Johnny Depp on not wanting Tonto to be a sidekick

Johnny Depp’s Tonto and Armie Hammer’s The Lone Ranger head up the band of rebels and outlaws that are leading the charge in Total Film magazine issue 208.

Celebrating the renegades, mavericks and lone wolves of cinema, we’re looking at the stars and directors not afraid to break the mould.

Inside the issue (available for just £1.99 on your iPad ), we catch up with Depp, Hammer, and director-producer power-team Gore Verbinski and Jerry Bruckheimer to find out why they’ve turned their attention from the high seas to the wild west.

You can read the full feature inside the rebel issue, but for now, here’s a snippet of what Depp had to say about reinventing Tonto, the Ranger’s Native American sidekick.

“Since cinema has been around, Native Americans have been treated very poorly by Hollywood,” Depp told us. “What I wanted to do was play Tonto not as a sidekick – like ‘go fetch a soda for me, boy!’ – but as a warrior with integrity and dignity. It’s my small sliver of a contribution to try to right the wrongs of the past.”

Plus, for Depp, this time it’s personal. “I’m probably one sixteenth Native American, but of course that’s hard to trace. Basically that means it’s likely that, somewhere along the line, you were a product of rape.”

The Lone Ranger opens in the UK opens in the UK on 9 August 2013, after a 3 July bow in the US.

For much more from Depp and co. on The Lone Ranger , pick up Total Film magazine issue 208, which is out now!