Johnny Depp shows his smile on the new cover of the July 2009 issue of Vanity Fair. 

The 45-year-old Oscarless actor's interview covers a wide range of topics from Elizabeth Taylor, to the price of happiness, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, but it buys you a big enough yacht to sail right up to it."

Depp's hobbies include reading, playing guitar, and painting. "What I love to do is paint people's faces, y'know, their eyes," he says. "Because you want to find that emotion, see what's going on behind their eyes."

The Vanity Fair photo spread shows off Depp's 45-acre private Bahamian island, Little Hall's Pond Cay, which includes six different beaches.

Here are some interview excerpts on Johnny's icons and his private island:

Johnny Depp shows Vanity Fair contributing editor Douglas Brinkley around his 45-acre private Bahamian island, Little Hall's Pond Cay, and tells Brinkley that the island "is my decompression. It's my way of trying to return to normalcy.... Escapism is survival to me."

When Brinkley asks Depp if there is any Hollywood icon he still hopes to spend time with, he says, "I already met her. Elizabeth Taylor." Depp once attended dinner with Taylor and found her to be "the best old-school dame I've ever met. A regular, wonderful person. Billy Bob Thornton and Steve Martin were also there. Boy, did I take to her. For dinner she ordered liver and onions and just smothered them with salt. I admired that. She's an astonishingly great broad."

Little Hall's Pond has six different beaches-named after Depp's partner, Vanessa Paradis, and their children, Lily Rose and Jack, as well as his mentors Hunter S. Thompson and Marlon Brando-each with a personality and cove of its own, and one patch of water deemed "Heath's Place" after the late actor Heath Ledger. There are several small residences, all solar-powered, and transportation consists of a fleet of green golf carts.

"I don't think I'd ever seen any place so pure and beautiful," Depp tells Brinkley of the island. "You can feel your pulse rate drop about 20 beats. It's instant freedom. And that rare beast-simplicity-can be had. And a little morsel of anonymity.... Whenever I was getting frustrated about being ‘novelty boy' and making movies, I told myself, Calm down. I can come down here and disappear. I spent the Christmas season here with Vanessa and the kids. You can feed hot dogs to the nurse sharks in the Exumas-but it's best to not swim when doing it."