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

The first question is for you, Keith. Has your career as a rock star all been Method preparation for playing a pirate?
RICHARDS: Actually, you could look at it like that. Both are ways to make a good dishonest living. Pirates are very democratic. Everything's for sale: left leg so much, testicles so much. I mean, they did have a deal going on those boats that was way ahead of the Constitution.

You have some band experience too, Johnny, from your teen years with the Kids. Have you figured out if there are any differences between pirates and rockers? DEPP: I always thought of pirates being the rock stars of the eighteenth century. With both, the myth arrives before them. The word comes around the bend months before they arrive.

Do you remember when you were first aware of the myth of Keith?
DEPP: Very, very early. Simply found his music. It was always my first love, even as a small kiddie. I remember when I started fucking around on a guitar for the first time. Keith -- he goes to the forefront.

Have you gotten a chance to play together?
RICHARDS: Not yet.

And how would you compare yourself as a player to the guitar god over here?
DEPP: I wouldn't even, like, begin.

RICHARDS: Johnny's probably better than he thinks. I'm probably not as good as he thinks.

DEPP: I was almost afraid to meet him for a long time, because there is always a fear that your heroes are going to be shitheads.

RICHARDS: I met him. At first it was like, "Not another one of my fucking son's friends." Johnny started kind of like that and then he worked his way up with me.

How long ago was that?
RICHARDS: I think around '95, in New York. My son Marlon told me, "You've really got to meet this guy. He is really a fan." And so I got to know Johnny via that. I knew the name, but I didn't know really what he had done. I thought he was some guitar player, and then I thought, "Oh, he's made some movies, too, another one of those blokes." But then over the years we got to know each other rather better. Hence I'm wearing this [laughs at himself in pirate outfit].

Was it hard to convince you to be a part of this "Pirates" film franchise?
RICHARDS: It was the right place at the right time with the right guys. And, you know, because he's an asshole.

DEPP: Truth be told.

I think that you, Keith, gave a great acting performance in the 1987 Chuck Berry documentary "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll," where you played the mature one as the concert producer while Chuck raised hell.
RICHARDS: It's just me doing what I do in that movie. Hey, Chuck asked for it, he got it. I am one of the biggest Chuck Berry fans in the goddamn world. But not when it comes time to work. He's got a Chuck story as well.

DEPP: I was in this band, the Kids. And we opened up for Chuck Berry in Atlanta. I was seventeen. He arrives. He comes into our dressing room. He thinks we're his band. So I was, like, stupefied. And he handed me his guitar and said, "Tune it up." So I plugged it and used the strobe tuner. He was like, "What the fuck is that?" "A strobe tuner, man." He was mesmerized.

RICHARDS: Yeah, Chuck had never seen a tuner before. He thought you'd be trying to fuck with him. He knows what he wanted to play. Bless his old heart.

Chuck's a great pirate, in his way.
RICHARDS: Oh, yeah, are you kidding me? He used to rape, loot and pillage all over the place.

Since you both find no difference between pirates and rock stars, what about between rock stars and actors? The shores are littered with the bones of rock stars who wanted to act.
RICHARDS: I can't really dissect that one. Hey, ever since I bashed me head [falling out of a palm tree in Fiji last year], I've had these doctors actually projecting themselves to be rock stars. Me, I'm just a musician. And if the people like my stuff, thank God. It pushes me on to do more. And I want to do more. That's something that you don't factor in when you start this game.

Johnny, your Captain Jack Sparrow character has put you in a new game: movie icon.