'Rango' trailer: Johnny Depp is such a chameleon

Johnny Depp is a chameleon. I’m not referring to his acting abilities, but to his character in the upcoming animated film Rango. The new trailer for the Gore Verbinski-directed film looks, well, Deppian. With that loud shirt and saucer eyes, Rango even resembles Hunter Thompson a tad, though Depp’s lizard is as timid as the Doctor was daffy. The story is set in the West, but don’t call it a Western. Verbinski has said that he considers his film a commentary on the Hero, with Rango being a lonely chameleon with an identity crisis. I love the look of the film, which eschews motion-capture and will not play in 3-D. It has it’s own gorgeous grittiness rare for an animated film.

When Verbinski previewed this trailer to the media two weeks, he said that it took Depp awhile to get the hang of his character because he generally likes to hide behind his characters, and this performance called for him to simply “act” in his street clothes. How ironic then: The character that is the purest version of Johnny Depp might be the one where’s he’s voicing a chameleon! Check out the clip below:

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A peek behind the scenes of ‘Rango’