Move over Gene Wilder, the public awaits Johnny Depp as the Willie Wonka of the 21st Centrury. He talks to Steve Pratt with director Tim Burton as the pair explain how they moved on from darkly comic adult movies to put Roald Dahl's classic novel back on screen.

VISUALLY, director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp make an odd couple. With his wild hair and shambolic manner, the former looks like he's been pulled through a hedge backwards. Chameleon-like Depp has the ability to change his appearance with every role while still earning sexiest man accolades in his early forties.

Today, he's wearing a cap and casual clothes, with the facial hair, deep tan and glint of a gold tooth when he smiles betraying that he's halfway through filming as Captain Jack Sparrow in two sequels to his biggest hit Pirates Of The Caribbean.

He and Burton have enjoyed a fruitful on-screen partnership with Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow. But even this peculiar pair surprise with their latest collaboration, a film of Roald Dahl's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

A children's story is new territory for both and partly influenced by becoming fathers in real life. In common with their past work, there's a dark, typically Dahlish edge to this bedtime story which allows Burton's imagination to run riot in a candy-coated collection of big, colourful sets.

That the book was previously filmed - as Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory in 1971 with Gene Wilder - wasn't a factor as they were keen to be truer to the book than that version.

Depp's Willy Wonka, the eccentric chocolatier taking five lucky children on a tour of his factory, has a pale complexion and speaks in a high-pitched voice but, the actor says emphatically, isn't based on Michael Jackson, a suggestion put forward in some quarters.

His starting point in creating Wonka was the original story. "You have the book as source material which is an amazing help in building the character," he explains.

"Then, in various conversations with Tim, we talked about memories of when we were growing up - of children's show hosts and that strange cadence in which they spoke to children, and the mask they put on, that unnatural grimace, and went from there."

Depp is happier elaborating on his preparations for the role. He says: "When I'm reading a script, I get images and ideas are coming into my head. I write everything down. Like the hairdo, somehow I saw early on. It took a long time before I could see or hear Wonka. I just started building this guy layer by layer. Even when we started shooting, it took me probably about ten days to really feel that I'd clicked with the guy."

Being a father - of Lily-Rose, born in 1999, and Jack, born three years ago - has helped add texture to all his performances, he feels, with children affecting every aspect of your personal and working life.

He tried out his Willy Wonka voice on his daughter. "It seemed to work with her, so I kinda ran with it," says Depp.

His children are also his critics, or at least of those movies he feels suitable for them to watch. "They saw Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, which made me real nervous," he admits. "I was really scared that they were going to come home and go, 'no dad, no, maybe next time'. But they came home quoting it."

Burton has also become a father since he and Depp last worked together. He and his partner, British actress Helena Bonham Carter, have a son Billy Ray, who's almost two. As for how having a son has changed his life, he replies: "Watching the TeleTubbies and the Wriggles. I just have a much cheerier outlook. I'm just a happy person."

IT'S unclear if the pair indulge in baby talk on set, but clearly working together is a joy. "Every time I work with Johnny, it gets better and better, you see the change in different things. It's like a weird family when you're making a movie, so it's nice to be with people you like," says Burton.

Depp adds: "There's a kind of built-in language from having other experiences together, exploring other stories and characters. Working with Tim is like arriving home, it's a very comfortable place for me."

The actor seems happy with his lot, having left school at 15 to pursue his dream of being a musician, then making his film debut in Nightmare On Elm Street and the TV series 21 Jump Street before being acknowledged as one of the most versatile actors of his generation. Along the way, there have been wild times - trashing a hotel room and fighting with paparazzi - and celebrity girlfriends, before settling down to the family man he is today with French actress-singer Vanessa Paradis and their two children.

He doesn't count on the good times lasting, saying he could go back to being as poor as Dahl's Charlie and his family. "When I was growing up, we weren't particularly overflowing with money in my childhood and I never expected to last as long in this racket, to be honest with you. I

"So it still could happen. As long as you have the ability to provide for your kids and your girl, you have to keep moving forward."

We can expect more collaborations with Burton, whom Depp once described as rescuing him from "being a loser, an outcast, just another piece of Hollywood meat". He'll provide one of the voices in Burton's new stop-motion animation feature Corpse Bride, released this autumn. After that, the pair will surely work together again as they clearly have a good time on the set. "We try to take it seriously because we're spending other people's money. It's always a pleasure. He loves dressing up in funny clothing, it's great," says Burton.

* Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (PG) opens in cinemas tomorrow .

Published: 28/07/2005