"I am doing things that are true to me. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled."
John Christopher Depp II (born June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky) is an American actor and musician.
A native of Owensboro, Kentucky, Depp is best known for his portrayals of memorable, offbeat characters and his refusal to be typecast as a Hollywood Pretty Boy. He's a frequent collaborator with equally offbeat directors such as Tim Burton, Gore Verbinski, and Terry Gilliam. His most famous role to this day, which precisely revels in being as offbeat as possible, is the pirate Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Disney executives famously had no confidence in the first film and Depp's unusually quirky leading character, only for it to be a smash hit and grow a franchise, their biggest moviewise until The New '10s.
He was part of the band, The Hollywood Vampires with Alice Cooper, and toured with Jeff Beck.
Depp was briefly married to makeup artist Lori Anne Allison in the 1980s, and later to actress Amber Heard. In between, he had a fourteen-year relationship with French singer-actress Vanessa Paradis, with whom he had two children: Lily-Rose (who's gotten into acting herself) and Jack John Christopher III. He's also been romantically linked with his co-star Winona Ryder.
His works include:
- A Nightmare on Elm Street as Glen Lantz
- Platoon (1986) as Gator Lerner
- 21 Jump Street (1987–1990) as Officer Tom Hanson
- Cry-Baby (1990) as Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker
- Edward Scissorhands (1990) as Edward Scissorhands
- Benny & Joon (1993) as Sam
- Ed Wood (1994) as Ed Wood
- Don Juan De Marco (1995) as Don Juan DeMarco
- Dead Man (1995) as William Blake
- Donnie Brasco (1997) as Joseph D. Pistone/Donnie Brasco
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) as Raoul Duke
- The Ninth Gate (1999) as Dean Corso
- Sleepy Hollow (1999) as Ichabod Crane
- Chocolat (2000) as Roux
- Before Night Falls (2000) as Lt. Victor and Bon Bon
- From Hell (2001) as Frederick Abberline
- Blow (2001) as George Jung
- Pirates of the Caribbean as Captain Jack Sparrow,
- Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) as Seldon Sands
- Finding Neverland (2004) as Sir James Matthew Barrie
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) as Willy Wonka
- Corpse Bride (2005) as Victor Van Dort
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) as Benjamin Barker/Sweeney Todd
- Public Enemies (2009) as John Dillinger
- Alice in Wonderland as The Mad Hatter
- Rango (2011) as Rango
- Dark Shadows (2012) as Barnabas Collins
- The Lone Ranger (2013) Tonto
- "True North" trilogy as Guy LaPointe
- Tusk (2014)
- Yoga Hosers (2016)
- Mortdecai (2015)
- Black Mass (2015) as Whitey Bulger
- The Art of the Deal: The Movie (2016) as Donald Trump
- Fantastic Beasts as Gellert Grindelwald note
- Murder on the Orient Express (2017) as Edward Ratchett
- Minamata (2020) as W. Eugene Smith
- Jeanne du Barry (2023) as King of France Louis XV
Notable tropes related to Johnny Depp's career:
- Career Resurrection: After winning his defamation case against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, he's gained a rather sizeable fanbase who appreciate his refusal to give in to tabloid libel and wish for him to return to making blockbusters. Somewhat subverted in that, while he's mostly salvaged his public image, he still personally says that he's not ready to re-enter the mainstream Hollywood scene.
- Chronically Killed Actor: Quite a bit
, given his very first role was being killed by Freddy Krueger. There's even some Loophole Abuse, as Jack Sparrow returns from the dead, and Transcendence is all about him becoming a Virtual Ghost. - Covered in Gunge: He was slimed alongside Ben Stiller during the 2005 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards.
- Don't Explain the Joke: Apparently on the set of Donnie Brasco Al Pacino got into the habit of telling Johnny the same inane joke over and over and then laughing hysterically every time. He didn't get it, and "felt [his] IQ points dropping" every time. He does do an amusing impression, though."A skeleton goes into a bar and orders a beer and a mop." Well, it's kinda funny.
- Fake Brit: Well known for doing one of the most flawless British accents in modern film. Including an amazing Scottish accent in Alice in Wonderland, and J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland. He's so well known for the British accent he uses in his movies the last ten years or so, that many people have forgotten that he's from Kentucky.
- Fun with Foreign Languages: He's really far too amused that "depp" translates to "idiot" in German.
- Large Ham: Basically every role following the "rock star pirate" Captain Jack Sparrow that allows him to be quirky and exaggerated will feature Depp having the time of his life. Even a voiceover role, as Rango shows.
- No Export for You: Depp wrote and directed a movie in The '90s, The Brave, about a Native American agreeing to do a Snuff Film to help his family. U.S. critics hated it, so he has never released the film in North America. It is available in Asia, however.
- Old Shame: He and Rob Morrow apparently swore a pact to eradicate every copy of Private Resort from the face of the planet. Given that it was given a DVD release, it's clear that they have not yet succeeded in their quest.
- Promoted Fanboy:
- A longtime fan of Dark Shadows, in 2012 he played Barnabas Collins in the movie adaptation of that TV-series (director Tim Burton is also a fan).
- He is a big fan of The Fast Show and jumped at the chance to appear in one of its sketches.
- Role-Ending Misdemeanor: After losing a libel against British tabloids who called him a "wife-beater" in his case with Amber Heard, he was fired from the role of Gellert Grindelwald when Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was in production and got replaced by Mads Mikkelsen.
- Romance on the Set: When he met Amber Heard on the set of The Rum Diary he got into a romantic relationship with her, which lasted until they divorced in 2017. This caused the end of Johnny's 14-year relationship with Vanessa Paradis.
- Self-Deprecation:
- Is genuinely bemused by repeatedly being called gorgeous and sexy, and doesn't seem to mind at all being called out on his hobo-like dressing style. He also doesn't think he's funny, and says he enjoys staying in a state of confusion "just for the expression it puts on [his] face."
- He claims he can't watch his own movies.
- So My Kids Can Watch: In an interview, he confessed that it wasn't fully motivated by this trope, but he didn't want "the DVDs for his movies all at the back of the shelf". His role as Jack Sparrow came about partly because of this trope, and partly because he had wanted to do a Disney film after watching most of their animated movies with his children and finding that he was really enjoying them. It's also possible his guest appearance on ''SpongeBob SquarePants was motivated by this.
- Throw It In!: Several examples from Pirates of the Caribbean.
- In Curse of the Black Pearl, Jack's statement that he used "human hair — from my back" was an ad-lib. You can see Orlando Bloom trying not to laugh, and McNally chuckling in the movie. The commentary states that they initially tried to edit it out, but they found that the line lost something without it, so they threw it in.
- Jack's line "I've got a jar of dirt!" in Dead Man's Chest was also unscripted. You can also see Bloom temporarily look to his left after Depp walks by. He was looking at the director expecting to say "Cut!" but didn't.
- All of Jack's jokes about Will supposedly being a eunuch were ad-libbed by Johnny Depp. Through the creators' approval of the first, he continued.
- What Could Have Been:
- He auditioned to play Marty McFly in Back to the Future. He didn't get that far in the process, as the creators revealed years later they completely forgot he auditioned.
- He was the Disney studio's preferred choice to star as Cliff Secord in The Rocketeer. His getting passed over was part of why he was cast as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.
- He quite literally dodged a bullet when he passed up James O'Barr's offer to star in the movie adaptation of The Crow (1994).
- He was originally going to star in a planned The Invisible Man movie for the Dark Universe, but was scrapped after the failure of The Mummy (2017). In addition, Johnny Depp was accused of domestic abuse against his wife Amber Heard in late 2017 and went through lawsuits in 2018 and 2020, which led to him no longer being considered for The Invisible Man.
- He was offered the role of Jack Dawson in Titanic but turned it down, he later stated in interviews that he considers it a big regret.
