Johnny Depp Creates Language for His New Animated Movie Role

Johnny Depp is explaining how he invented a language for his character in his new animated movie.

Depp—who most recently starred in the French historical drama Jeanne du Barry—voices the title character in Johnny Puff: Secret Mission. The movie is based on the animated Puffins series, which, per Variety, consists of 250 five-minute episodes.

Depp has been providing the voice of one of the series’ puffins—Johnny Puff—since the series began in 2020. The series once streamed on Prime Video and AppleTV+, but is no longer featured on either of the streaming services.

Johnny Puff: Secret Mission opens in limited release in North American theaters this weekend. In a production featurette for the film, Depp describes the language he invented for the character between clips of the movie.

“I thought it would be great to invent a language for the character,” Depp says in the featurette. “I thought the only move now is to mix my dialogue with the actual sound of a puffin.”

In reality, a puffin is a sea parrot that makes noises. In the case of Depp’s animated movie, the puffin—Johnny Puff—speaks.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Johnny Puff: Secret Mission is opening in seven U.S. cities on Friday before it heads to streaming on such digital platforms as VUDU (aka Fandango at Home) and satellite TV programmers including Dish Network and DirecTV on July 17.

Before Johnny Depp’s work in the series Puffins and the movie Johnny Puff: Secret Mission, the actor had performed voice roles in two major feature films.

In 2005, Depp voiced the character of the living groom, Victor Van Dort, opposite Helena Bonham Carter’s deceased title character in Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated feature Corpse Bride.

Then, in 2011, Depp teamed with his Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski to voice the title character in the computer-animated lizard tale Rango.

Corpse Bride was nominated for a Best Animated Feature Film Oscar in 2006, while Rango took the Oscar in the same category in 2012.

Depp is stepping behind the camera for his next feature film as the director of the biographical historical drama Modi, starring Al Pacino and Steven Graham. Modi is still awaiting a U.S. release date.

According to Variety, Modi landed a distribution deal in May for Italian theaters.