They've said all kinds of stuff about me... it doesn't bother me

JOHNNY DEPP DIRECTS A BIOPIC OF SURREALIST PAINTER MODIGLIANI. HE JOINS STARS RICCARDO SCAMARCIO AND ANTONIA DESPLAT TO DICSUSS MAVERICK PERSONALITIES. BY RACHAEL DAVIS

- BY RACHAEL DAVIS

WHEN Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani succumbed to tubercular meningitis at the age of 35 in Paris, he was still relatively unsuccessful in the art world.

His surrealist style wasn't received well in his lifetime. Since his death, however, the notoriously hedonistic artist has been recognised as a key figure in the modern art movement.

His story drew the attention of Al Pacino in the 1980s, who tried to get a biopic of the painter's troubled life off the ground with legendary director Martin Scorsese slated to direct, but the project became mired in years of development problems. When Pacino became too old to play Modigliani, Johnny Depp was considered for the role, but plans for the film would ultimately stall.

Modigliani's story appealed to Johnny because he was so taken by the wild experimentation of the artist and his contemporaries.

"The styles they created were all so different," he says. "It must have scared the s*** out of people."

Italian actor Riccardo Scamarcio, who also appeared in John Wick: Chapter 2 and Kenneth Branagh's A Haunting in Venice, stars as the titular artist in the film he describes as 'an anti-biopic'.

"We're not using the conventional structure that normally biopic films do" says the 45-year-old actor.

"Actually, we tell the story of three days of his life in a cathartic, specific, very important moment of his life. He wants to leave Paris... Because he thinks that there is no space for him in that town at that moment. He's living a terrible life."

Despite these few days being a particularly bleak period for Modigliani, Riccardo says he related to the artist's mental state throughout the story Johnny tells.