Janelle Monáe Talks Crafting A Public Persona & Being Inspired By Johnny Depp’s Acting Career — London Film Festival

deadline.com:

Janelle Monáe was fashionably late as she strolled onstage at the BFI Southbank, where she headlined the London Film Festival’s final major keynote ‘screen talk’ Friday afternoon.

During the talk, Monáe dug into some of the biggest successes of her career. She also shared some of her future goals, including her desire to expand her on-screen roles, telling the festival audience that she hopes to shape her acting career around that of Johnny Depp.  “When I think about careers, this person as an actor, his life an as an actor only, Johnny Depp has a very vast career,” she told the festival audience.

There was a slight grunt amongst the audience around the auditorium as Monáe dropped Depp’s name, but she continued to say that she has been inspired by the thematic range of Depp’s on-screen characters.  “The amount of roles: Willy Wonka to Sweeny Todd to all of the dramatic roles,” she said. “Whatever the Janelle Monae version of that is.

Maybe something even better, but I want to be able to do those sorts of like transformative characters that people are dressing up as for Halloween.