Janelle Monáe Admits Being Inspired By Johnny Depp’s Acting Career

Janelle Monáe is coming off a triumphant performance in “Knives Out: A Knives Out Mystery,” she might very well get an Oscar nom for her work in that film.

Monáe was onstage at the BFI Southbank, where she headlined the London Film Festival’s final major keynote ‘screen talk’ in the weekend. Her elegiac words for Depp are ballsy, given the actor’s current reputation, but Monáe seemed unphased:

“When I think about careers, this person as an actor, his life an as an actor only, Johnny Depp has a very vast career. The amount of roles: Willy Wonka to Sweeny Todd to all of the dramatic roles,” she said. “Whatever the Janelle Monae version of that is. Maybe something even better, but I want to be able to do those sorts of like transformative characters that people are dressing up as for Halloween. Something grounded but embedded in the hearts and minds of children forever.”

Deadline is reporting that when Monáe uttered Depp’s name, the festival audience grunted and gasped. Oh my God, shocking. People tend to forget that Johnny Depp was once an incredibly well-respected actor who carefully chose his film roles. So consider me unsurprised about Monáe’s fearless name check.

Fact of the matter is that Depp’s filmography was near-perfect from 1990-2009. That’s almost a 20-year run of A-level films: “Edward Scissorhands,” “What’s Eating Gilbert Grapes”, “Ed Wood”, “Dead Man”, “Donnie Brasco”, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”, “Sleepy Hollow”, “Before Night Falls”, “Blow”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “Sweeney Todd”, and Michael Mann’s underrated “Public Enemies”.

Depp was considered one of the great actors of his generation Ever since then? "The Tourist," "Alice in Wonderland," "Pirates 4," "Dark Shadows," The Lone Ranger," "Transcendence," Mortdecai," "Alice Through the Looking Glass," "Tusk," "Murder on the Orient Express," and "Pirates 5." Yikes.

I still hold out a sliver of hope that Depp will have an artistic comeback, but there are a lot of forces riding against him at the moment. The days when he would get first dibs on the hottest screenplays available are long gone.