In the Feb. 2011 issue of Vanity Fair (“The Crowded Mind of Johnny Depp”), Depp talks about the characters he’s played, and he says about Hunter, “There was a certain freedom that he had, or control, or command of the situation—there was never anything that he couldn’t get through. Verbally he was just so clever and so quick and so free, and he didn’t give a rat’s ass about what the repercussions were.”

This sounds just like Hunter in a nutshell, though of course he had even more sides than that.

Patti Smith, the interviewer, says: He was the revolutionary’s Johnny Carson. I mean, he always had a punch line.

Absolutely.

Depp: Somebody once asked him, “What is the sound of one hand clapping, Hunter?,” and he smacked him. Captain Jack was kind of like that for me, an opening up of this part of yourself that is somewhat—you know, there is a little Bugs Bunny in all of us.

Smith: Young kids love—really love—the Captain. And who is more mystically mischievous, and brilliant in his own way, than Bugs Bunny?