Public Enemies
|
Public Enemies
2009
John Dillinger |
PHOTO GALLERY
SOUND CLIPS
|
GENERAL INFORMATION In the action-thriller Public Enemies, Johnny plays the charismatic bank robber John Dillinger whose lightning raids made him the number one target of the fledgling FBI. Made America's first 'Public Enemy Number One' he is pursued by top agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), but his gang continually outwit and outgun the FBI. Only betrayal by 'The Lady in Red' and a Chicago crime boss can bring him down. Source: Universal Pictures
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup, Channing Tatum, Stephen Graham
Awards & Nominations:
2009 TEEN CHOICE AWARDS:
Choice Summer Movie Star, Male - Johnny Depp (Nominated)
Choice Summer Movie, Drama (Nominated)2010 ART DIRECTORS GUILD:
Excellence in Production Design Award, Period Films (Nominated)2010 EMPIRE AWARDS (UK):
Best Thriller (Nominated)2010 SATELLITE AWARDS:
Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama - Johnny Depp (Nominated)
Best Art Direction & Production Design - Nathan Crowley, Patrick Lumb, Willkiam Ladd Skinner (Nominated)
Best Cinematography - Dante Spinotti (Nominated)
Best Original Score - Elliot Goldenthal (Nominated)2010 SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARD: Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture (Nominated)
Source: IMDB.com
Quotes from Johnny Depp:
"The best thing about playing an outlaw, though, I suppose, was the Thompson submachine gun and unlimited amunition." -- Johnny Depp
LA Premiere, Red Carpet Interview, MTV News
June 23, 2009"Dillinger was one of those guys, like Charlie Chaplin and Evel Knievel, that I was fascinated with at a young age. And because of my grandfather (who ran moonshine on the back roads of Kentucky), the character was pretty easy for me to connect to. In a way, this movie is a salute to him."
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Weekly
January 9, 2009"Some people might disagree, but I think he was a real-life Robin Hood. I mean the guy wasn't completely altruistic, but he went out of his way not to kill anybody. He definitely gave a lot of that money away. I love the guy."
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Weekly
January 9, 2009"All of the dress shirts were still folded perfectly (in a still-preserved suitcase left behind by Dillinger.) It was a real insight into the guy. Because everything was ready to go at a moment's notice. It was just economical and beautiful."
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Weekly
January 9, 2009"And - get this - we're the same size!"
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Weekly
January 9, 2009"It's always interesting to get in the ring with a director and explore their process and see what it does for them."
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Weekly
January 9, 2009"They should invent a word to describe it (Mann's attention to details,) because it's not just details, it teeters on microscopic obsession with every molecule of the moment. Which is admirable, you know? You got to salute that."
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Weekly
January 9, 2009"The interesting thing is, John Dillinger really became a criminal almost by accident. The two main ingredients for his initial incarceration were ignorance and youth. There are moments in life when those two walk hand in hand in a very tight grip. When he went inside, the world was one thing, and when he came out, it was Technicolor. Women dressed differently. It was a different planet. Prison at that time was college for criminals. He went in and basically learned how to rob banks. By all accounts, he wasn't the best student initially, but he got the hang of it."
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Weekly
January 9, 2009"Well, let's just say, how often do you get to stand on the running board of an old 1932 Buick blasting a 50-round clip from a Thompson submachine gun? When do you get to do that without getting into trouble for it? And with Michael, you get to do it again and again and again."
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Weekly
January 9, 2009"[Dillinger] knew the clock was ticking, and boy, if right now wasn't the best time to have a good time, then I don't know when is!"
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Weekly
April 24 - May1, 2009"The closest I could get (to hearing Dillinger's voice) was basically listening to his pa. There were some recordings that sounded exactly like my relatives... His pop sounded like my grandfather, almost exactly. So I just made a decision to sound not aggressively southern but to adopt a bit of a drawl."
--Johnny Depp
Vanity Fair
July 2009"I got a sneaking suspicion that [John Dillinger] was probably a very lovable character. His choice of occupations was potentially questionable. Although during that period he was a man of the people."
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Tonight
June 18, 2009"Back then it was sleek. There was a perfection in the style and Colleen Atwood who was the costume designer came in and absolutely destroyed it."
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Tonight
June 18, 2009"Working with [Marion Cotillard] and having that opportunity to get in the ring and toss things around was pretty wonderful. She is a great, great talent."
--Johnny Depp
Entertainment Tonight
June 18, 2009''Marion really worked hard on that accent, and I think the way she speaks in the film adds so much to the personality of the character she plays. You can see why Dillinger fell in love with her so easily.''
-- Johnny Depp
Chicago Sun-Times
June 28, 2009''We would sometimes speak French to each other on the set, especially when we didn't want anyone else to know what we were saying."
-- Johnny Depp
Chicago Sun-Times
June 28, 2009"[Michael Mann is] intense, and as long as you sort of walk into the ring ready for that, it's all fine. [He is] painting the picture, and that's the one thing that takes a bit of getting used to. I'm definitely not good at just being a color on the palette, you know. I need a brush in my hand sometimes."
-- Johnny Depp
Los Angeles Times Online
June 28, 2009"John Dillinger was that era's rock and roll star. He was a very charismatic man and he lived the way he wanted to and didn't compromise."
-- Johnny Depp
Leute Heute
June 2009"I feel he was a kind of a Robin Hood because he truly cared about people. He knew time was short and I believe he had found himself and was at peace with the fact that it wasn't going to be a very long ride, but it was going to be a significant ride."
-- Johnny Depp
Leute Heute
June 2009''He got away with it, or at least he got away with it for a long time before he was gunned down at the Biograph [Theater]. People ... the public, love Robin Hood-like characters, and no one was more like that than Dillinger. Plus, the fact he was so blatant, so in-your-face had a lot to do with it, too."
-- Johnny Depp
Chicago Sun-Times
June 28, 2009''The guy had moxie and swagger and guts. He lived on the edge and the public ate it up.''
-- Johnny Depp
Chicago Sun-Times
June 28, 2009"In 1933, getting out of prison after serving 10 years, he was more of a punk rock star. And if he were a rocker in today's world -- oh, maybe he would be like Joe Strummer when he was with The Clash."
-- Johnny Depp
Parade.com
June 29, 2009"Any time you're playing someone who existed, it's a real challenge to be trustful to what he was, how he spoke, how he walked... So I truly did lots of research to figure out the real John Dillinger. It wasn't easy, but I got clues, like for his tone of voice, I listened to his dad's voice. There were no other recordings available with Dillinger's voice."
-- Johnny Depp
Buzzine
June 2009"The tough job was left to Michael Mann to be faithful to the '30s and bring back the true emotion of the times. It really was a bad time for America due to the ravages caused by the 1929 financial crash. I think Michael did a great job and I'm thankful for it.
-- Johnny Depp
Buzzine
June 2009"There was a guy in Chicago making these things for us and he was such a great, great artist. I think the thing about hats, coats, suits, ties - that whole thing -- what I appreciate about it is, I suppose, what it represents. Everyone made an effort then. Times were so different. There was still a kind of innocence. There were still possibilities and everyone made an effort -- hats coats, and ties. I've always felt like I probably should have been born in that era."
-- Johnny Depp
Buzzine
June 2009"John Dillinger, I think, just like any red-blooded American, was handed the ball and he ran with it, and that's not any different than what happened to me a very long time ago. You're handed the ball, and you go as far as you can go until somebody says, 'All right, kid, you're done. Get off the ride.'"
-- Johnny Depp
Buzzine
June 2009"He definitely was a man with a sense of humor, and I just happened to be a sucker for humor, so anywhere I can sneak in something that I find potentially interesting or funny... And also a guy who, at the same time, has some sort of great, wonderful outlook. Like I said, he knew the clock was ticking, he knew his time was up, he knew there wasn't much more to go, and he was gonna make the best of it in any case. Pretty amazing."
-- Johnny Depp
Buzzine
June 2009"I don't know if we make that same species of individual truly anymore... because I don't believe he went out there to kill anyone. I think he just went out there to get what he felt was rightfully his... I don't know if we, as a species, are the same as we were then."
-- Johnny Depp
Buzzine
June 2009
Quotes from others:
"I will tell you there were scenes and moments it was complete and total rapport, and other times I'm seeing it one way and we're butting heads a little bit, but Johnny said to me the other night, 'When things are wonderful and blissful on set, it's usually not a good movie.'"
-- Michael Mann
Los Angeles Times Online
June 28, 2009"Johnny has courage and immense power. It's all about the spontaneity of the moment for him."
--Michael Mann
Entertainment Weekly
January 9, 2009"Depp is extraordinary. I believe one of the things that drew him to this character is there's a certain darkness within him, in his life, that enables him to feel a connection to Dillinger. I mean the currents within Johnny run very, very deep. I am knocked out by what he's done in this picture."
--Michael Mann
Empire Magazine
January 2009"Johnny Depp was in the same bed that Dillinger was in, the same bathroom. The bullet holes were still in the walls."
--Michael Mann
Empire Magazine
January 2009"We don't know each other in the slightest. I met him at the script read-through. We chatted for five or ten minutes. Other than that, I had two scenes with him, one in which he's in a jail cell. I have a tendency, and it seemed like he was happy to do the same... to not really wish to talk unless we're doing the scene. I enjoy it that way. Then, it just happened that [in] the other scene we were doing we were about 200 feet away from each other, he was a silhouette in a window, and I was shooting at him. I was behind a tree, and he was shooting at me, and that was the closest we got that evening. I'll get to know Johnny somewhere down the track, because it certainly didn't happen on the movie."
--Christian Bale
www.starplus.com
May 11, 2009"I think watching the way Johnny Depp was so generous to his fans at the end of each day and signing autographs and being focused on his work was really incredible and really impressed me. He did it with such joy and he was so happy. He never acted like he was deserving of his glory, he always acted humble about it. I've never seen an attitude that was so healthy and generous and he's a person that keeps his life so normal with a private life."
--LeeLee Sobieski
www.okmagazine.com
May 20, 2009"I needed many takes to have the accent right, and I was very stressed out about the whole thing because it was my first movie after La Vie en Rose, Johnny was very nice and reassuring."
--Marion Cottilard
Times and Transcript
May 23, 2009"[H]e has a huge respect of people and things. He is a real gentleman, he is an amazing actor so I knew that when you work with an amazing actor it makes you be better than if you work with someone who is totally out of it."
-- Marion Cottilard
Gulf News
May 25, 2009''Johnny's French is excellent. [I could not let myself] lapse into speaking a lot of pure French with Johnny. I was working so hard to really perfect the accent of [my character] Billie Frechette, and that was not easy!"
-- Marion Cottilard
Chicago Sun-Times
June 28, 2009"A lot of what goes on inside Johnny Depp could be used and revealed. I know there are dark currents within Johnny and also from his past life, and I know he has a lot of John Dillinger inside of him. He has a deep understanding of a troubled past and a troubled life, but is someone who is a very passionate man. He could understand those currents in unique ways. I'm not saying Johnny Depp was troubled, [but that he] could really empathize [with Dillinger's troubles.]"
--Michael Mann
San Francisco Chronicle (online at SF Gate)
May 10, 2009"Johnny Depp is a very, very nice guy. It was my first film after La Vie en Rose and I was very nervous and he was very protective. He was very, very nice and if you really want to know, he is a good kisser."
-- Marion Cotillard
Entertainment Tonight
June 18, 2009"Johnny's a guy who doesn't rehearse, and Michael was a big rehearser, so they had to work that out."
-- G. Mac Brown, Producer
30 Ninjas
June 2009"I think any time you have two alpha males like Johnny Depp and Michael Mann together who both are absolutely sure they know how to do it best, yeah, there's stuff to work out. In this case, they certainly butted heads and battled their way through it, but I think it brought stuff to both sides that only enhanced the movie, which is what I told Michael and Johnny from the beginning. They'd complain about the other, and it was clear that, 'Are you kidding? You're only doing better because of it.' So it was one of those things where it was tough times, but all for good in the end."
-- G. Mac Brown, Producer
30 Ninjas
June 2009"I think that that was certainly one of the things, for sure. You know, Michael by no means wants to crush spontaneity. He just wants to give you the basis to find the real spontaneity that you should be feeling at that moment, rather than what you might feel just by living in 2009. And feeling that Johnny is a movie star who lives a kind of protected life, and Michael wanted to get him out and get his hands dirty. And from Johnny's point of view, the character is gonna come from within him, not from something a director tells him. They made each other mad, and that anger only made them both better in their performance. It made Michael work harder, it made Johnny work harder, and there's a fierceness that's in the movie that you see it -- that it wasn't just acting, it wasn't just directing, it was two men going at it."
-- G. Mac Brown, Producer
30 Ninjas
June 2009"From now on when the American public thinks of John Dillinger, they'll think of Johnny Depp. Whoever Dillinger was in real life is going to be subsumed by the Johnny Depp version -- which in a way is the best thing that could have happened to John Dillinger."
--Paul Maccabee (author of John Dillinger Slept Here)
New York Daily News (.com)
July 2, 2009