John Christopher Depp II (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor, producer, and musician. He has
been nominated for three Academy Awards and has won the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Actor.
Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol.
Depp has challenged himself by playing larger-than-life roles, including a supporting role in Oliver Stone's 1986 Vietnam
War film Platoon and the title character in the 1990 romantic dark fantasy Edward Scissorhands. He later found box office
success in the fantasy adventure film Sleepy Hollow (1999), the fantasy swashbuckler film Pirates of the Caribbean: The
Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and its sequels, the fantasy film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), the fantasy
film Alice in Wonderland (2010), and the animated action comedy western Rango (2011) (in which he voiced the title
character). Depp has collaborated on nine films with director, producer and friend Tim Burton.
Depp is regarded as one of the world's biggest film stars.He has gained praise from reviewers for his portrayals of
screenwriter-director Ed Wood in Ed Wood, undercover FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone in Donnie Brasco, author J. M.
Barrie in Finding Neverland, and Boston gangster Whitey Bulger in Black Mass. Depp is the third highest-grossing actor
worldwide, as films featuring Depp have grossed over US$3.6 billion at the United States box office and almost
US$10 billion worldwide. His most commercially successful films are the Pirates of the Caribbean series, which grossed
US$4.5 billion, Alice in Wonderland, which grossed US$1 billion, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which grossed US$474
million, and The Tourist, which grossed US$278 million.
Depp has been nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actor.Depp won the Golden Globe Award for Best
Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in the title role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet
Street, as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role for his
portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. He has been listed in the
2012 Guinness World Records as the world's highest-paid actor, with earnings of US$75 million.Depp was inducted as
a Disney Legend in 2015
Acting career
1984-1989: Early film roles and 21 Jump Street
Depp's first film role was in the horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), in which he played the boyfriend of
heroine Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) and one of Freddy Krueger's victims.After a starring role in the
comedy Private Resort (1985), Depp was cast in the lead role of the skating drama Thrashin' (1986) by the film's director,
but the decision was later overridden by its producer. Instead, Depp appeared in a minor supporting role as a Vietnamese-
speaking private in Oliver Stone's Vietnam War drama Platoon(1986).
Depp became a popular teen idol during the late 1980s, when he starred as a police officer who goes on an undercover
operation in a high school in the Fox television series 21 Jump Street, which premiered in 1987. He accepted this role to
work with actor Frederic Forrest, who inspired him. Despite his success, Depp felt that the series "forced [him] into the role
of product."
[27] He subsequently decided to appear only in films that he felt were right for him
1990–2002: Serious actor
In 1990, Depp played the title character in Tim Burton's film Edward Scissorhands, in which he starred opposite Dianne
Wiest and Winona Ryder. The film was a critical and commercial success that established him as a leading Hollywood actor
and began his long association with Burton. Producer Scott Rudin has stated that "basically Johnny Depp is playing Tim
Burton in all his movies";although Burton disapproved of the comment, Depp agrees with it. In his introduction to Burton onBurton, a book of interviews with the director, Depp called Burton "... a brother, a friend, ... and [a] brave soul".Depp's first
film release in 1990 was John Waters' Cry-Baby, a musical comedy set in the 1950s. Although it was not a box office
success upon its initial release, over the years it has gained cult classic status.
2003–2011: Pirates of the Caribbean and continued success
Depp has generally chosen roles which he found interesting, rather than those he thought would succeed at the box
office. Criticshave often described Depp's characters as "iconic loners".Depp has referred to some of his less-successful
films as "studio-defined failures" and "box office poison",and said that he thought the studios neither understood the films
nor did a good job of marketing them. In 2003, Depp starred in the Walt Disney Pictures adventure film Pirates of the
Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which was a major box office success.He earned widespread acclaim for his
comic performance as pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Depp
has said that Sparrow is "definitely a big part of me", and that he modeled the character after The Rolling
Stones guitarist Keith Richards and cartoon skunk Pepé Le Pew. Studio executives had at first been ambivalent about
Depp's portrayal,but the character became popular with audiences. According to a survey taken by Fandango, Depp was a
major draw for audiences.
Depp was again nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for his performance as Scottish author J. M. Barrie in the
film Finding Neverland (2004). The following year he starred as Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which
reunited him with director Tim Burton, with whom he had not collaborated since Sleepy Hollow. The film was a box office
success and had a positive critical reception,with Depp being nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion
Picture Musical or Comedy.Chocolate Factory was followed by another Burton project, stop-motion animation Corpse
Bride (2005), in which Depp voiced the character Victor Van Dort.
Depp reprised the role of Jack Sparrow in the Pirates sequels Dead Man's Chest (2006) and At World's End (2007), both of
which were major box office successes.He also voiced the character in the video game Pirates of the Caribbean: The
Legend of Jack Sparrow. In 2007, Depp also collaborated with Burton for their sixth film together, this time playing
murderous barber Sweeney Todd in the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street(2007). Burton had first
given him an original cast recording of the 1979 stage musical in 2000, and although not a fan of the musical genre, Depp
had grown to like the tale's treatment. He cited Peter Lorre in Mad Love (1935) as his main influence for the role.Although he
had performed in musical groups, Depp was initially unsure that he would be able to perform the role, which required him to
sing. He recorded demos and worked with Bruce Witkin to shape his vocals without a qualified voice coach. In the DVD
Reviews section, Entertainment Weekly's Chris Nashawaty gave the film an A minus, stating, "Depp's soaring voice makes
you wonder what other tricks he's been hiding ... Watching Depp's barber wield his razors ... it's hard not to be reminded
of Edward Scissorhands frantically shaping hedges into animal topiaries 18 years ago ... and all of the twisted beauty we
