Johnny Depp: 'I was box office poison'

Johnny Depp has said that he was thought of as a failure by the movie industry before taking the part of Jack Sparrow in Pirates Of The Caribbean.

The actor told reporters at the press conference for Public Enemies that he never expected his shift in status when he was cast in the film.

Depp said: "I went through 20 years of what the industry basically described as failures. For 20 years I was defined as box office poison.

"I didn't change anything in terms of my process, I didn't change a thing. But that little film Pirates Of The Caribbean came round and I thought, yeah, it'll be fun to play a pirate for my kiddies."

He added: "I created the character the same way I created all the other ones and I nearly got fired, and thank God they didn't.

"It changed my life. I'm hyper, super-thankful that radical turn happened, but it's not like I went out of my way to make it happen."