VENICE, Italy — It’s Johnny Depp’s day at the Venice Film Festival. Judging by the acclaim greeting his performance in gangster drama “Black Mass,” it may turn out to be Johnny Depp’s year.
A pallid, blond and balding Depp is virtually unrecognizable as real-life Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, who built up a criminal empire while acting as a longtime FBI informant — or “professional criminal consultant,” as one character puts it.
Depp’s Bulger is charismatic, scarily calm and utterly ruthless. It’s a remarkable transformation that could net him an Oscar nomination. But the actor says he has ready access to his dark side.
“I found the evil in myself a long time ago, and I’ve accepted it,” Depp told reporters in Venice Friday. “We’re old friends.”
Some are calling “Black Mass” Depp’s comeback film — though that would be news to the hundreds of Depp fans who camped out beside Venice’s Palace of Cinema Friday, hours before the movie’s red-carpet world premiere.
