Johnny Depp Says There's A Little 'Rango' In All Of Us

'We find ourselves in certain situations that you have to adapt to,' Depp tells MTV News of his cartoon chameleon.
By Kara Warner

Rango, voiced by Johnny Depp, in "Rango"
Photo: Paramount

Johnny Depp is one of those actors who disappear so fully into the characters he plays onscreen that with each new film, it's hard to know what to expect from the Oscar nominee. Depp's latest, the animated pic "Rango," is no exception.

In the film — directed by Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Gore Verbinski and featuring the vocal talents of Abigail Breslin, Isla Fischer and Bill Nighy — Depp plays the title character, a chameleon living a lonely life in a cage as a family pet. But Rango is also an aspiring actor so he stages elaborate plays within the confines of his little glass home. He suddenly finds his life turned upside down when his cage is accidentally thrown out of his owners' car during a cross-country move, landing him in the strange town of Dirt in the Nevada desert.

MTV News caught up with Depp and we asked him if, given his chameleon-like abilities as an actor, he felt a sense of kinship with the little green reptile, and whether Rango is perhaps the closest he's come to playing himself.

"What I saw early on with the character, and something that Gore and I talked about, is that it is in sort of all of us, in a way," Depp explained. "There is a chameleonic side to all of us in which we find ourselves in certain situations that you have to adapt to, sitting across from personalities that you have to adapt to in order to survive the moment or survive the day," he said. "That's kind of how I saw Rango."

Who's your favorite Johnny Depp character? Tell us in the comments!

Check out everything we've got on "Rango."

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