Depp only leaves the house to check his vegetables

Johnny Depp prefers a life of tending to vegetables in France to shooting blockbuster movies.

The 'Alice in Wonderland' actor - who has children Lily Rose, ten, and Jack, seven, with partner Vanessa Paradis - admits he prefers his existence in France to a glitzy, Hollywood lifestyle.

He said: "We have a great place in the South of France. It's a little hamlet - only about 45 acres - and I don't do anything.

"I've not left the property for three months at a time. I literally just wake up, go out, check the garden and see the vegetables growing. It's a pristine existence in terms of simplicity.

"There's no talk of movies or work and, infinitely more important, the telephone never rings. It really is a beautiful, simple life."

The 46-year-old star also claims a decision to buy an island in the Caribbean was a spur of the moment decision.

He said in an interview with the Daily Mirror newspaper: "Like everything else in my life it wasn't planned, it just kind of happened. I went on vacation to escape with my kiddies and my girl and someone said that there was an island down the road for sale.

"I said, 'Let's go see it.' I looked at it, I walked on it and I was done. It had to be. It came at the perfect moment for me.

"The island provides me with simplicity and somewhere I can go where no one is looking at me or pointing a camera or a finger at me. I can just be. When we're there we do absolutely nothing."

While he insists he prefers the quiet life, Johnny jokingly claims he took a role in upcoming movie 'The Tourist' with Angelina Jolie - who raises six children with partner Brad Pitt - because he wants more attention.

He said: "I feel I'm not getting photographed by the paparazzi enough, so I figure I'll go and hang out in Venice with Brad and Angelina."