Johnny Depp goes from hero to zero for his movie role in The Tourist with Angelina Jolie

REGARDLESS of his gold teeth, penchant for wearing eyeliner, Oscar nominations, French model wife, and property portfolio including a Caribbean island, Johnny Depp is doing his best impression of a normal guy.
To prove the point he is explaining to Hit the benefits of cotton pyjamas.

"I have a tendency to lean toward insomnia," the 47-year-old actor explains.

"One time this pal of mine who I've made a couple of films with, Julian Schnabel, said to me 'I've got just the answer for you!' He gave me these big, baggy, cotton pyjamas and I slept about 12 hours. It was like a miracle.

"But you don't want to abuse the pyjamas. If you get used to them you're screwed. So it's an occasional thing now when I really need comfort."

Like his much-professed love of a good Bordeaux red wine, Depp clearly appreciates decent sleepwear.

In his latest film The Tourist, the Hollywood heart-throb spends a decent chunk of screen time running through Venice in a pair of blue and white striped PJs.

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"The pyjamas are proof I'm no longer the sexiest guy alive," he says.

After decades of playing the whimsical and weird - Edward Scissorhands, the Mad Hatter, Jack Sparrow and Willy Wonka - Depp was delighted to try his hand at playing an average guy; in The Tourist, he plays a maths teacher from Wisconsin called Frank.

"I thought it may be an interesting challenge to go after Mr Normal - and it was a challenge," Depp says.

"In terms of playing some kind of James Bond character, it's been done. I'd much rather see Mr Normal panicked and under pressure, hobbling across a rooftop, as opposed to some guy and his giant leaps off buildings."

Depp admits he ploughed through beer and pasta to achieve his bloated "Cabbage Patch" look for the role.

The character Frank, he says, was based on an accountant friend who would travel the world to photograph himself standing beside street signs bearing his name.

"Here is an accountant, the most upstanding man, and I just thought he was the weirdest thing ever," Depp laughs.

Depp is joined in the Hitchcock-inspired comedy-thriller by Angelina Jolie, who convinces Frank to pretend to be her criminal husband.

The pair had never met before shooting began in Venice last year, but Depp said he was struck by how Jolie was "incredibly down-to-earth, kind, caring, funny, cool and smart" despite the "global microscope" placed on her life with partner Brad Pitt and their children.

"You can't help but know about them because they are followed and scrutinised so closely and constantly that you never know what that person is going to be like. I was pleasantly surprised," Depp says.

"When you're hanging around watching her with her kids, she's a great mummy, a normal mummy. Her boy Maddox and my boy Jack were playing video games like savages for a long time. They were having a real ball."

While Depp refuses to watch any of his films, he does believe he had a special on-screen bond with Jolie.

"It certainly felt good," he says. "I haven't seen the movie but I enjoyed every second of it. You can throw her any curveball and she'll chuck another one back at you. We had some serious giggling matches."

Rumours that a shower sex scene between the pair had to be cut from The Tourist are true, Depp says. But it wasn't scrapped for its overt steaminess, it was just because it failed to fit with the film.

"It was weirdly logistical. It was going to happen but didn't work for the film," Depp explains.

"I did hear about it and people send me these things like, 'What happened to the shower?' Maybe next time for the shower scene."

Despite his own global stardom, Depp has managed to lead a quiet life outside of the spotlight, preferring to raise his son Jack, eight, and daughter Lily-Rose, 11, with partner Vanessa Paradis, 38, in the south of France and on his island in the Bahamas.

So low-key does he manage to keep his life, he was quite shocked when he became part of the media attention placed on Jolie during the filming of The Tourist.

"You wake up in the morning, have your coffee and you're leaving for work and you ask your guy, 'How many outside this morning?' and he's like, 'Ahh, there's 35'. Oh, OK.

"You get into a boat and drive to work and there's three boatloads of paparazzi following you. I can't say I was pressurised by it, but I got a good laugh out of it. It was one of the most absurd and surreal things I've ever seen."

Depp admits he toys with the idea of withdrawing completely from movies and the public eye.

"Oh every day. Every single day," he says.

But it's an unlikely source, his close friend, mentor and Rolling Stone Keith Richards, who keeps him focused on maintaining his life as a famous, but normal, guy.

"The best thing one could learn from Keith Richards is he had fame thrown at him before he was shaving, and 50 years later he is as still as cool, as down-to-earth and as normal and treats everyone exactly the same as he ever did," Depp says.

"It's a difficult feat in this business."