As Depp’s latest film debuts at the San Sebastian Film Festival, his cast is nothing but complimentary of the once-beloved star: “He’s the nicest, the kindness, the sweetest man I’ve ever worked with in my life.”

Johnny Depp has had, it’s fair to say, a rocky few years in Hollywood.

After a public divorce and subsequent defamation trial involving ex-wife Amber Heard — with claims of domestic violence and extensive abuse erupting from both parties — he is dipping a toe back in the film waters with Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness.

Depp’s second directorial feature, Modi follows a few days in the life of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. Riccardo Scamarcio stars in the titular role alongside Antonia Desplat, Al Pacino and Stephen Graham. Backdropped by Paris in the middle of World War II, the film focuses on the painter and sculptor as he grapples with his artistic freedom, pride and class-based snobbery while searching for recognition.

It was, Depp revealed at the movie’s press conference Tuesday, Al Pacino who urged the actor — or in this case, director — to take it on. “When Pacino speaks, you must listen,” the Pirates of the Caribbean star told the room of reporters at the San Sebastian Film Festival.

The film is receiving its world premiere on the Spanish coast with Depp and his cast putting on a united front. “Let’s celebrate Johnny and this movie,” Scamarcio tells The Hollywood Reporter. His co-star, Antonia Desplat, adds: “People need to move on.”

Depp likened his bumpy life to Modigliani’s at the press conference. “I’m sure we can say that I’ve been through a number of things here and there. Maybe yours didn’t turn into a soap opera,” he said, referencing the trial. “I mean, literally, televised.”

His cast are nothing but complimentary — and that’s an understatement. They describe him as full of love and “a fatherly figure,” who has “heart and trust.” Below, Scamarcio and Desplat speak candidly about what it is to be on a Depp set, while the film’s supporting cast — Bruno Gouery, Luisa Ranieri and Ryan McParland — weigh in, too. “He’s the nicest, the kindness, the sweetest man I’ve ever worked with in my life,” Scamarcio says. “The industry, I think, should be very careful.”

ANTONIA DESPLAT I was sent the script to be considered for Beatrice’s part [Beatrice Hastings, a British poet and literary critic, was Modigliani’s partner for two years], and when I read the script, I hadn’t read a script that felt so uncensored in forever. And it felt like a very intriguing woman. I was also very knowledgeable on Modigliani because I grew up in Montparnasse, and I was very close to that world. And the fact that Johnny Depp was directing, the fact that Mr. Scamarcio was the lead, it felt incredibly exciting. So I taped because I was like, “They need to see how much I want this part.” And then I had a Zoom with Johnny, waited for two weeks, had a screen test, and then had another Zoom where he announced that I got the part. It felt like a huge moment.

RYAN McPARLAND It was an incredible opportunity, I think, to play something so far removed from me and my existence growing up in Ireland, and I thought it would really challenge me as well. And of course, the opportunity to work with Johnny Depp and be in a film with Al Pacino, these guys I looked up to as a kid.

BRUNO GOUERY Being directed by Johnny Depp with this fantastic cast, it was such a great opportunity. I have to say that [playing] Maurice Utrillo, a French painter very famous in Paris, for me, obviously it resonates a lot. I love paintings, I love art.

LUISA RANIERI Johnny and Al Pacino, even if we don’t have a scene together, it’s a big honor to be in this insane movie with all the actors attached. Riccardo, too, we’ve known each other for several years, but we’ve never worked together.

Johnny Depp on the set of ‘Modi.’ ‘Modi’/DDA

RICCARDO SCAMARCIO It was a crazy thing because I had this Zoom call with Johnny and I was driving on the highway, so I had to stop. It was 9, 10 o’clock at night, and so the first meeting I had with Johnny was at a gas station. And while we were having this conversation, he realized that there was something strange behind me, like oil for cars … And he said, “Where are you?” and I say, “I’m at the gas station, I’m sorry Johnny, but I was driving down with my daughter, it was a little bit difficult …” and someone else was there, I think Stephen [Graham] or one of the producers and he said: “That’s our man.” (Laughs.) So we met, then we saw each other in London. But for me, Modigliani is very important because my mother, she’s a painter. So I grew up with this big book on Modigliani and my mother told me, because I was very, very young, that I was obsessed with this book. I still have it, with broken pages. I knew I had to be a part of this incredible project.

That’s almost like fate, you having that book.

SCAMARCIO It was exactly that. It’s very strange. And I always grew up thinking that I wanted to buy a Modigliani one day. Impossible, because the last one to sell, five months ago, sold for $170 million.

DESPLAT It’s amazing, because we both have these … in French, we say underground rivers, which is when things are meant to be. I lived at 54 Rue de Montpernasse, which was [Romanian sculptor Constantin] Brâncuși’s and [French American sculptor Jacques] Lipschitz’s studio. Modigliani wrote a postcard to Brâncuși to our address and we have a copy of it. We’ve had that in our house my whole life. And then Beatrice, it varies in certain books, but she either lived at 53 or 55 Rue de Montpernasse, and I was at 54.

So it’s safe to say working with Johnny Depp was a huge pull for you all on this?

SCAMARCIO It is very, very safe to say.

DESPLAT He’s the best actor of our century.

SCARMARCIO He has heart and trust, which is, I think, the most important things for an actor. They need to feel this trust from the director. It’s critical. And it’s very strange because [Depp] puts you in a position where you feel free to deliver whatever you want but then he drives you with very smart and precise indications. It’s fantastic, because you feel free, but safe.

DESPLAT Also, Johnny is a definition of an artist. He’s a painter, he’s a musician, he’s an actor, he’s a director. And like [Scamarcio] said, he has a heart, which brings sensitivity and he refuses to be boxed. He refuses to go into the conformity of things, so he’s fully uncensored. Being directed by someone who’s just doesn’t — excuse my French — give a shit about other people’s opinion, and who’s just going to do things for the art and for the love of it and the passion of it, is just completely enthralling.

Was it peculiar reconciling Johnny Depp the actor with Johnny Depp the director?

DESPLAT I first had 10 minutes where I needed to get my fandom out in our first Zoom meeting, and tell him how much I admire him. He calls me kiddo, and he just felt like a very fatherly figure that was going to guide us very gently and carefully into the world. But I think each character Johnny has played has a part of him. He does imitations of characters and people all the time, and so you see all these different characters that he’s played over the years come alive as he’s directing us and demonstrates what he wants, sometimes just when he’s speaking about it, because he gets passionate. So I think the director and the actor just merged into one thing.

McParland, Scamarcio, Ranieri, and Gouery in ‘Modi’. Modi Production Ltd

Do you have any tidbits or memories from set that would give audiences insight into Johnny Depp as a director?

DESPLAT (Laughs.) There’s a scene in the cemetery that is the definition of how he allows things to happen.

SCAMARCIO When we are running and we just went crazy, and in one take, which is the one in the movie, [Desplat] falls — and she was never supposed to end up on the floor. Instead of stopping the scene, I go and say, “Are you OK?,” we kept going, and it was fantastic. And Johnny, he loved it.

DESPLAT He calls it “movie magic.”

SCAMARCIO That’s what he’s looking for: accidents.

DESPLAT And of course, we had the whole crew and Johnny was going (whispering): “Is she OK? Is she OK? Is she OK? Can we keep going?” Obviously we didn’t hear that, but we heard about it later on. And he came out and was like, “This is movie magic!”

GOURERY I have to say that I don’t work with many directors who give me the possibility to show my fantasies and give me such confidence.

McPARLAND It was deeply collaborative. He really, really encouraged us to take risks with the work and with the performances.

A lot of people will view this as Johnny’s big return, in lots of ways, to Hollywood after some instability these past few years. Do you think that he deserves a second chance?

DESPLAT Yeah. People need to move on.

SCAMARCIO Second chance? Why? I think Hollywood needs Johnny Depp, an artist of that kind. It’s very important for Hollywood and for cinema in general. And yeah, it’s a very controversial thing but at the end of this process, can you imagine how such a big sufferance there is behind these things? When you feel attacked by a world, why? And actually, you’re a good man. He’s the nicest, the kindest, the sweetest man I’ve ever worked with in my life. The industry, I think, should be very careful, because artists are very, very fragile. It’s not easy to just arrive. Of course, there are privileges, but at the same time, it’s a difficult job.

DESPLAT And he’s a human being.

SCAMARCIO Yeah, we need humanity. That’s what we need. So let’s celebrate Johnny and this movie, which is about another artist that, let’s not forget, died with no money, was terribly sick. [Modigliani] was punched by the police the day before he died, which increases sickness, and five months ago, his painting has been sold for $170 million. Shall we learn something from those things? I think we should. We should be careful. I’ve done another movie about another painter called Caravaggio, who has been canceled for years by the church and is from the 1600s. So this cancel culture, it’s something that comes from a very long time ago.

DESPLAT Exactly.

McPARLAND I think whatever Johnny decides to do with the rest of his career, his life, is up to him. I personally can only speak about my experience working with him and getting to know him. He’s an incredibly kind, down to earth, humble, extremely humble human being. He looked after us and protected us and took care of us. The work was always most important. There was nothing else going on. To have the freedom to explore and to experiment and to improvise, it could be one of the greatest acting experiences I may ever have the pleasure of being part of.

Riccardo, Antonia — had you two met before you worked on Modi? Because you were such a convincing couple. Your chemistry was amazing.

SCAMARCIO We just met in Budapest, a week before we started shooting. [It’s good] you believe in us as a couple.

DESPLAT I think we bounce off each other very well. And I think Johnny created a very safe playground for us, too, and he was very collaborative.

SCAMARCIO And she speaks a perfect Italian.

DESPLAT It was a very collaborative process, and I think Johnny allowed us to take part in rewriting the scenes with him so that they felt more truthful to each of our characters, to bring in ideas and research that we had done. So it felt like a very collaborative effort and we just had fun doing it.

Antonia Desplat as Beatrice in Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness.

This is a film about art, about pride, about snobbery. What else is Modi honoring, what is its message?

SCAMARCIO Well, for me, the most important thing is that this movie established that it is very important to be an artist, but also to be a man. I would say, beyond that, for an artist, there is something that can’t be for sale. A private dimension of you, your soul. It’s very important to create and if you sell that … you will be contaminated forever. So there is this message that no matter how powerful you are, how much money you have, there is the reason we do this job.

DESPLAT I think for me, we should take away from the film the freedom that those characters have, because we live in a world where art is censored all the time. But art is supposed to be provocative, it’s supposed to be exciting. And I think if we start controlling art, we just lose the soul, we lose the freedom of it. And I think with this film, because it’s not a biopic, we’re just sort of zooming in on three days of an artist, you get to experience and witness the freedom that these characters had. They were all revolutionaries, these four characters, and they were artists struggling to be recognized, which I think speaks to everybody nowadays too, but it’s taking away the freedom of art. Art needs to be free. Otherwise it can’t exist.

GOUERY It’s all about, I think, the freedom of creation. It’s unbelievable for me to think that those painters at the beginning … they never sell the paintings! And they’re continuing all the same. It’s very strange. I don’t know. If I, as an actor, if no one cast me, I think I would change [careers].

McPARLAND Yeah, perseverance.

Johnny isn’t the only big name you worked with on this film. You all got to work with Al Pacino. Can you speak a little bit about about that experience?

DESPLAT Can I just say how great the scene is?

SCAMARCIO We went to Los Angeles to shoot that scene, and Johnny wanted to rewrite the scene. And so we had two days to shoot the scene, but actually one day he was rewriting so me and Al were chilling out, home alone. “OK, well, we’re not gonna work today.” So basically [Depp] rewrote the scene completely. And the second day, like an hour from when we were supposed to start shooting, I’ve received this brand new scene, completely new, which from 15 pages became 27 and the page 28 was: “More dialogue to come …” I said, “This is a joke.” (Laughs.) I’m not English, not American, I’m 100 percent Italian, so English is not my language, but I said to myself: “If Johnny thinks that I can make it … He’s not worried. Well, I’m gonna make it.” I learned this scene in one hour, and it was wonderful. It was incredible. Al is such a generous and incredible man, very humble, very sweet with me, he helped me a lot. So it’s an honor, of course. I’ve been very lucky to be protected by these two incredible human beings and immense artists.

DESPLAT He’s just the sweetest man alive, he’s not at all pretentious. You know, sometimes, when you meet your idols, there can be a time where you’re disappointed. But he was so sweet. He just wanted ice cream.

GOUERY I tell you the truth, when I saw the scene [with Pacino], it was better than what I imagined.

Are you excited to be here in San Sebastian for the festival?

SCAMARCIO (Claps hands excitedly.)

RANIEIRI It’s so welcoming, so beautiful to be here. It was incredible arriving. All the world came out to say hello.

DESPLAT This festival feels very authentic. It feels like it’s about the actual films, whereas I think sometimes you can get lost in all the glitz of other festivals. To show the movie, this is the best place to appreciate the art of filmmaking. So it’s very exciting!