And was that such a bad experience that it turned you into the serial fiancŽ, that you can never go through the actual ceremony again? 'No,' he says. 'Once again, this is a myth, the serial fiancé. I was engaged a couple of times to a couple of different girls. Every time I had a girlfriend, it was, 'They're engaged.''
Most commonly attributed fiancées are Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Grey, Tally Chanel, Kate Moss and Winona Ryder. And what about the myth of the Winona Forever tattoo?'Yes, I have a tattoo on my arm that now says 'Wino Forever'.' He peels back his denim shirt to reveal the botched tattoo with the last two letters erased. His and Kate's love was perhaps more indelible. He says wistfully: 'She's a good girl. I'm really happy for her that she has a kid.' Do you talk? 'No. I haven't seen her. It's been quite a while. But someone told me she had a kid and I was ecstatic for her. I think she'll be a great mum.'
I remind him that after he and Kate split up, he said there was a part of him that really missed her and he kept wondering why they weren't together and starting a family.
'I don't remember saying that exactly.' There's a silence, but it's more sad than awkward. He's not trying to avoid the issue, but it's obviously causing him pain and he says very slowly: 'I don't know.
At a certain point, I don't think I was very good for her. I don't think I was very good for Kate, so we did what was right and walked away from each other. She went on to bigger and better things,and I went on and fell in love and had kiddies.'
Do you believe in love at first sight? I ask, providing him with a crossroads: he can segue into Vanessa now. 'I believe in something at first sight, absolutely,' he says. 'But you can never truly love a person till you know them. You have this feeling, but you can't really explain it. I had that when I first saw Vanessa. When I met up with her again, I saw her across a room, just her back, and it was an instant sort of, 'Oh my God, what's happening?' But then I had no way of knowing how great a person she was, and how great a mother she would turn out to be. She's unbelievable.'
I get the feeling that Vanessa becoming a mother really does clinch it for Depp. He loves his own mother very deeply, has a tattoo for her too, in that full bad-boy tradition. Vanessa also gave him the opportunity to be a father, which seems to be the biggest hero role he ever wants to play. You said that becoming a daddy completely changed you. How did that manifest itself?
'I think that the poor bastard who was stumbling around for many years shed outer layers of bullsh--, and finally I was able to see clearly, to see the truth, to understand, at least on some level, what it's all about. People talk about career, success, money, and equate that with happiness, and it never made any sense to me.' And you felt forced to go along with it? 'I did and I didn't. I kept doing movies, but I wouldn't say that I'd made the wisest choices in terms of career from a businessman's point of view.'
There are a slew of multi-million-dollar blockbuster parts he turned down, such as career-breaking stints in Richard Attenborough's Chaplin, Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise, and Coppola's Dracula. 'Yeah, there were some things that might have made a whole lot of money - sick money. That's not what I was after. Money's a good thing and a bad thing, but to do something just for the money - I haven't arrived at that place yet. The beauty is, I don't have any regrets about the stuff I've done. There might have been things that I could have done better or smarter.'
Are we talking business or relationships? 'Just in life. I could have done things differently. I made mistakes, but that's how you learn.The years that I went through life existing without living, poisoning myself, trying to numb and medicate myself, were really just a great waste of time. It was never about recreation. It was about numbing.It feels good to finally be away from that now,' he says, his pirate's gold teeth glinting with irony.Was there a final straw that made you say you didn't want to be numb any more? 'Yes, I think things happen in life that you experience. Either you're at the centre of a storm, or you're on the outskirts and you feel a cold wind. But it's later on that everything starts to make sense. The things that happened over a lot of years were awful, devastating, hideous. I lost a lot of friends.' He's mumbling softly. He lost his friend River Phoenix to a drug-overdose death outside the Viper Room, the LA club he owned. 'I wanted to escape and now I want to survive and experience things. Having kids certainly changed me.'
Do you do total sobriety? 'No I don't. But no substance abuse. No drugs. No hard liquor. My whisky days are pretty much over. I have a glass of wine now and again. I have Irish and Indian blood,' he says, like he can't help himself. He can't be a really good boy, but he perks up and says: 'Hence, the 'Wino Forever'.'
I tell him that I once downed a very rare bottle of port, only three bottles left in the world, and the owner of the vineyard said Johnny Depp had just paid £2,000 for one of the other two.
'Quite possible,' he says. 'I was with a friend, a photographer; we used to draw together and paint. One night we bought a 1908 port, a Taylor. We bought it and drank it that night in an hour. It was perfect and amazing, like drinking history. It actually made us paint better, which is nice.'
Depp still likes to paint, and as he still likes wine, it's fortunate that he's based no longer in Hollywood but in the south of France.
'I went to France to do the Roman Polanski movie, The Ninth Gate. That's when I met up with Vanessa again, and three months later she was pregnant, so it was like, 'Okay, what do you want to do? Raise kids in that violent, weird atmosphere, or a place where there's world culture, quality of life, simplicity?'' Everything changed in those few months. A lot of people have met the right girl, but at the wrong time. Do you think Vanessa was the right girl at the right time?
'I don't know. I can remember thinking the last thing in the world I wanted was a relationship, but it was impossible to escape. I was gone.'
Are you romantic when you're in love? 'I don't know. You'll have to ask her, but certainly I do things to make her happy, feel good. I want to do that with my mum, my sisters, my friends - so certainly with Vanessa, yes.'
So why do people think Depp is a troubled bad boy? He doesn't seem bad to me. He's probably the most charming person I've ever touched the tattoos of. He's funny, kind, and gives himself totally in every moment. So tell me about the bad-boy myth? 'That's so strange. I really don't get that. Another one about myself was that I rented a room in London at a hotel and filled the bath with champagne, and I thought, 'Man, that's a good one. I'll let that one be.''
I tell him that that particular urban myth has a part two. The champagne was Cristal, and when you and your inamorata - who at that time was Kate Moss - went to have a drink in the bar, the maid came in and let the bath water out.
'Mmm. You'd think we'd just kind of lean in and lap it up, wouldn't you? I like that story. That would be good if it had happened. I wish it had. I'd like to fill a bathtub with Cristal,' he says.
