Johnny Depp went off script while directing his art drama Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness.
Antonia Desplat, who stars as Beatrice Hastings in the film, exclusively told Us that Depp, 62, liked it when the actors made “mistakes” during filming — and even kept one of her major mishaps in the movie’s final cut.
According to Desplat, 31, Depp didn’t fault errors “because he likes real life merging with the characters.”
“So, when I enter into the cemetery, I fell, and yeah, that was never in the script,” the actress shared with Us at the Los Angeles premiere of Modi on Tuesday, November 4.
“We were never supposed to end up on the floor, and we started giggling. [Riccardo Scamarcio] couldn’t pick me up, and that whole thing was a complete mistake, and it’s in the film,” Desplat continued.
When they finished the take, she said Depp was thrilled.
“Johnny was like, ‘This is it. This is movie magic. We’re moving on,’” the star recalled.
Desplat didn’t second-guess her director, noting, “It felt right because he reacted, I reacted and we just went with it, and it really fits in the scene.”
She also shared the best advice Depp gave her on set.
“‘If anything wrong happens, just roll with it,’” she remembered him saying.
Modi is a period piece that focuses on a tortured artist played by Scamarcio, 45, struggling to find a home for his art while desperately trying to navigate his relationship and friendships in a war-torn Paris.
Depp was motivated to join as director of the project by Al Pacino, who fought for 30 years to get the picture made.
Pacino, 85, also stars in the film alongside Stephen Graham and Bruno Gouery.
Gouery, 50, spoke highly of Depp’s directing skills and credited the actor for giving him “confidence” on screen.
“His directing style is an artistic style because he trusts the actor. He speaks like an actor. He knows our job,” the Emily in Paris star exclusively told Us at the premiere.
“He can show you what he thinks. He can trust you. He can give you the opportunity to show your own personality, your own art. And I feel [like] I work with a gypsy, a pirate, an artist,” Gouery continued.
Gouery admitted he felt self-conscious working on the movie.
“I do [make] a lot of mistakes because of my broken English, but he loved that. And he was always telling me, ‘Oh, Bruno, your accent is perfect, don’t you trust me? It’s perfect,’” he recalled Depp saying. “But I was very insecure, you know, because my English is like that. But thanks to Johnny, it gave me so much confidence.”
Pacino previously spoke about why Depp was the right director for the job.
“I have known Johnny through the years and thought he would find something there that resonated with him,” he told The Guardian in June.
Pacino also revealed why he never gave up on the project.
“There is something in this story that is not just identifiable with [the] artist. There is that connection to rejection in all of us, so it gives audiences something they can relate to,” he shared at the time. “It took a few years to get that script together and, as we all know, independent films take a while to develop. You really have to stick with something in this day and age in those early stages.”
Modi first premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival and the Rome Film Festival in 2024. The movie scored a North American distribution deal in October.
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