Johnny Depp drops profanity in saying Tonto is ‘no joke’ in ‘The Lone Ranger’
Johnny Depp addressed the racial politics of playing the Lone Ranger character Tonto in his Rolling Stone cover story which is key to director Gore Verbinski’s reboot of the 1950s TV staple, saying Tonto is “no joke.”
“First of all, I wouldn’t f*** with someone with a dead bird on their head,” Depp told the magazine. “Second of all, he’s got the f***ing paint on his face, which scares me.”
“I wanted to maybe give some hope to kids on the reservations… They’re living without running water and seeing problems with drugs and booze. But I wanted to be able to show these kids, ‘Fuck that! You’re still warriors, man.'”
Depp, who says he has Native American blood, adopted into the Comanche Nation, and Navajo elders performed a blessing on a shooting location. The film had a Comanche adviser, Fonseca, who approved Depp’s head bird, and in an interview with Indian Country Today Native American actor Saginaw Grant said that “everything was done with a lot of respect.” He added that he “encourage[s], especially our Native people, to come and watch it.”
Depp conveys tons of stories and even discusses retirement, check out the online version here
Depp co-stars with Armie Hammer (Mirror, Mirror) and Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins), Helena Bonham Carter (The King’s Speech), Barry Pepper (True Grit), William Fichtner (The Dark Knight), Ruth Wilson (Anna Karenina) and James Badge Dale (Iron Man 3).
The Lone Ranger arrives in theaters on July 3, 2013.