JOHNNY DEPP

Johnny Depp used to have a thing about clowns. They terrified him.

"Something about the painted face, the fake smile," he tried to explain, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and leaning back on a couch at the Ritz Carlton. "There always seemed to be a darkness lurking just under the surface, a potential for real evil."

Depp, in town promoting his latest film, "Sleepy Hollow," in which a headless horseman visits real evil on a New York hamlet, has never been one to run from his fears. He once owned a painting by serial killer and children's party entertainer John Gacy - a painting of Gacy's alter-ego, Pogo the Clown.

"They told me when I got it that the proceeds went to a charity or to the victims' families or something, but I found out that wasn't the case," Depp explained. "So I got rid of it. It was too dark anyway - fascinating from a psychological point of view, but that was really dark stuff."

Clowns don't scare Depp so much anymore. He's able to discuss some of the other painters capable of capturing horrible and striking images of agony, evil and fear - Goya, Munch, John Cougar Mellencamp - and still maintain a safe emotional distance.

Johnny Depp is one mellow guy - he's a daddy. Lily-Rose Melody Depp was born six months ago to Depp and Vanessa Paradis, the former French pop star with whom Depp now lives in Paris. Struggling to explain what fatherhood has meant to him, Depp gets that far- away look in his eyes recognized by new parents everywhere.

"I used to go through the world, thinking I was seeing things clearly, but I was really kind of stumbling and viewing events through a haze, like a gauze or something," he said. "Then the instant my baby was born, I looked at her and immediately - instantly - everything came into a sharp focus.

"I looked at her, this pure little angel, that I was just meeting for the first time, and I realized I had known her for 10,000 years. There will never be anyone that will know me better, that will understand me just by a look. I know I will never be closer to another human being."

Depp, now 36, is so obviously and unabashedly in love, his whole demeanor becomes open, at ease, unguarded and, most of all, happy.

"She hasn't changed my life, she's given me my life, in the sense that everything now has reason," he said. "I used to think I was happy, that there were things in my life that would make me smile, but the biggest difference is that now I can feel my smile, it's all connected."

No wonder clowns aren't so spooky anymore.

Most every story written about Depp includes the word

"quirky" somewhere, usually in relation to the type of characters he chooses to play. His portrayal of detective Ichabod Crane in friend and director Tim Burton's

"Sleepy Hollow" would probably fit that description. Depp's Crane is full of contradictions and imperfections, a detective trying to bring rationality to murder, an irrational act. Depp's Crane has enough tics to fill a forest, and he mugs and eyebrows his way through every scene. It's tough to imagine how Depp can keep all those gestures straight from take to take during filming.

"If you think about it, you're lost," admitted Depp, never one to blow his own horn about his abilities but clearly one who takes his craft seriously. "You go into it for the moment, try to convey what the character is feeling, try not to visualize the end result - that will sink you every time."

Working with Burton for the third time made "Sleepy Hollow" an entertaining experience, as Depp and Burton spent most of their time "cackling" when the cameras weren't running. They developed a fixation with Georgie Jessel, the Toastmaster General of television fame (if that's what you want to call it), and Depp still cracks up recounting Burton's using his best Jessel imitation to call for "action" on the set.

Trust me, I guess you had to be there - there were three people in the room when Depp did his imitation and only one of them was holding his sides.

Depp enjoys acting, but he's noncommittal as to how long he'll keep doing it. And he'll barely acknowledge any suggestion that he's one of the few actors capable of carrying on in the tradition of his buddy Marlon Brando.

"I'll keep working as long as they want me, I guess," he laughed. "As long as it's not boring. And there are no new Brandos - it's flattering to be mentioned in the same breath, but he's way beyond comparisons."

If there's one thing Depp still has to look forward to, it's seeing "Sleepy Hollow" - which he still hasn't watched.

"I hate looking at myself up there, it always kind of makes me . . . well, ill," he offered. Even with his matinee idol looks and legions of swooning fans and all that movie star stuff?

"To me, I'm still looking at that s- -head I see every morning when I stagger into the bathroom," he said laughing. "And that's rough." <