Johnny Depp to Quit Acting? "It's Probably Not Too Far Away"

Actor tells the BBC that although he won't be "dropping out any second," there are "quieter" things he's eventually like to do other than to act

By Alexis L. Loinaz Jul 29, 2013 1:23 PMTags
Johnny DeppLuca Teuchmann/WireImage

He galloped onto screens in The Lone Ranger, but could Johnny Depp's acting career be riding off into the sunset for good?

The 50-year-old actor set fans abuzz when he hinted in an interview Monday that the time may be nigh to eventually retire from acting.

While chatting with the BBC to promote the U.K. release of The Lone Ranger, Depp hinted that there are "quieter" things he would eventually like to do other than making movies.

"I wouldn't say that I'm dropping out any second," Depp clarified, "but I would say it's probably not too far away."

The actor also noted a strange irony when it comes to his chosen profession.

"At a certain point, you start thinking, and when you add up the amount of dialogue that you say per year, for example, and you realize that you've said written words more than you've actually had a chance to say your own words, you start thinking of that as a kind of insane option for a human being," he explained.

"So, are there quieter things that I wouldn't mind doing, you know? Yeah, I wouldn't mind that," he offered.

It's not the first time Depp has publicly mulled retirement.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Depp said that thoughts of retirement pop up "every day" and that he'd eventually like to "just take it down to the bare minimum and concentrate on, I guess, living life. Really living life."

Don't expect Depp to pull the plug on his daytime job anytime soon, though. The actor has a full slate lined up, including the splashy big-screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Into the Woods, in which he'll play the big bad Wolf.

He's also reportedly set to revisit two of his more iconic characters: Depp is purportedly in talks to dust off his madcap Mad Hatter for a sequel to Alice in Wonderland, and he's supposedly getting ready to once again sail the high seas in the fifth go-round of the massively successful Pirates of the Caribbean saga, whose previous four films have collectively grossed a whopping $3.7 billion worldwide.