Johnny Depp is looking fit and relaxed when we meet at the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles—which is surprising because, he tells me, he had a narrow escape from death while filming his latest movie, The Lone Ranger.
The 47-year-old actor was thrown from his horse while filming a scene for the movie, in which he plays the Lone Ranger’s sidekick Tonto.
“I’ve done a number of films on horseback and I’ve taken a couple of spills but this was a pretty violent one and I’m lucky to be sitting here,” he tells me. “I’ve had a pretty good relationship with the horse, whose name is Scout, and when I look at the tape of the incident I can see that Scout saved my life. |
| Depp as Tonto |
“I went down pretty badly and I was dragged for about 25 yards and in the end the horse jumped over me and just clipped me with his back legs.”
It is a turbulent time for the 47-year-old actor, who in the movie plays the Lone Ranger’s Indian sidekick Tonto. He is reported to have split up with his girlfriend of 14 years, the French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis, with whom he has two children, Lily-Rose, 12, and Jack, 10.
But they remain close and, he says: “We still have a place in the south of France and I still go there all the time.”