If Johnny Depp were our king, things would be different around here. First off, everyone would have to wear a cravat. Second, there would be a GCSE in dandyish mannerisms and instead of national service, young men and women would be forced to spend a year collaborating with Tim Burton.
It also seems fairly likely that under the reign of King Johnny (and his grand vizier, Paul Whitehouse from the Fast Show, whose comic talent Johnny admires and who would act as a link between American monarch and the British populace) there would be grander social changes too. Alterations to our national behaviour, enforced by law.
How many times have you done something, then dwell on how you might have done it better, using precious time that you could otherwise have spent performing another equally substandard job of work? Under King Johnny, this would be outlawed.
Interviewed this week on Radio 4's must-hear early evening arts chataround Front Row, Depp claimed that he "almost religiously" avoids watching his films once he's made them. He won't even watch the rushes.
"I prefer to walk away with the experience as opposed to walking away with the product," he said. "I like to portray a character, inhabit a character and build character, but I don't want to watch the end result necessarily. I wouldn't dare watch a playback or rushes or anything like that. I have no plans to see [my films] – any of them."
This may strike some, particularly all those involved in the making of Transformers II, as a hopelessly artistic view of one's role in life, totally removed from the hard, dirty, real world of profit and loss. What's more, it's the view of someone so rich they can buy a Caribbean island on a whim. What if the producers looked at the final cut of Depp's new movie Public Enemies (in which he plays John Dillinger as James Dean) and decided that his performance wouldn't play well with housewives in Minnesota? Would Depp consent to filming anew without even watching it himself? Would he send a member of his staff to take a look instead?
If applied more broadly, though, I think Depp's attitude has a lot of sense about it. The tendency to brood on one's past performance, decisions etc is rivalled only by the full-length mirror as a spur of self-loathing. Too many of life's decisions, through the prism of memory, end up being altered, tweaked, turned into regrets. Would it not be better, like imaginary King Johnny, to aspire to live purely in the moment: do our best, live the experience and move on?
It would take some gumption to be able to live your entire life in such a fashion. Currently, I just settle for applying Johnny's practice to DIY. Throughout the four hours or so it takes me to put up a shelf, I inhabit that shelf, I think about the brackets, I am that rawlplug, I experience nothing else. Once that shelf is up, however, I have no interest in revisiting it, and will even refrain from entering the room in order to avoid it. Admittedly this is because the shelf will be on the wonk, but still, it's a start.
