In a highly personal interview, Johnny Depp explains why playing the pirate Captain Jack Sparrow has helped him finally find the reason he wants to live.

When I first met Johnny Depp, he was not bankable, certainly not box-office gold. He ticked all the bad boy boxes. Edgy, dark, an outsider who was attracted to the strangely gothic - the sad-eyed Edward Scissorhands, the transvestite director Ed Wood, the drug dealer in Blow.

He ripped up hotel rooms, and when the paparazzi lurked outside the Mirabelle restaurant in London to get a shot of his girlfriend Vanessa Paradis's pregnant tummy, he walloped them with a plank of wood.

Depp says that the birth of his daughter Lily-Rose, now seven, 'was not only the greatest thing that's ever happened - it's the only thing that's ever happened to me'

It was that pregnant tummy that changed everything. It caused a seismic shift.

When Depp became a dad, he became the person he always wanted to be: calm, happy, loving and loved.

That manifested itself in his most iconic role: Jack Sparrow in the blockbuster trilogy Pirates Of The Caribbean, the final instalment of which -Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End - opens here next Thursday.

The character he created took its inspiration from raddled Keith Richards and cartoon skunk sexpot Pepe Le Pew: mischievous rather than villainous, all glittering gold teeth and high-polished camp.

When we meet this time, in a sterile hotel room in Los Angeles, Depp's charisma and teeth sparkle.

He's still filming a few scenes for Pirates, and the teeth are still on, but now they look as if they belong.

Johnny Depp, the man, has merged with Jack Sparrow, the character.

He is no longer miserable, dark, anaesthetised with drugs. He is bright, sparky and children-friendly.

Jack Sparrow has been the greatest gift. It's hard to remember when Johnny was the outsider.

He's wearing horn-rimmed glasses today and a battered felt trilby.