Vancouver Suns Maggie Langrick recalls the unknown Johnny Depp

VANCOUVER I worked with Johnny Depp before he was Johnny Depp.

I dont just mean that I worked with him before he was famous, although that is also true.

I mean I worked with the actor who was originally cast in Depps role in 21 Jump Street, the Fox network series that would make Depp a star.

I was 16 years old in 1987, when I was cast in the pilot for a new youth-appeal series then called Jump Street Chapel about a group of baby-faced cops who pass as teens in order to infiltrate crime-ridden high schools and youth gangs.

My role was utterly forgettable a three-scene turn as the sassy, sullen sister of the troubled youth of the week. Two of those scenes were with the lead character, a certain dark-haired, boyish police officer called Tom Hanson. I cant remember the name of the actor who played the part, and it really doesnt matter. I shot my scenes, got my paycheque, and forgot about it.

A short while later, I got a call from my agent telling me that Jump Street wanted me back. Not for another episode, but to reshoot scenes from the pilot. It seems the shows star wasnt quite dazzling the network. The producers had recast the part of Tom Hanson, with another relative unknown. His name was Johnny Depp. Like the hair gel? I asked. No, Depp with two ps.

Huh. Weird name.

Turned out Tom Hanson 2.0 was a major upgrade. Tough and tender, pretty and gritty, Depp looked like the kind of sensitive bad boy who writes poetry on a motorcycle.

And he was cool, as in aloof. It would be many years before Depp would buy himself a private Caribbean island to retreat to, but even as a young no-name actor, he exuded a brooding charisma that made you know instantly, and painfully, that you want to hang out with him a lot more than he wants to hang out with you.

Or maybe he was just not that interested in this 16-year-old day player.

If you were a teenager in the late 80s and early 90s, you probably watched 21 Jump Street on TV. But if you were a young act! or in B. C. at that time, you definitely worked on it.

The show was a bonanza for local talent, giving dozens of budding actors both young and not-so-young regular opportunities to beam their faces into American living rooms. The entire Vancouver acting community trooped through Lynn Carrows casting office to do their time in the bit-part trenches. Even playwright Morris Panych appeared in the series.

Demand soon outstripped supply, and many actors were cast in multiple roles over the years the show was in production.

Many of them Jason Priestley, Babz Chula, Jerry Wasserman and Ian Tracey among them would go on to become some of Vancouvers best-known performers. Others, like yours truly, would quietly fade away from show business, settling into alternative careers.

But none of us will forget our time on the Street.

mlangrick@vancouversun.com

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