Johnny Depp Ready For A New Tonto In ‘Lone Ranger’; Talks ‘Rum Diary’

Johnny Depp confirmed he will shortly saddle up in the role of Tonto in “The Lone Ranger” film, but don’t expect him to play Armie Hammer’s (who will play the famed cowboy) sidekick in the traditional sense.

“I had some initial ideas for Tonto that I thought might be interesting in terms of how to take a character that, throughout history has been sort of pushed to the background or made the sidekick of the white man,” Johnny told Access Hollywood on Tuesday night as he hit the premiere of his latest film, “The Rum Diary” in New York City. “I think we’ve successfully kicked that in the a**.”

Johnny’s latest film, “The Rum Diary,” based on a novel from his late friend Hunter S. Thompson, hits theaters on Friday and the actor himself was much more a part of the filmmaking process than just the star.

Johnny, who became friends with the famed gonzo journalist, previously told Vanity Fair he actually found the manuscript for “The Rum Diary” in Hunter’s home in the 1990s.

The book wasn’t published until 1998, and Johnny has been working on the film since 1997.

“It’s a beautiful sort of closure for me, it’s a beautiful closure for Hunter’s, all the people who were close to Hunter ‘cause we worked on this from basically 1997 until now,” Johnny told Access. “We lost Hunter in 2005 and we ended up getting it done and it’s all he wanted. It’s all we wanted, so we did it.”

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