Johnny Depp & Keith Richards: Pirates of the Caribbean's Blood Brothers

>>This is an excerpt from the latest issue of Rolling Stone, on stands until June 1st.

'Come in, it's a beast out there." With those words, Johnny Depp swings open the door to his sleek air-conditioned trailer and offers blessed relief from the brutal California heat wave. Here on the Disney lot in Burbank, where production is under way on Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Depp's trailer -- where reggae and African music are currently blasting -- is his personal oasis from the rigors of three-peating his Oscar-nominated turn as pirate king Jack Sparrow in the alleged final chapter in this box-office treasure chest ($1.7 billion to date). For the past few days, Depp has been graciously sharing the digs with another unimpeachable source of cool. That would be Keith Richards, on a break last September from the Rolling Stones' Bigger Bang tour, to film the small but pivotal role of Jack's far from dear old dad, Captain Teague. It's damn near typecasting, since Depp admits he used Richards as a model for the dreadlocked, mascaraed Jack. As Roger Ebert wrote, "Depp seems to be channeling a drunken drag queen, with his eyeliner and the way he minces ashore and slurs his dialogue ever so insouciantly."

Even with the heat, there's no slurring today. Never mind those stories later circulated by Pirates castmate Bill Nighy that Richards was so soused and wobbly on the set that director Gore Verbinski had to hold Richards' shins steady while he filmed his scenes. At this moment, both Depp and Richards are ready for action, dressed in full pirate regalia for the day's shoot. Richards, who's actually been up and working all morning, appears fantastically torn and tattered, with a bandanna and braids, scars and patches, facial hair and a puffy shirt. The joke is he doesn't look that much different onstage as the lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones.

Depp's trailer is movie-star expansive and well swabbed with couches and wall tapestries, yet the joint also has the scary vibe of a voodoo lounge. After all, Richards, a certified wild card, recently told a Brit magazine that he was so close to his late dad, Bert, that he snorted his ashes with a bit of blow. He said he was kidding, of course, but with Richards you never know. Days earlier, another reporter earned the wrath of Keith for mistaking Richards' famed skull ring for an Iggy Pop copy. The blunder led the rock icon to threaten the journalist with sodomy by banana.

Richards, 63, and Depp, 43, have been casually friendly for a decade. Depp is downright solicitous of his big-screen father, who today has taken to calling him "Johnny, me boy." Depp even offers to fetch cigarettes, making him the highest-paid gofer in Hollywood. "I could use one, yeah," says Richards. "Thanks, mate."

It's clear that Depp, a longtime musician and guitar freak, is having the time of his life during Richards' solo stop on the Disney lot. For all the rock edge that Richards brings with him anywhere, his affection for Depp is clear even when he calls him an "asshole."