to rehab first. He looks like Keith Richards now.

Robert has definitely lost some brain cells from the drugs. The stuff he wears looks like he got dressed in the dark.

R165 we love every minute of it!

Wahhhh!!!! He never drinks my blood! Or anything else!!!

That bit about coming out of prison and not being a liberal reminds me of something I read in a crime novel, that ex-cons were surprisingly conservative in their political stances. It's not about who made the law that put them in prison. It's about having spent a lot of time with criminals and losing some sympathy for their "origin stories" or rough childhoods.

It was heavily implied in this 2000 Vanity Fair article R126.

10 years ago? Um ... we been knew Downey has been an international superstar for 13 years now.

It was iffy for a while, though. He has always displayed immense talent. He had some serious demons and hit rock bottom. He decided to make a change for the better, met the right woman, cleaned himself up, and it just kept getting better for him from there. Unfortunately, he has made a parody of his talent. He rarely steps out of Iron Man/Sherlock Holmes, and there is little payoff when he does, critically anyway. I know what he was thinking with Dolittle, but, ultimately, I don't get the gamble. He didn't need another franchise or money. You'd think at this point, he'd be bankrolling a dream role. Not sure why he isn't taking more chances artistically. We all know he wants an Oscar.

As far as Depp, Pirates really shot the mostly anti-commercial actor into the stratosphere in 2003. By the time Alice in Wonderland rolled around, it was pretty clear (to some anyway) that it was time to stick a fork in him (and Tim Burton), as their creative spirits were both overcooked. He certainly took more chances than Downey has, though. It's too bad he has been so unlikeable for so long.

So, if you told me in 2011, that Downey would be an international superstar and Deep would eventually burnout, I would actually buy it, as Downy was already huge, and Depp had already passed his self-by date.

[quote]There's an interview he walked out of in the UK where he disassociates himself from the quote and says that his opinions have changed (although what they've changed to he doesn't reveal).

He didn't, though. The reporter quoted his "you can't come out of that as a liberal" bit from that David Carr interview and asked him to clarify. His response was:

"Things that you said five, seven years ago are things you said in an interview that made sense to you at the time...I could pick that apart for two hours and would be no closer to the truth than I'd be giving you some half-a--ed answer right now. I couldn't even really tell you what a liberal is, so therein lies the answer to your question."

He just dodged the question and ran off instead of answering it.

He then called the interviewer a "syphilitic parasite" that he was at risk of beating up, just for asking the question.

It's a damn shame Downey wasn't played for the beauty he was when he was younger.

Can anybody excerpt the relevant bits from the Vanity Fair article? The site won't let me read it.

R187, you're right - it has been more than ten years. So, if you told me 13 years ago (the rest of it).

R171, goddamn, Johnny was just stunning.

Wish he had kept or veered towards just keeping his style simple, without all of the scarves and layers of clothing. He could still be bohemian with the longer hair, a loosely fit, buttoned down, cotton shirt and jeans.

This thread is tragic, yet funny AF on some parts, and I for one, have appreciated the barbs exchanged, witty one especially. 🤣

Both of these gentlemen were and remain very talented. Messy lives that were lived in a messy town.

And for the record, I miss seeing Depp work and would still watch a project he starred in of it were good. I don’t particularly believe he’s the POS some people make him out to be. But misery loves company and when it knocks on your door, you may not be able to ask it to leave once it makes itself comfortable on your couch, especially if it’s Johnny Depp’s couch… which I imagine to be gin soaked as any 20K sectional can ever hope to be. 😂

RDJ's wife is an industry pro who was probably chosen to take him in hand and put him on the straight (in more ways than one) and narrow. He met her in the early 2000s and started taking more prominent roles, finally landing a lucrative and undemanding (where talent is concerned) comic book series. He's our generation's John Barrymore, talented and charismatic enough to brighten even dull material as long as he stays sober enough to show up for work.

Depp is not sexy , a short fuck

RDJ definitely had his teeth done just like Zac Efron. Look at his tooth gap

It just occurred to me who Downey has always reminded me of when younger - he's like the hyperactive little brother of David Naughton (American Werewolf in London).

He and Spader had good chemistry. RDJ seems like he a bit of crush on Spader. I think they're still friends.

Looks like a Caravaggio boy

With Keifer Sutherland

R198, day-um.

I mean, I'm aware it's supposed to be innately funny, but he looks fantastic.

R177 it's the most recent Big article about his finances. I can't imagine things have gotten better since he's barely worked since

R198 makes me wish someone had done a bio of Caravaggio back then with RDJ as an errant muse.

He has a very painterly face - I could see Sargent being interested too.

Depp looks much more modern. He has a face for photography but I can't place him with a painter.

[quote]RDJ's wife is an industry pro

She worked for Joe Silver and produced nothing but truely terrible movies.

R199, that film was such a disappointment. I had a thing for Kiefer and loved Winona and the whole thing was such a piece of shit. I don't think I even bothered to watch the whole thing.

It’s unfortunate Depp did not make more films like Blow or Donny Brasco where he plays actual people rather than extreme characters. He could have matured as an actor and not be pigeon-holed as an eccentric. There is nothing wrong with playing eccentrics but he can’t compete with Gary Oldman or Christopher Walken in terms of acting chops.

^ Then again my favorite Johnny role was Ed Wood.

Ed Wood is a great film. My only quibble with it is that it invents a bit of a false happy ending for Wood, whose professional life deteriorated far past his nutzo early work and who died relatively young.

Why can't you be obsessed with positive things like the Marlon Brando picture that was the hit of all of Europe and Cannes?

Depp's best performance was Ed Wood, hands down. If he ever deserved an Oscar, it was for that movie.

RDJ is obviously complicated when it comes to his political views. They are likely considered “conservative” by Hollywood standards, given whatever his experiences were behind bars. That said, he is likely not too far right, as he is close with Mark Ruffalo, whom we all know to be a rabid progressive liberal.

I've not been incarcerated and hope to never be incarcerated. If I were ever do something stupid enough to be incarcerated, then the experience might also change some of my political viewpoints. At this point, I will defer to Mr. Downey who not only HAS BEEN incarcerated but has experienced horrible shit while being in prison.

RDJ sits on the board for a council for prison reform that attempts to lessen incarceration rates and improve the lives of prisoners.

I don't think that sounds too hardcore right wing let-em-rot to me.

He's also big on green tech and has just gone vegan. Maybe that's the wife's influence. But he could just as easily do nothing. Who is going to deny Tony fucking Stark his cheeseburgers?

I like and respect the guy. From a safe distance, as I suspect he's still a little testy about life experiences. I mean, his dear old dad got him using pot at the age of six. How does that not fuck you up on multiple levels?

Depp has a history as an enabler through that foul Viper Room bullshit scene. Downey wasn't getting other people hooked on the hard shit.

Johnny is on his way out

Downey is flawed but lovable (imo).

Depp is a dark, forever teenager- not lovable. (Imo)

Depp morphed into a creepy drunken uncle that thinks he's a cool teenager, invites himself to all the parties and chases barely legal teenage girls.

RDJ morphed into your sarcastic gay uncle in a lavender marriage who may seem grumpy on the outside but is a sweetheart on the inside.

Both of their recent output has been flops. I think RDJ still has a chance to do more mature work and give fine performances. He needs a better agent who can convince him to take some meaty roles.

Can Depp ever find his way out? Is Downey a model for him? Is it too late to put things back together?

I feel Depp has really failed to grow up, while Downey was sort of forced to.

Depp seems to be suffering from an advanced case of wet brain, and there wasn't a lot of brain there to begin with. I think he's done.

I’m convinced that he helped cover up the murder of River Phoenix.

I think he got out of whatever legal responsibility he may have had for River's death, R218, but what makes you think it was murder?

R319, that’s a BIG OLE accusation, bit not that big of one, in France…

River was on a downward spiral. Maybe someone gave him a hot dose in that cup of crap he swilled just a few minutes before he collapsed, or maybe it was just that his luck had run out. I'm not sure what motive anybody would have to kill River: He and Johnny may have been up for similar roles, but the one who really filled River's shoes and then some was Leo DiCaprio.

I don't think it was Depp that killed River. But someone in that circle seemed to have it out for him to hand him that drug cocktail. Also, the fact people at the Viper Room were too high or drunk to get him fast enough assistance while he was dying on the street from a overdose. It was just a toxic crowd in general. I do think River had a bit of a death wish, nobody from such a fucked family dynamic could manage to live a happy life.

R221, 222 seems to have a serious worship for Depp and disdain for River . Shut up you psychotic bitch !

I agree that River seemed to have a death wish. He never seemed to enjoy his fame, and his abusive childhood in the Children of God cult also took his toll. His best destiny would have been to go to rehab and then get out of Hollywood for good, but he had that giant needy family to support.

The fact River was the oldest one, he had the most memories of being in The Children of God. The rest of his siblings were too young. The family left the cult in the late 70s. River alluded to being sexually abused in some interview. I know he made up stuff in interviews but that's a really out of the left field thing to bullshit. His parents put this really fucked-up expectation on him to support the rest of the family.

John and Heart Phoenix were too lazy to work so they taught their kids to panhandle and sing on street corners.

His sister Rain is as cold hearted and phony as Heartless (mother) Phoenix.

River also was the best-looking of the bunch (rumor has it he had a different father than his siblings). So, he was going to have more success in the film industry. Joaquin only happened because he was River's brother but he proved himself to be very talented and capable of an actor. River pretty much raised all of his siblings too because his parents certainly weren't doing their job.

Didn't River say in an interview that he lost his virginity at age 4? I can't imagine anyone making THAT up. He was clearly abused, first by the cult who sexually abused him, then by his parents who emotionally abused him by making him the breadwinner when he was still a child.

I wonder if Joaquin would have had the career he's had if River had lived? If so, at least the family would have had two A-listers paying the bills.

It's possible River had a different dad, but he mostly looked like his mother. His siblings all look like the father, especially Joaquin, who is basically his dad's clone.

The family itself was very cult like .

Joaquin quit acting as a teen. He became the breadwinner after River died.

Neither of the brothers seem to enjoy fame or acting itself.

Joaquin has not been right since River’s death. There’s a lot of bitterness and anger in his persona since. I think something sinister happened at the Viper Room.

Maybe with Rooney Mara's money, Joaquin will be able to retire. She comes from wealth on both sides.

River came out looking Northern European while his parents and siblings look Mediterranean. I'm guessing he was the result of recessive genes.

Heart's parents were Hungarian Jews.

Did River and Downey know each other? I never heard anything about them crossing paths.

The location of the Viper Room is being demolished this year. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

IIRC they had a mutual friendship with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

R238,source?

It was reported on the Vintage Los Angeles twitter feed, R240. Evidently the whole block will come down for an imitation Zaha Hadid complex.

The Viper Room building is 100 years old. When it first opened it was a grocery store, but it's been various nightclubs since the 40s. Another piece of LA history gone.

I didn't realize until recently that the building the Comedy Store is in used to be Ciro's.

It's a shame, but a lot of the old charming buildings in that area are being edged out and a lot of the venues are disappearing too.

There have been rumors of tearing down Viper Room for several years now. It would be fine by me. Depp is finished anyway in Hollywood. What a pathetic, phony envious piece of shit he is .

Depp hasn't been involved with the Viper Room for a decade.

River's career would have crashed and burned just like that kid from the "Never Ending Story".

1. He was not aging well and his gigantic face and pig nose wouldn't have done him any favors.

2. Leo was younger and easily getting more attractive.

3. River wouldn't have accepted Titanic. Leo did and has been A+ list ever since.

4. Drugs would have ravage what was left of River's boyish beauty. He'd be sucking cock of strangers at autograph conventions for $500 like Corey Haim in the late 90s/early-2000s.

R246, has a really evil heart.

Leo is a fat pumpkin head now

I'm just not living in some fantasy land where an addict was going on to bigger and better things, considering he was addicted to coke. We are critical of people on DL all the time. I think it's worse to criticize the living because they can stumble upon this site. River is well past dead so there is no harm in being honest.

r248 very true, but before he became a pumpkin-head, he made sure to stay clean, pick life changing films, and become a titan of Hollywood. He can get a movie green-lit on his name alone and get's butts in the seats in US and especially Asian markets. Leo's movies actually turn a profit which is why the studios love him. He's no drama and if he has some negative rug or alcohol issues, he doesn't bring it to set and gets the work done.

R249, is wicked and now blocked. Beware . River was a great person and please read up on him .

So was Corey Haim r250, doesn't mean I'm wrong that his career was going to cool off as his addictions ramped up. I'm blocked so you can go cry in peace.

I think if River had lived a bit longer, he'd have turned his back on Hollywood altogether. Maybe become an environmental activist or something.

They all say they are going to leave Hollywood and LA for something more noble, but how many of them actually do? The easy money of acting is too hard to turn down

Let leave flea or anyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers out of this conversation.

Flea is a good guy who was at River’s side all the way to Cedars on the ambulance .

He’s a good guy and held poor River’s hand. And I don’t think Anthony was even there until the hospital, if at all.

Has anyone ever worked with Depp?

Depp is a bad guy .

Those pretty young people who complain that Beauty Is A Curse always go off the rails when Father Time comes knocking. Always.

True .

I find it quite shocking that nobody knows who gave River Phoenix that speedball. Was it John Frusciante, who was a good friend of Depp? I also find it not too far fetched that Depp saw River Phoenix as a competition.

The disappearance of Anthony Fox was never resolved.

Depp is a very dark guy!

Indeed r259 . Hopefully justice will prevail .

Was the speedball itself a toxic dose or did River have other things in his system by then? Would Depp really have tried to bump off a perceived rival? Why River specifically when there were at least 20-30 young actors who were also his competition (including Leo and Downey)?

I'm not buying that this was some sort of hit. Depp's partner disappearing is another matter, but that happened years later, and other people could be involved as well.

Frusciante killed River . River did not know what was in that cup. Who the hell drinks cocaine?!

River and Depp's looks were very similar.

River was way sexier. River had a glow to him and was a special soul. Depp, however, was and Is an insecure poser who envied others . A total phony .

Neither Johnny Depp nor RDJ seems able to grow a full beard. Hormone problems?

Both shortys

Oh, boy. Here we go… NOT

I think River Phoenix and Christian Slater had a better resemblance. I don't see that much resemblance to Depp or Leo. But all of them do have smoldering eyes, high cheekbones and diamond-shaped faces.

Depp’s eyes were always brooding and dark.

RDJ grew a beard for Natural Born Killers.

I prefer him clean shaven, myself.

Depps partnership with Tim Burton was a mistake. There is a fine line between charmingly odd and whimsical and creepily perverse and unsettling. Depps performances in Alice in Wonderland and Willy Wonka fell into the latter category. Though I suppose Burton is the least of his problems now.

Depp's partnership wasn't a mistake in the 90s. He has Tim Burton to thank for his movie career because Edward Scissorhands was his breakthrough role. Burton basically used Depp as his tabula rasa of sorts and projected his own charming and socially awkward personality into Depp's characters. That lead to the public seeing Depp as an endearing oddball. If Burton didn't get connected with Depp then it's hard to say if Depp would have gotten all of those interesting film offers in the 90s. John Waters' Cry-Baby certainly wasn't going to get Depp that.

I only partially agree, R271. Depp was quite winsome in Edward Scissorhands and hilarious in Ed Wood. I think Sleepy Hollow is underrated, myself - the cinematography was gorgeous and Depp played to the period. I agree that Willy Wonka was shockingly misconceived, although Depp fulfilled Burton's tone-deaf brief. The Alice films were just flat-out grotesque.

Depp should have quit working with Burton after Sleepy Hollow: That was the last good film they made together. It was the last good film Burton made, period.

Without Tim Burton. Depp would still have been doing 21 Jump Street and would be currently be starring in a USA Network procedural or even doing Hallmark Channel movies as all the other former teen heartthrobs go. He probably is aware of this, so he will accept anything Burton offers him as a form of gratitude.

[quote] It was the last good film Burton made, period.

I think Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie were pretty good. I hate most of his adaptations and remakes though.

I wonder what dark society circles Depp runs in. Just like Epstein, you know it's just the tip of the iceberg of the pedophile, sick sex - human trafficking trade that goes on in Hollywood. It took decades to nail Weinstein, Savile, Cosby and Epstein. And you know he is into some really disturbing stuff.

[quote] I wonder what dark society circles Depp runs in. Just like Epstein, you know it's just the tip of the iceberg of the pedophile, sick sex - human trafficking trade that goes on in Hollywood. It took decades to nail Weinstein, Savile, Cosby and Epstein. And you know he is into some really disturbing stuff.

I think Depp is just a dumb junkie. That's all. He is not an evil mastermind of anything. He got away with his behavior because he was a young, attractive white celebrity male. The public knew about his trashing hotel rooms, drug use and his shady club but excused him. Once he got old and involved with Amber Heard. The press turned against him. But it his past behavior was never a secret and clearly wasn't smart enough to keep it low-profile.

Hollywood is just the film industry. Just that. The goal of Hollywood is making films and getting money for the studios. Writers, directors, film crews and actors are there to do their jobs and go home. They have to be professional because there is too much money at stake. All of the wild stories are just what sells. Most people in the film industry are boring, everyday people doing a 9-to-5. The smart ones don't get involved with the shady activities or fall into the party scene.

There are predators in Hollywood obviously but they exist in every industry like look at Washington, academia and the military. And predators who are at the top of chain will protect other ones. And there are also a lot of enablers who are scared to risk their own careers and stay silent.

Downey once said :"I think I'm allergic to cocaine. Every time I use it, I break out in handcuffs."

That seems to be the main difference between him and Depp. Downey knew he looked like an idiot.

That’s 12 step cliche r279

R278, if you're working in PR, you're doing a very lousy job. You contradicted your own arguments twice.

If it worked for him, it worked for him, R280.

R281 Not PR but I understand that Hollywood is simply a capitalist industry that only cares about profit to please it's shareholding. It's not a sex trafficking ring like some conspiracy nuts on this site thing. Most people in the film industry are paid contract workers and they really don't make that much. Depp is just a dumb hillbilly with money, who got blessed with good genes, not some evil mastermind. Depp has been destroying his own career for the past couple of years, so clearly not very bright.

*think

[quote]He got away with his behavior because he was a young, attractive white celebrity male.

I'm part Native American, damn it!

What r278 wrote squares with what a guy told me who had lived and worked on film crews in LA for decades. He was retired and owned an apartment at a resort in Wisconsin.

He said it was a good job, but it was a job, and it allowed him to earn and save enough money to move from LA and retire.

Of course, being the hay-shaker hick from Wisconsin that I am, I asked him if he ever saw the big stars and famous people up-close. He said yes. I asked him about Angelina Jolie. He said she's actually pretty nice to crew members and she's in real life, up-close, a beautiful woman.

"I would not want to be famous and neither would you", he said. "The top stars earn a lot of money, but their lives are so restricted. And the costs. They have to pay for everyday security, staff, agents, multi-million dollar homes. After seeing how they have to live, I value being anonymous."

He knew, before it happened in the general public, that Michael Jackson was going to be a huge star. He told me that when he worked as a roadie/stage worker for live performances in the late 60s, early 70s, he saw the young, unknown, pre-first-hit record/single Michael Jackson rehearse. The Jackson 5 were the opening act for that evening's headlining act.

"Usually, the crew just keeps getting the stage ready and ignores the rehearsals, no matter who it is. We all stopped when Jackson rehearsed. He was dancing, singing and pretending to react to a crowd that wasn't there. We couldn't look away.

"I'd never seen that level of talent before, nor have I since, and I've seen, up-close, all the greats."

Mary! me, but I got a slight lump in my throat hearing him say that, considering how it all ended.

Great story, Della.

The idea of stars' lives being restricted reminded me of something Brad Pitt said in an interview, that he and the other celebrities have all slept in the same hotel rooms all over the world. Their world is very privileged but very small when you consider how they have to live for privacy and safety reasons.

I’m glad MJ is dead . He was a sinister man, a fraud . I agree that fame is mostly a curse . Lady Gaga said “ fame is prison.” They especially have it hard in this current time of cameras everywhere etc.

Career-wise, I'd say Deep and Downey changed places in 2009 or so. Interestingly, this happened while they were both making franchise gold.

I wonder how much the characters they were playing helped/hindered them.

Iron Man is a hard-living asshole forced to gradually redeem himself. Jack Sparrow is an unrepentant comedic profligate who cares for nothing but himself and never changes.

Is it harder to break away from spending the day bombed out of your mind when your most successful cash cow requires you to assume that persona professionally?

The character of Iron Man mimicked RDJs own life. It's not so much that these men felt the need to live out these characters in their personal lives so much that they were these characters in real life. Depp is a dumb-but-lucky unrepentant alcoholic mess and so was Sparrow.

Wasn't the Iron Man origin story sort of a done deal long before RDJ had his own redemption arc?

I guess life imitates art in that case

I could see a Highlights for Children "Goofus and Gallant" series starring these two.

Of course, they'd swap roles every now and again.

I miss RDJ’s more interesting movies. Theres no reason he can’t make a “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” or a “Zodiac” now that he’s done his Marvel nickel. I wonder why he doesn’t.

Super hero movies have destroyed Hollywood.

His last Marvel movie came out in 2019 and then a pandemic hit, R294. Dolittle was astoundingly bad, but it's not like he's had much of a chance to do anything at all.

His TV series looks like it will be interesting if the source material is anything to go by - and he'll be playing multiple roles.

I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish with Dr. Doolittle. The concept is absurd and dated, and he doesn't need another kiddie franchise.

It was a brain fart of epic proportions on his part, R297.

If he was to do a huge spectacle I'd love to see him in a film version The Master and Margarita. I think he'd make an amazing Prince of Darkness as written in the novel.

A major difference between Depp and Downey and how they were treated comes down to homophobia for me.

The relatively harmless Downey (sleeping curled up in some kid's crib) was jailed and degraded where the much more lethally toxic Depp (hello, Viper Room!) was not because Downey reads as "queer" and Depp doesn't.

Downey came back - in part - because he shut the door to the closet. That was never something Depp had to do because he never opened it in the first place.

Downey has played gay or sexually ambiguous men numerous times. I may be mistaken but I don't think Depp has (Sparrow is too much of a cartoon to suggest a sexual persona).

The above has nothing to do with the actually sexuality of either actor.

Downey is an extremely talented actor , very underrated . Depp is shallow, one dimensional. Depp possesses no real charisma or true human emotions. He’s a mimic of his poorly choices idols .

I wouldn’t believe anything Della says about Angelina Jolie. She’s utterly obsessed and the “pretty in person, nice to the crew” is what everyone says about her.

Angelina may be a sweetheart to the crew, but the way she's handled her divorce and joint custody of her children points to someone with serious psychological issues.

Angelina is a shell of a human

Angela was raised in the industry. She knows how to be diplomatic and professional to film crew and the public. Despite her eccentricities like wearing blood and French-kissing her brother and Billy Bob. I do think she has mental issues and it would be pain being in a relationship with someone like her. Brad had to become drunk to tolerate her.

^ I meant Angelina

Depp was always a satyr. Flinty. Sexy but dirty. Grabby. A panic-inducing and destructive force.

Downey started out as a faun - giddy, happy and skipping through the forest tootling his little pan-pipes and doing whatever he wanted.

The faun got snared and the satyr turned into a toad.

As the lisping Greek demigod Ganymede observed, myth-takes were made.

Brilliant, R306.

I never liked Downey when I was younger back in the 80s, in part because I was closeted as a young teen and he read as so obviously gay - or at least sexually expressive in a way I just couldn't wrap my mind around.

I look back at some of his earliest movies and I'm amazed at how fluid and open he was. Even in a piece of crap like Weird Science, he's not just 80s-boy. He's Steampunk bisexual gogo-80s boy. And that was him playing a high school bully.

I miss that kid. The current version has his charms, but I really miss that kid.

Depp's last compelling film for me was Ninth Gate, and his effectiveness was an effective riff of understated sleaze. Didn't exactly endear me to him, however.

Have been looking at links to some of Depp's public appearances and holy shit, the poor guy is par-boiled. I don't know how they got any sort of performance out of him for Murder on the Orient Express - he showed up at a premiere unable to remember the director's name.

[quote]Downey started out as a faun - giddy, happy and skipping through the forest tootling his little pan-pipes and doing whatever he wanted

Goat boy.

Fuck, R310. I never saw that clip.

I guess I nailed it.

He had quite a big booty back then.

Juicy

BOOTAY!

I miss that RDJr too r308, but I keep thinking about Chris Cornell, who went through a period of being a real knob post-Audioslave, doing a lot of commercial stuff that bordered on selling out and saying a lot of goofy things, like "I wrote this song for the movie while thinking about the plight of starving kids in Africa."

He shook that whole vanilla mainstream image off in later years and I was glad, but after he died I realized that he very likely had become that boring, dorky guy for a while as a way to protect himself. When he was putting himself out there with performances and in songwriting, it was taking a toll. Writing something dumb for a dumb movie and then saying dumb things about it was easier and took less out of him.

Maybe the same kind of thing is going on with RDJr. Maybe if he put himself out there in anything more revealing than, say, Tropic Thunder, he'd be taking a risk, and he's decided not to do that anymore.

If he'd OD'd on heroin in 1995 he'd have been a legend. But I'm sure he'd rather be alive, rich, and sane than the acting equivalent of Kurt Cobain.

[quote] I'm part Native American, damn it!

I remember when Depp actually got called out by real Native Americans for his "Tonto" role and he got called out again for that Sauvage cologne ad. I think it is pretty offensive to take roles from real Native actors like Wes Studi because supposedly your great-great-great grandmother was Cherokee or Creek (he kept changing the stories). It later got revealed Depp had Black ancestry (very very common for white Southerners). What we can infer is Depp's ancestors were more than likely white-passing Black people. It says a lot that Depp doesn't brag about his Black ancestry nor stand up for Black issues like he did for Native Americans. I find the "I'm part Native American" folklore was just created to erase possible Black ancestry and to also justify occupying the lands that Natives were expelled from via Trail of Tears.

Depp never apologized for that and still holds onto the family folklore.

It's 3 years old and been discussed before, but this profile on Depp's lifestyle and spending will never NOT be insane. There's been no major public update on his finances, but he's barely worked since so I guess they're...not great.

[quote] The purchases listed by TMG read like Depp gave his wallet to a tween with ADD. There was $75 million for 14 residences. He spent $3 million to shoot his pal Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes into the sky from a cannon. A mere $7,000 to buy his daughter a couch from the set of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. He bought some 70 guitars and 200 pieces of art, including Basquiats and Warhols, owned 45 luxury vehicles and spent $200,000 a month on private air travel.

Depp is definitely mentally ill because who would make themselves look so ugly on purpose? Depp was very good-looking when he was young. I would have smashed that hot twink ass of his. I can't see letting yourself go that bad correlates with any kind of high self-esteem. He has good genetics and access to all the best physical trainers and dieticians. Even the drunken Brad Pitt still makes himself look good.

Depp's looks were in its prime in the 80s and very early 90s. Between Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Gilbert Grape (1993), he was one heavenly twink with a booty.

Damn the clip at R310 makes me sad. He was such a cute little thing.

I am aware that he was probably coked out of his gills and equally aware that if he behaved the same way these days I'd be rolling my eyes, but it still makes me sad. He was really unique among his peers. And what he had was (literally, evidently) beaten out of him.

I don't know any 20-something producing his own political documentary recently with the possible exception of Jamie Johnson, whom I respect, but who ain't no Robert Downey Jr.

Depp kept his looks amazing well into his mid-40s. The first time I noticed real aging was when I saw Public Enemies in the theaters. On the big screen in hi-def, the smoking damage to his skin was painfully evident.

Depp is deliciously smooth and twinky at R321, and acts like a regular person—boilerplate "young 80s guy" more or less like his costar Rob Morrow or Jonathan Silverman or Andrew McCarthy. Was it Tim Burton who gave him delusions of sinister eccentricity?

Depp began to lose his appeal for me when he acquired that mysterious Transatlantic Dracula accent that he now uses as his regular speaking voice to tell us how his truth is full of betrayal, etc.

But yeah, he's cute as a button in R321. That movie was a godsend to this young gayling in that it had an extended scene of his costar, who was a bit stockier but also cute, nude except for a turban running through multiple hotel corridors.

River was a natural philosopher, a humanitarian and pro LGB rights at the time it could hindrance his career. He was genuine , kind and easygoing. He loved music over everything. 🎸

Sizemeat on either of them?

I can’t get over RDJ’s booty.

I like him strutting his wee stuff at R313.

Not a great hairstyle at R314, but how many dudes were willing to rock the skin-tight gold lame pants back then.

You don’t suppose they fucked watch other…

Again in English, R330?

^^^fucked each other

I sincerely doubt it. Evidently they knew each other to some extent but neither seems the other's type.

RDJ was busy fucking Spader.

R334. To have been a fly on the wall, or a video.

RDJ/Spader back then would have been the hottest thing ever.

Greater likelihood of happening.

BTW, evidently RDJ and Depp were close back around the time Iron Man came out and RDJ is trying to get Depp a part in SH III. I can;t decide whether this makes me like him more or like him less. It's nice that he's trying to give fellow addicts a leg-up from their troubles but at what point do you reevaluate a friendship and say "I can't deal with this person anymore?"

RDJ's wife can't be happy about this idea. I would not want my ex-addict spouse hanging around with an old chum who had decidedly failed to dry out his sheets.

[quote]I miss RDJ’s more interesting movies. Theres no reason he can’t make a “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” or a “Zodiac” now that he’s done his Marvel nickel. I wonder why he doesn’t.

He was amazing in KKBB, the movie still holds up too and is still funny as hell. I think all the money has gotten to his head and no director wants to work with him anymore. He made crazy demands at Marvel and they gave him what he wanted. Ego, hubris and money did him in.

Given that the last Marvel movie was released in 2019 and then the pandemic set in, I think it's a little too early to make that call, R337.

Loved KKBB too, BTW.

Do those movies/parts even exist any more? The industry is so fucked up now.

Most of the really interesting acting work is in television. That's been true for a decade now.

We had a thread two years or so ago about actors looking unintentionally gay in photos and nearly every second post was about RDJ. The pic in R314 would fit perfectly.

Looking unintentionally gay, did you say?

I give him full props for obviously not caring whether he looked gay or not.

And I think I know who Timmy was channeling at Cannes this year.

He still doesn't care.

The lifts in his shoes get higher with every movie.

Okay, RDJ is obviously still a little freakier than I thought he was. Not really digging the whole Manson Family Leprechaun look at R344. But hats off for keeping things weird.

I can't link, but evidently RDJ dressed up as the Easter Bunny a year or so ago for a children's charity. Not quite goat-boy, but he was still hopping all over the place.

They’ve clearly fucked each other.

Really, R348.

Depp never seemed gay to me. And certainly not gay for Downey, who pre-jail was always too much of a genuine loose cannon, sexuality and relationship-wise.

I could see Depp maybe - maybe - experimenting with someone like River or even Leo (not that I think this necessarily happened either).

Depp was married in his very early 20s to a woman named Lori Allison. She wasn't famous, just a makeup artist in LA and she actually helped his career by introducing him to Nicolas Cage who pushed for Depp's film career to take off. Maybe Cage had a crush on Depp and they fooled around a bit?

I could make the same speculation about any two male actors who happen to meet, I suppose.

For what it's worth Cage seems completely straight. I was a bit intrigued about him evidently handing off the role in Nightmare on Elm Street to Depp.

Honestly, when it comes to people like Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt who had no absolutely Hollywood nepotism and weren't child stars and then had their careers blow up in their mid-to-late 20s. It's not too far-fetched to assume they did some sexual favors to get ahead. There's so many good-looking young men in LA that they would have to distinguish themselves from that competition. It doesn't mean they're gay just ambitious and fame-hungry they would go gay-for-pay.

This is so true. Watching RDJ throughout his life and career, I’m amazed (and happy) that he’s not only survived but made a good like for himself. I never had the same concerns about Depp, and am surprised his life is now a total shit show.

Timing of the addiction I suppose.

I agree, R352. But I can't see that Cage was in a meaningful position to help Depp back when he needed it. The NoES role seemed a bit of a fluke in context. It wasn't like Cage could actually give him the role.

And in the mid-1980s Downey was in no position to help himself, let alone Depp. It would be like being a starving actor fucking another starving actor, only the second starving actor is younger, has a drug problem, hyperactive disorder, the attention span of an in-heat otter and daddy issues.

Actually, it would have not been "like" that. It would have BEEN that.

I can see Downey getting cuddly with Depp as a teen, because with X amount of booze in him the guy would have snuggled with a cement block at that point. Depp reciprocating? Not so much.

Depp was a mess for a long time. He used to date cokehead/model Kate Moss and there was a domestic abuse issue while they were together in a hotel room which Depp trashed. I suspect he's a Princess Tiny Meat.

Depp is short ugh

356, so is Downey and it wouldn't slow me down. Pocket-size guys are a turn-on for me.

But it's true that Downey somehow looks cute as a smaller guy because he's so elven to begin with.

Didn't Johnny also abuse Winona? She was very young when she got together with him too.

Something very sinister about Depp

I’m glad Depp is getting imploding

Always got a bad vibe from Depp.

But I’ve been infatuated with RDJ for almost 40 years.

I watched some of RDJ's "The Last Party" a clip of which is shown at R310. There's a bit with his father that is painful to watch where Snr. basically admits that maybe having his kid smoke pot at the age of 8 was not a great idea. Jr. just looks so suddenly lost and damaged and shocked for a few seconds and even his laughter gets incredibly sad. The cameraman asks Snr. "Did you think you might lose him?" and Snr. replies "many times" and Jr. suddenly snaps "That's none of your fucking business" at the cameraman.

The rumor was that Depp accidentally shot Winona while fooling around with an antique gun. They hushed it up, but the injury caused her to drop out of Godfather III and led to her painkiller addiction later on. No idea if it's true, but if it were, he really did a number on the poor girl.

That reminds me of when Charlie Sheen shot Kelly Preston by "accident" and I don't think she pressed charges. Charlie's abusive behavior was an open secret for years and as was his drug addiction and sleeping with thousands of women. Now more is known is that he possibly raped those tons of women, watches illegal porn and molested kids and he also was an HIV spreader. He's probably the most depraved sociopathic person in Hollywood

And that's saying something!

Charlie Sheen really seems to be evil and from a very young age. I thought he was charismatic and good-looking in FDDO, but past that he always gave me the creeps. And even there he was riffing off his bad-boy aura.

I will say this - the last few crops of teen crush material seem nowhere near as bonkers/broken as the ones from the 80s.

Everyone was trucking broken in the 80s. So-called “normal” families were absolute Petrie dishes of dysfunction.

People make fun of helicopter parents, but they’re vastly preferable to the negligent and abusive piece of shit parents from the 80s.

R367, I've begun to think the same things too. Gen-X was basically the Afterthought Generation. "Okay, we've got the pot, the coke, the whiskey, the condoms - wait a minute, where are the kids?"

RDJ wasn't a kid in the 80s; he was born in 1965.

Which makes him still a teenager in the 1980s. Which is a kid.

I was born in 1971 and can attest that the parenting skills in general were the seed of the 80s teenage wasteland.

We were talking about how RDJ's father raised him in the 70s, though, not anything that happened in the 80s, by which time he was in high school. Child-raising culture of the 80s, however "trucking broken" it was, is irrelevant to the damage R362 is talking about. In any case, RDJ edited that exchange into his movie, so he wanted it out there.

R371 - the generation I was referring to on screen were the Brat Packers who were RDJ's age, more or less.

Toxic childhood parenting in the 70s gave way to toxic teen parenting in the 80s.

I thought it was an interesting moment for RDJ to keep, because it was a flash of where he was not in control of his emotions. And it shows his ambivalence towards his father (although certainly maybe more than he thought it did at the time).

R367 early 80s child here. I don’t wallow in it but those times and the parenting styles of those days have definitely fucked me up proper. Helicopter parents are vastly preferable. Add that to growing up in a world and having it completely change (9-11) right when you turned 18 was also fun.

I wouldn't be surprised if Depp had borderline personality disorder. Something he seemed to share with Winona, Kate and Amber. Hence the toxicity of those relationships. Vanessa is intelligent, mature and stable and she tried to keep Johnny straight and probably influenced him to do safe franchise movies to secure a stable income. I actually think Vanessa got tired of him and realized he probably wasn't going to grow up.

I don't think of Winona as having BPD. I agree that she's severely broken.

I associate BPD with abject cruelty, and I don't think of her as exhibiting that sort of behavior.

Perhaps I'm mistaken both about BDP and/or her behavior.

Johnny certainly demonstrates abject cruelty . Borderlines are vicious people

How is Johnny Depp abjectly cruel? He's reprehensible, certainly. But abject cruelty comes out of nowhere unless I misread the term.

Johnny is said to be very polite to staff and fans at least when he's sober. But he's Southern (something people forget), so friendliness and politeness is deeply ingrained into him. He's not completely rude or nasty to people like John Cusack is. But that doesn't Johnny doesn't have a mean streak, cutthroat attitude or can be an abuser to his significant others. He's passive aggressive. People's public lives are very different from personal lives. He gets drunk a lot and does ton of hard drugs which can turn the nicest people to absolute monsters. I think of him as BPD because he seems to have no sense of identity, he's impulsive, sensitive, self-loathing, has a victim mentality and the way he treated Kate and Amber, going from adoration to absolute hatred. In interviews, it's clear he hates himself and is ashamed of his hillbilly roots. He mentioned his mother being a cold and abusive alcoholic.

[quote] The family moved frequently during Depp's childhood, and he and his siblings lived in more than 20 different locations, settling in Miramar Florida, in 1970. In 1978, Depp's parents divorced. Depp engaged in self-harm when he was young, due to the stress of dealing with family problems, which resulted in several self-inflicted scars. With the gift of a guitar from his mother when he was 12, Depp began playing in various garage bands. A year after his parents' divorce, Depp dropped out of high school to become a rock musician.

Not surprised he's fucked up given his dysfunctional family background. He was a cutter during his teen years and he also talked about suicidal ideations even recently. He also mentioned his family being Baptist, he's not the most masculine or extroverted guy out there, so I can see him being bullied for that in his youth. His tattoo addiction, drinking and drug addiction are all forms of self-harm. His financial irresponsibility comes from the fact, he grew up poor and doesn't know shit about managing money. He's a damaged person who needs therapy but obviously won't get it out of ego and he's surrounded by enablers.

From an 1993 interview:

It makes sense, except that you're the man whose tattoo reads WINONA FOREVER. It seems to run against it.

[Quietly] It doesn't run against it at all. I consider all my tattoos as specific moments in my life. 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 where you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it to yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist.

Have you marked yourself with a knife?

Sure.

Where?

(He rolls up his sleeve. On his left forearm are a series of seven or eight scars.)

(Trying to hide my shock) Wow. You did that yourself? (He nods.) What kind of things do they mark?

Just . . . moments.

Some people would think that was slightly psychotic—to draw your own blood.

Really? You're not at liberty to judge after you've eaten that pickled tomato that has been sitting rancid in this deli for months. ---

Well, that interview linked at R380 was kind of horrifying.

I know Downey said/did some fucked up shit, but not quite from the same place of darkness as Depp seemed to be.

Felt sorry for the kid.

I'm sure if RDJ and Depp were born in a more recent time, they would have gotten treatment in their teen years due to more awareness of mental illness. Both are broken people but RDJ got the help he needed by force, he was absolutely out of control before his arrest and imprisonment. RDJ's father exposed him to drugs and alcohol at an early age which led to his addiction. The fact that Depp was cutting himself as a teenager and nobody seemed to notice or care is not surprising since he grew up in a rural conservative area where discussion of mental health is a taboo and it's considered rude to get involved in domestic problems.

Has Depp ever played a southerner? Interesting if he hasn't. He had the opportunity to do so in Burton's Big Fish, but he dropped out and was replaced by Ewan McGregor.

[quote]which resulted in several self-inflicted scars

I didn't notice any scars in the clip at R321, but I'll go back and watch it closely over and over to see if any are visible.

Depp is gross and his career is over

Depp played a Southerner for Cry-Baby. Which was set in Maryland during the 50s. His character was a hillbilly outsider that was feared and rejected by the middle class.

Hmm. It is interesting that once he had some clout in Hollywood, he never played one again.

Are there really all that many roles being written for southerners these days?

Channng Tatum gets all the Southerner roles.

The interview at R380 gets worse on re-reading. I mean this is Depp in 1993, when he was still very much a golden boy. And yet there seems not one flash of happiness or optimism or spark about life in the whole dialogue. Granted there are some bizarre moments that Depp is put through with the weirdo trying to flag luxury cars or whatever that was. But I don't feel in this piece that Depp had a passion for acting. It's mostly like he tolerated it.

It seems less and less puzzling as to why these two switched tracks in the long run. Downey likes his job.

It becomes more clear Depp's addiction made him continue acting for money rather than as a passion. He really started phoning in performances by the early 2000s. Unlike his contemporaries like Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, Depp doesn't try to work with artistic directors anymore. But I don't think Scorsese or Malik would know what to do with Depp. RDJ does do lame movies for money too (Due Date, Doolittle, etc) but he can still show his passion, his Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes are such great interpretations of legacy characters. Depp's Willy Wonka and Mad Hatter felt uninspired and more Tim Burton (who is creatively bankrupt now) than himself. Let's not even get started on Mortdecai.

*Malick

I agree about Stark and Holmes and think RDJ's Holmes is one of the better ones, cinematically, regardless of how half-witted the films themselves are. A mischievous, puckish, sexually tense Holmes is a new twist and RDJ didn't even break a sweat carrying it off.

I have to give Depp some points for Wonka, hideous as the whole thing was - he sustained the concept and never broke ranks with it. But I agree that the character was generated by Burton, not Depp. A shame, because I think Depp might have carried off the real character from the books if Burton had been inclined to do so. Love Wilder's Wonka, but that wasn't the book's character either, BTW.

Looks like Depp is still prying away at Amber Heard - he has a new case that seeks proof she donated her 7 million settlement to charity as she claimed.

He'll never leave her alone. That shows you who the true abuser was in the relationship. A healthy-minded person wouldn't give a shit where the 7 million went; he'd just be glad she was out of his life.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, R395, but if he can prove she lied, even partially, about this I wonder if it would read as a point in his favor?

His fans are petitioning for her to be fired from the next Aquaman. Actually being in the next Aquaman would seem to be punishment enough for most people, but hey.

Does anyone even care about Amber Heard anymore? Other than johnny? I don['t give a shit whether she donated the money or not - I don't think anyone does other than Depp and some obsessed stalker stans.

The world has moved on.

WB basically said, in nicer terms, we never planned to fire Amber because of fuckwits on twitter.

Someone tell Johnny the best revenge is living well

Good advice come too late, methinks, R398.

I agree that this continually worrying away at the situation is doing him no favors. If he'd let it go from the beginning, nothing she said would have damaged him as much.

I know it's all CGI smoke and mirrors, however, I'd never seen Amber Heard before "Aquaman" (yup, I'm a fan of costly schlock and nobody does it better than Marvel and DC) but man, there's no getting around it- she's gorgeous.

In their heyday they should have done a Roaring 20s biopic about Hart Crane (Downey) and Harry Crosby (Depp). Drew Barrymore could have played Crosby's wife.

R400, it's an incredibly flawed film, but Heard was unnervingly glamorous in The Informers. She seemed to have a complete lack of bodily modesty and it didn't play as if the character was simply slutty. It was eerie, like the young nude woman in The Shining. I can see why Depp (and other men like him) would totally go for her.

Amber Heard is no doubt very stunning. But she looks empty inside just like Jennifer Lawrence and Megan Fox do. Clearly a disturbed person.

It's her emptiness that people like Depp find appealing. She seems like an object - a vase, say - which is what they really want (consciously or not).

But the vase had a spider in it.

They usually do.

Winona was like 17 when she hooked up with Depp who was 25 and already divorced. That's a pretty big age gap and power imbalance. Winona may have been wealthier and was a Hollywood name before him but she was still a lovesick and sheltered teenager. I think he may have liked her because she reminded him of a younger female version of himself. Both have that doe-eyed look, anxiety and mood disorders. Kate Moss was also very young when she started dating Depp but she wasn't a sheltered Hollywood kid and was already into hard drugs and fucking. Similar to Depp, she came from the gutter. Amber was just a straight up grifter and hustler who looked innocent, dumb and vapid but proved to be cunning and manipulative. Depp probably thought she would be a Winona or Kate 2.0 but was proven wrong.

R401 - egad. What a great idea.

Too late, R406! Unless we go back to 1995 in a time machine.

Yeah, I know, R407. Woulda coulda shoulda.

Downey even suggests Hart Crane physically (although Downey is better-looking).

Actually now that I think of it, given that Hart Crane always looked 20-30 years older than he was, now is the right time for RDJ to take that role. Sad that the decrepit Depp wouldn't work for Crosby.

Depending on the dynamic, maybe Paul Rudd would work for Crosby.

Paul Rudd has nowhere near the level of crazy eyes that Harry Crosby had. Doubt he could fake it, either.

Assuming Depp can be propped up, the Sherlock movie might be a toehold back for him. It would be interesting if Downey got him on board with the contingency that he quit boozing for the duration.

Que? What’s this about Depp being in “Sherlock”?

Fuck that. RDJ isn’t in the animal rescue business.,

R413, rumor evidently has it that Downey is trying to get Depp a role in the next Sherlock film as payback for Depp helping him out right after his jail term.

R414, Downey IS in the animal rescue business. Rescue lamas, rescue otters, rescue all sorts of things. He has a property in California where he keeps them.

Johnny had many chances and far more than RDJ had. The fact is, he is just not marketable anymore. He is old, lost his looks, no longer is sexy or fascinating, he is just creepy now and he destroyed his own reputation with the Amber Heard abuse and nasty divorce details. Hollywood is basically done with him. He could do some indie film roles or TV acting or do more directing and producing.

If Hollywood is done with Depp, R416, how will he get any chances to do directing and producing?

[quote]He could do some indie film roles

He's totally salvageable!

If Mickey Rourke can still have a career, Johnny Depp can still have a career.

R255 I worked with Johnny. He was very sweet and kind.

Has Downey ever written a book or talked about his experience in jail?

R421, according to a poster above, Downey was offered money to write his memoirs, thought about it and returned the advance. Maybe he'll feel differently when he's older. His life story would be one of the very few Hollywood tales I'd actually read, if he could bring himself to talk about things that have happened to him. Just the experiences he's had on set would be interesting.

He has alluded to prison but not in great detail. From what people have said, there was a episode of violence against him that really damaged him.

My idea would be for him to play himself in his own biopic. Why not? They used CGI to bring him back to about 22 in one of the Avengers films - but, as the director said, "he still had to play himself as young".

R420 can you tell us more?

R423 I can't reveal the project, but it was some time after What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I met him through Sean Penn. Both of them were wonderful to me. They treated me with respect and always listened to my input .

Johnny was very down-to-earth and genuine. He'd ask what I wanted for lunch and then phone up the restuarant and place the order to be delivered. I'm sure they thought he was a prankster. We talked about a lot of things. I liked him very much.

typo: restaurant

I worked with Johnny with River was still alive. I worked on something that River was in but never met him.

typo: when River was still alive.

R378 You do not know him, why do you assume he has no sense of identity? Borderline diagnosis being thrown around a lot on DL lately. Its misdiagnosed even with most therapists, for what its worth.

R428 here. And I do not get that he is ashamed of his hillbilly roots. If anything, I think he wears them proud because they give him a reason to act like a heathen.

R390 You try growing up in the holler with an addict monster mother.

Why are European Film Festivals Rushing to Rehabilitate Johnny Depp (and Can it Work)?

This looks like another disaster.

He should have cut Amber loose and shut up for a year or two.

There's a pandemic on. It's not even like he'd have to worry about undue attention.

Minamata is getting positive-to-mixed reviews. It's a fascinating topic, but one that I think I would have preferred as a documentary.

Re: comments here and elsewhere that RDJ was "a pass-around bottom at Hollywood parties" - yeah, having read some stuff about his younger days I'm not seeing it. Targeted for this? I could see that, at least initially. Him having sex, casual and otherwise, with men? Sure. But trading his ass for film work/making the rent? Not buying it. He was too obviously unstable and didn't seem to care what he said about himself and those two qualities don't add up. If you're engaged with that sort of behavior, you want it to be a business transaction, not someone who might do it for a lark and then tell everyone in town the next day how small your dick was, because, hey, it's funny.

Plus even back then, RDJ had issues with his self-worth - but a huge ego about his actual work.

[quote]I don’t believe anyone in Hollywood who says they are sober 100% of the time, but thats just me. Depp is cognitively stunted from years of substances and yes men. Rdj is probably a pill in real life but he has a great publicist, wife and carefully constructed persona and reputation. Being Hollywood actors, no doubt they are both insufferable but RDJ does have the advantage of having been clear-headed long enough to set his career on track.

Agreed; look at someone like Mel Gibson who inexplicably keeps getting chance after chance because people think he can make them $$. Depp made the mistake of fucking up so spectacularly and publicly that the powers that be decided that he was more trouble than he was worth & threw him to the wolves. RDJ, whatever his faults, seems to know how to stay in line & make sure everyone still gets paid.

I really dislike Gibson, so haven't been following his career, but it seems he has kept his big fucking mouth shut since his period of screw-ups.

That said, Gibson seems much more aggressively nasty than Depp, despite Depp's ugliness towards Heard.

And RDJ doesn't even rate a twitch on the Offend-o-meter compared to either of them.

RDJ years ago struck me as a way-too-vulnerable soul and the last person who should have been thrown to the wolves the way he was. Throw Charlie Sheen’s ass in prison, why don’t you.

I do not know what RDJ’s about these days. He gives a lot of very vulnerable, rambling interviews but his wife and his machine are pretty formidable. Maybe they protect him in the way he should have been protected as a child and young adult. I hope so.

I wonder if he has made peace with his father’s mistakes now that he (RDJ) is also the father of a troubled young man (Indio.)

I’m glad he’s been rewarded for hanging in there.

I have never understood how Charlie fucking Sheen never went to jail and RDJ did.

Sheen is loathsome and an actually bad person.

Agree, R438

As to the question of why RDJ doesn’t do more interesting work: can he really disappear into a role these days? He’s played so many larger than life characters at this point.

Good question, R440. I think his smaller roles have shown that he can still play at subtle levels, but I'm not sure if he's just tapping into a more relaxed version of himself.

I do think accusations that certain actors play themselves have always puzzled me a bit. If the persona works for the character then who cares - and I don't think it's any easier to "play yourself" than it is to play someone unlike yourself. I'd feel much more comfortable in front of a camera being somebody unlike myself than I would simply letting an audience see the "real me".

Some actress (Lauren Bacall? Barbara Stanwick? Somebody similar anyway) was once questioned about whether or not she played herself in films. She said something along the lines of "I sure hope not, because I play some horrible people. On the other hand, I still have to know my lines."

RDJ was great in Charlie Bartlett and The Soloist. He didn't headline them but he was wonderful in both films, IMO.

The rumour was acutally that he was wearing a Wonder woman costume ( pre Marvel of course) while getting gang-banged during some bender in a seedy motel room. R434

R443, while RDJ has done some truly weird shit, that sounds about as likely as claiming that Drew Barrymore did the ping-pong-ball trick at the Pebble Beach golf classic after a week on the crack-pipe.

It's just a little too baroque in its supposed likelihood to be feasible.

I’d like to see RDJ play a maybe gaybe Literature professor who seduces a (male) student.

Who can play the student?

RDJ disappeared beautifully into a small but exquisite role in "Good Night and Good Luck" opposite Patricia Clarkson.

He played a gay writer who seduced Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys.

He's played gay characters quite a few times.

I still think his performance in Less The Zero was perhaps the bravest of any actor of his generation during that period. I can't remember any other Brat Pack-era actor who agreed to do a gay nude scene. And he carried it off in context.

I think it's less that he's lost his talent and more that he did lose some of that fearlessness he had. You could have asked 20-something RDJ to do pretty much anything and he'd do it and make it work. I think he's less willing to put himself in X situation now and I think that's because of real-life trauma.

The look he has on his face when Rip first tells him Bill’s going to take him to “party” with some people is heartbreaking. (Scene on the stairs of Rip’s terrifying 80s house.)

[quote] I can't remember any other Brat Pack-era actor who agreed to do a gay nude scene

Pix, please.

[quote]I think it's less that he's lost his talent and more that he did lose some of that fearlessness he had. You could have asked 20-something RDJ to do pretty much anything and he'd do it and make it work. I think he's less willing to put himself in X situation now and I think that's because of real-life trauma.

Either that or he's so rich now thanks to the Marvel movies that he just doesn't care anymore. Once you reach a certain plateau, the hunger goes away. Perhaps on some level he'd still like to have an Oscar (what actor wouldn't) but beyond that, he's over it now.

That's depressing, R451. But it makes sense too. It also explains actors like De Niro and Pacino to some extent.

It does make RDJ's death scene in Endgame poignant on a different level. "You can rest now."

R450, it's a blink and you'll miss it shot, but the fact that it was there at all was shocking for me at the time, and very little I've seen since quite worked the same way.

I was a horny teenager desperate for even a glimpse of butt, and here it was - but the scene was upsetting instead of arousing because the situation was clearly exploitative. Yett he director made two very canny choices.

He didn't present a gay sex act as innately vile. Julian's trick was, IIRC, a handsome man with a good body - older than Julian, but not grotesquely so. This was almost unheard of in mainstream film. This wasn't the nightmarish couple in The Shining, for example, where both people are clothed, one in a ludicrous suit and the act is obviously seen as hideous. And that was Kubrick.

He didn't present Julian as someone completely adverse to the experience of gay sex, either. A fairly basic reading of Julian's collapse is that he is deeply in love with Clay; he sleeps with Blair specifically because of her link to Clay.

The coercion in the act was what was ugly.

But that wouldn't have played the way it did if RDJ hadn't been able to portray beauty, passivity, confusion and self-loathing, things male Brat Pack actors were not expected to do, and he did.

This is also miles above anything I got of the novel.

And having written the above, I realize that there is no scene in anything Johnny Depp did at the same age or later that ever shocked me as much as that scene did or left me feeling that he was putting himself out there to the same extent.

Depp is a magpie, Downey is a mockingbird.

Julian is in love with Clay, and Rip is in love with Julian.

It’s why Rip “carried [Julian] like I’m stupid.”

But Rip is deeply self-loathing and also perceives Julian as taking advantage of him.

Which, let’s face it, Julian probably did. Julian seems remarkably flippant about the 50k for most of the movie.

Eventually Rip takes revenge, but in a remarkably degrading and personal way.

Someone upthread said RDJ is aloof with underlings - any examples or stories?