He has been married once, engaged three times and had a high profile, long standing relationship with a supermodel. But the woman who finally stole Johnny Depp's heart and inspired him to turn his back on life in Hollywood is French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis.

"I live in Europe pretty much all of the time," recently said Johnny, who now calls an apartment in Paris and a house in the south of France home. "I go back and forth, but the majority of my time is spent in Europe.

"I'd like to say I moved to France so I could smoke in peace, but it's more than that, you know. I had always felt very drawn to France and it's culture but I was never really clear why. Now I'm convinced that it was some sort of grand plan drawing me there to meet Vanessa - a kind of strange and beautiful destiny." Every time he returns to LA, he's reminded of all the reasons he's no longer based there. "I'll never understand the animal, the machine, of Hollywood business - and I don't want to. It's like joining a clique just because everyone else is in it, "he explains. "You don't have a particular interest in it, and it has nothing to do with who you are as a person, but you just join it because it is the thing to do."

Although they met some years earlier, Johnny and Vanessa became an item two and a half years ago and their daughter Lily-Rose Melody was born a year later on May 27, 1999. The actor described the arrival of his daughter as "the best moment I ever had in my life" and it clearly contributed to his decision to move to Europe. "I would never contemplate raising my daughter in LA. I would never raise any child there," says Johnny, who is keen to savor every moment with his family. "The quality of life is so different in France. There's the possibility of living a simpler life."

"To be together, we can't live apart," adds Vanessa. "It's too hard, especially with a child. You can't say, 'I'll watch my child grow up later' because they don't wait to grow up. A baby changes every day. If you don't see your baby for a week or two, you come back and so many things have happened. But I'm not forcing Johnny, we both want the same thing, which is to watch our child grow up."

The 28 year old actress and singer, who has recently completed a new album called Bliss, is equally committed to family life. "That is all that matters in the world," she affirms. "My work is a passion for me and I love to do it, but it's nothing compared to my family.

"When you're 80 years old, what's going to be left around you? Your work isn't going to be so important; everything you've done isn't going to be so important. What is going to be important is that there are people to hold your hand."

She acknowledges that motherhood is largely responsible for her change in perspective. "You have to be less selfish because you have this little one. They need you to eat, to get dressed, to clean - everything. And if you're not there for them, it's not going to work. You have to put you selfishness to one side and just be there for them. And it's not an effort; you want to do it. It makes you less selfish and it takes away all the superficiality of your life.

"A kid is like a star in the sky, like the sun actually. My daughter is like the sun to me: she shines and she's pure all the time. She's honesty, she's beauty, she's everything.

"Whenever somebody's bothering you with stupid details or wasting your time, you look at this god, this little person, and you think, 'All that stuff is dust, it really doesn't matter. But that is life in front of me.' She's amazing."

Before Lily-Rose, Vanessa felt her life was missing something. "I always felt that I was really lucky in my work - I've had so many beautiful experiences with so many people - but I needed a family," she explains. "I love doing things and I love going on stage, but it's nothing in comparison."

And having decided she wanted a family, she knew she was ready. "We chose to do it and I was ready for many years: to be a mother was all I wanted." As well as being born to famous parents, Lily-Rose will have the added advantage of being bilingual. "She will speak both languages very soon and very fluently, and that's great, " says Vanessa proudly.

When asked how she would feel if her daughter wanted to follow in her parents' footsteps and enter show business, however, Vanessa errs on the side of caution. "You can't say no to a child. I mean, you can say, 'Don't touch fire or you're going to burn yourself. Don't touch a knife or your going to cut yourself' - and that's what I do right now, as she wants to touch everything!

"But in the big decisions of your life, like 'Don't fall in love with that person because he's bad for you', you can't say that. You can't forbid somebody; you can only be there to help them. So I'll be really scared for her, I'll be worried, but I'll be there for her if she wants me to be."

In the meantime, she is enjoying her daughter's childhood. "We're teaching her a lot of things but it seems like she's teaching us so many things as well. She's so real, so pure, so funny, so smart, so direct."

Last year Vanessa and Johnny worked together for the first time, on Terry Gillian's ill-fated film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Sadly, it was never completed. "It's on hold - I didn't shoot any scenes at all, I just rehearsed my lines," says Vanessa. "Shooting started for a week and then it was shut down because the lead actor, Jean Rochefort, got sick and none of us, especially Terry, wanted to replace him. But it was a beautiful project, very special."

Being an actress like Johnny, she understands the vagaries of the film business, but that doesn't necessarily mean she's entirely comfortable with demands such as sex scenes. "it's not the thing I like most about Johnny's job," she admits, "but it's fake. Obviously I prefer it when he plays a part like the one in Donnie Brasco with Al Pacino! But, anyway, it's part of his job - and we know who we are and what's real." Her understanding of show business and all that it entails is based on years of experience - after all, she was just 14 years old when she found fame with the song Joe Le Taxi and has sequentially received critical acclaim for her film work. But although she describes her life as "full of amazing experiences", she does say that she missed out on some of the 'normal' teenage experiences.

"I didn't have the regular teenage years where you just go to school and then go and party with your friends. But on the other hand, I did things, which is what I wanted to do.

"I missed being anonymous. I love working when it's time to be in font of the camera or public, but the rest of the time I don't like fame. But I can't complain about it. Fame has brought me so many things."

It's taken a while, though, for her to shake off her 'Lolita' image and to be seen and accepted by the public as an adult. "It's obvious that when you start work at 14, you've got a lot of things to learn and you've got to grow. I'm 28, so obviously I've changed a lot.

"I think the more things you do, the more you prove yourself to people and the more they accept you. It's far more easy to accept a grown-up person than a child in the business. I realized that later."

But she remains attached to the song that brought her fame. "People always ask me how I feel about Joe Le Taxi. Well, I love that song and I'm really proud of it." But old videos and interviews can still make her shudder. "I just want to slap myself, " she says, " because I said such stupid things. But I couldn't help myself. Still, I don't regret it; it's there, it's done. What can I do about it?"

Now, after a break of eight years, Vanessa has returned to the studio to record her new album Bliss. "I had been working so much since I was 14 and I wanted to stop for a little bit and do movies. But I never planned it to be that long a break. When I decided I wanted to do music again, it took so much time to put everything together. "It's funny, because I didn't know what I wanted beforehand, only as I was making it," explains Vanessa, who also wrote and produced the songs, which are in both English and French. "Sometimes I wrote the lyrics the night before I recorded them, then sometimes I found a melody on the day. I really wanted a contrast between my puppy, sugary voice and the instruments. I wanted something more raw to contrast with my little cartoon voice."

Anyone looking for veiled references to her love life in her lyrics won't get very far, however. Although Vanessa isn't afraid of giving away too much of herself to the listener, she is careful not to give out details of her private life in her songs.

"I'm somebody who protects my private life in my work. I made sure while I was writing the words that people would understand that I was talking about universal feelings - being a mother, being a woman in love, being a woman in society. Lots of women have been through what I've been through - I've never told it as if I'm giving out private details of my own life, so I don't feel like I opened doors on my secret garden."

Despite the album, having a successful singing career is not Vanessa's priority. "I'm not interested in having a career, even in music, " she states. "I'm not running after a number one hit - all I want to do is my own little thing."

Instead, partnership and motherhood seem to satisfy her far more as she looks forward to growing older. "I'm not 30 yet, but I think 30 years old is a much easier age for a woman - especially if you have the love of your life in your house and especially if you are a mother," she says. "You are easier within yourself and so you're easier in front of other people."