The old comedian Foster Brooks, whose shtick was sham inebriation, can almost move Depp to tears.

It’s with an actor I admire greatly, Mark Rylance. Here’s what’s amazing about Mark Rylance: he’s considered and probably is the leading Shakespearean actor today and he refuses to acknowledge that. He sort of makes fun of it.

Depp has a great affinity for Sparrow, whose persona is borrowed from Keith Richards, another Depp idol.

Rickles was the bravest comedian ever,” says Depp. “He’d say anything.” As proof, he finds a video of Rickles on a Dean Martin celebrity roast, turning to boxer Sugar Ray Robinson: “I want to thank Sugar Ray Robinson, who said to Rocky Graziano, ‘Hey, baby, you’re hurting me.’ Sugar Ray is a great champion. Sugar, we would ask you to talk, but you know the blacks, your lips lock.”

Knowing his affinity for the stars of earlier eras, I ask him if there is any Hollywood icon he still hopes to spend time with. “I already met her,” he snaps. “Elizabeth Taylor.” One day actor Roddy McDowall, who knew that Depp was rather awestruck by Taylor, called him and said, “Do you want to come to dinner?” Depp attended and found Taylor to be “the best old-school dame I’ve ever met. A regular, wonderful person. Billy Bob Thornton and Steve Martin were also there. Boy, did I take to her. For dinner she ordered liver and onions and just smothered them with salt. I admired that. She’s an astonishingly great broad.”