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Thompson would reportedly call Depp in the wee hours of the morning, asking things like, "Colonel, what do you know of black-hairy-tongue disease?"
As a teenager, Depp loved Thompson's mind-bending novel. He was invited to meet the famed author in December 1994, and made his way to Thompson's favorite bar, the Woody Creek Tavern near Aspen, Colorado, where it all began.
He was angry that he never got a chance to say goodbye, but said of Thompson, "He was not going to be the guy to melt into a bowl of clam chowder. He was going to dictate the way he lived, the way he died."
He explained to the young star that this particular hallucinogen was a two-day commitment, and asked him if he was ready for that. Depp said he wasn't sure, and Thompson suggested he wait.
Depp soon realized he shouldn't try to keep up with Thompson, and described a time when he wanted to take acid with the writer, but the seasoned hallucinogenic explorer stopped him.
Depp said, "He knew I worshiped him, and I know that he loved me," which made Thompson partly a father figure, along with being a mentor. Mostly, however, Depp said they were like brothers.
He was deeply saddened that he would never get late-night calls anymore, and that the "Too-Much-Fun Club," which Thompson called the pair, was over.
Thompson would call Depp "Ray, my bodyguard," and they had strange adventures with various people, which Depp described as "totally ludicrous and surreal."
It included a 150-foot (46-m) cannon out of which he wanted his ashes to explode into fireworks. Depp thought the audacity of the plan was Thompson's way of distracting people from mourning.
But the money was paltry in contrast to how much Thompson had influenced Depp. The actor told Newsweek he feels the writer from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to sleep.
A film version of 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' was already in development with John Cusack, but after meeting Depp, Thompson insisted no one else could play him.
Depp came to learn that the 1959-60 Thompson was an athletic and handsome man who would type 'The Great Gatsby' to see how it felt to write a masterpiece, and that he hadn't yet found his voice to express all his anger and passion.
On February 20, 2005, tired of his medical ailments and old age, Thompson took his own life with a gunshot to the head. He was 67, which he said in a note was 17 more years than he needed or wanted.
Around 2 am, Depp was at the author's Owl Farm home (a property in Woody Creek, Colorado) complimenting a 12-gauge shotgun hanging on the wall. Thompson asked if Depp wanted to shoot it, and when he said yes, Thompson decided that they must make a bomb.
Depp confirmed Thompson's irreverent and outrageous yet poetic nature, but added that when he was sitting in Thompson's kitchen watching sports, he was a "very gentle guy. Hyper, hypersensitive, hence the self-medication."
In the middle of the night, he'd call Depp and ask him to meet him in Cuba to do a piece on Fidel Castro. "When Hunter made a request like that, you made it happen," Depp said. So he went to Cuba.
'The Rum Diary' was produced in 2011, after Thompson's death. Depp became one of few actors to play the same real-life figure in multiple movies.
Depp said he feels fortunate he knew just how special his time was with Thompson as it was happening, "and I knew that was never going to happen again."
Sources: (Newsweek) (Rolling Stone) (HuffPost) (Daily Record)
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Depp saw Raoul Duke from 'Fear and Loathing' as the fully realized Hunter Thompson, whereas Paul Kemp from 'The Rum Diary' was Thompson on the precipice of finding his voice.
They would go to sleep around 9 or 10 in the morning, and have breakfast at around 7 pm. Despite how ludicrous it sounds, Depp insisted, "He took care of me."
He also learned that the 1971-72 Thompson, of the 'Fear and Loathing' era, was the version of the writer with less hair but a fully established voice.
In the spring of 1997, Depp lived in Thompson's basement, in a room across from the "War Room," which happened to also contain a barrel of gunpowder.
They made it from propane tanks and nitroglycerin, took it out in the backyard, and Depp fired at it, making it explode about 80 feet in the air. Depp said this "rite of passage" cemented their friendship.
Many are perplexed at Johnny Depp's mixed bag of a reputation, swirling with controversy and absurdity, but what may ease the perplexity is examining one of his most pivotal relationships: his friendship with Hunter S. Thompson.
Thompson, one of the most outrageous, substance-fueled writers, best-known for 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' was a huge part of the actor's young life. The two had a quarter-century of age between them, but Depp described their 10 years together as a "major love affair."
Thompson's death on February 20, 2005, was a devastating blow, but it was hardly the end of the story for the "Too-Much-Fun Club." Click through to take a peek into one of Hollywood's most bizarre and intriguing relationships.
The final 153-foot tall structure, set up at Thompson's home in Woody Creek, was shaped like the writer's famous "Freak Power" logo and blasted off on August 20, 2005. Thompson's cremated ashes went up in "a beautiful and surreal ballet of lights and explosions," and Depp added that it was only fitting the writer would end his life as "a combination of ashes and gunpowder in a giant bullet."
Inside Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson's "major love affair"
Their decade of friendship might as well have been a lifetime
CELEBRITY Hollywood
Many are perplexed at Johnny Depp's mixed bag of a reputation, swirling with controversy and absurdity, but what may ease the perplexity is examining one of his most pivotal relationships: his friendship with Hunter S. Thompson.
Thompson, one of the most outrageous, substance-fueled writers, best-known for 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' was a huge part of the actor's young life. The two had a quarter-century of age between them, but Depp described their 10 years together as a "major love affair."
Thompson's death on February 20, 2005, was a devastating blow, but it was hardly the end of the story for the "Too-Much-Fun Club." Click through to take a peek into one of Hollywood's most bizarre and intriguing relationships.