Johnny Depp has "never chased" fame.

The 62-year-old actor has been one of the biggest names in Hollywood for more than 40 years but has insisted that being well-known or "pleasing" others was never part of his plan, although he is aware that he cannot really talk about how "upset" it makes him and expect others to sympathise.

He told The Sunday Times: "Well, fame is the last thing I ever chased.

"If you look at the 9,000 years that I've been doing this s***, it's pretty clear that I wasn't ever thinking how I could be more famous, make a hit or please the press. Fame is an occupational hazard -- but if I spout off about how upset I am, people will say, 'Sweetheart, take a job pulling trash bags.'

Meanwhile, the Pirates of the Caribbean star grew up as one of four, and even though his parents divorced when he was a teenager, he admitted that the "dynamics changed" once his siblings got married and he found himself having to "step in and out" of family life as he became more well-known.

He said: "My brother had his problems with the parents.

"There were many episodes of conflict -- he and my father would duke it out -- and Debbie had her problems with them too. Then Danny got married. Soon Debbie got married too, so it was only me and Christi. Then Christi got married, so it was only me. And dynamics changed. It was almost as if I was used to conflict. It was not abnormal. I did my best to just step in and out.

"What were my initial dealings with what we call 'love'? Clearly obtuse. And what that means is, if you're a sucker like I am, sometimes you look in a person's eye and see some sadness, some lonely thing and you feel you can help that person.

"But no good deed goes unpunished.

"Because there are those who, when you try to love and help them, will start to give you an understanding of what that malaise, that perturbance was in their eyes. It manifests itself in other ways. And the interesting thing is that it is merely a sliver of my life I have chosen to explore, because it is my mother and my father. Do you know what I'm saying?"