Johnny Depp has fond memories of his first machine gun.
He was just a bitty kid growing up in Owensboro, Ky., but somewhere around age 5 or 6, he began shooting .22s, then moved on to .38s, .44s and .45s. And then he got his hands on a relative's Thompson machine gun.
"I butted it up against the tree 'cause it tends to ride up on you," says the 46-year-old actor, who relives the moment, complete with shooting sounds. He begins clapping his hand on the top of his imaginary gun. "My pop came in and grabbed it, so it didn't go anywhere." He laughs.
Guns are certainly a topic of conversation today for Depp, given that the superstar is talking about his new film, "Public Enemies" (opening Friday), the Michael Mann gangster epic in which he plays famed 1930s bank robber John Dillinger. But firearms crop up in other ways too, like in the story about the first time Depp met his longtime friend, the late Hunter Thompson. Depp -- who played the author in the 1998 film version of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and recently finished work on an adaptation of "The Rum Diary" -- went to Thompson's house in Colorado, where he complimented the writer on a beautiful 12-gauge shotgun hanging on the wall.
"He said, 'Oh, yeah, wanna fire it?' " recalls Depp, relishing the memory. Then Thompson told him to hold on to a couple of small propane tanks. "I got a cigarette hanging in my mouth and he starts handing me these little matchbox-shaped square bits and told me to tape them to the sides of the tanks. I said 'What is this we are taping to the side of this propane tank?' And he said, 'Nitroglycerin.' "
Depp opens his black eyes wide and wears a look of horror. "I chucked my cigarette in the sink!"
Later, he shot the tanks in Thompson's back yard and "there was an 80-foot fireball. I think that was my test," he says, laughing.
It's hard to imagine that Depp wouldn't ace any sort of exam that tests the limits of the free spirit. He's perhaps the most eccentric of all the major male movie stars. Ironically enough -- given his actual background with guns -- he's practically the only one who didn't ascend to Hollywood superstardom with shoot-'em-up roles in action movies. Depp's certainly done more than almost any other actor in Hollywood to expand the on-screen concept of masculinity, bringing "guyliner" to mainstream America well before Adam Lambert ever appeared on "American Idol" as well as a vision of male heterosexuality that still maintains an element of the feminine and tons of real rebelliousness.
