Depp is one of the most versatile actors in this day and age. To think after dropping out of school at 15, joining a few garage bands, and marrying young that he would be where he is today is amazing. He was a salesman visiting LA in the late '80s when he met up with Nicolas Cage, who told Depp that he should turn to acting. Now almost three decades later, he has made quite a name for himself. Anyone who can afford a home in Paris, a home on the Sun Strip in LA, and own an island in the Bahamas must be doing something right.
Depp caught my attention in the 1990 musical comedy "Cry-baby" in which he plays a bad boy who has won the heart of a good girl and is being sought after by her jealous boyfriend. The movie is incredibly cheesy and Depp's personality is even cheesier, but you can't get enough of the tear that rolls down his face when he sings.
In that same year, he granted us with yet another movie with a completely different atmosphere. As Edward Scissorhands, everyone wanted to know him but no one wanted to be him. He fell in love with the beautiful Winona Ryder in the movie and real life, and for years, they were one of the most popular of couples. Though Depp has never been a man to stay steady with one woman forever.
A bad boy, a misfit, and then nine years later, we are welcomed with yet another crazy character. Ichabod Crane, an investigator sent to Sleepy Hollow after three people had been decapitated. In this film, we fell in love with his awkward, quirky character and got the pleasure of seeing him face off against legendary Headless Horseman with Katrina Van Tassel by his side.
We think we've seen it all when Johnny Depp plays the lead in Blow, the real story of George Jung who established the American Cocaine Market the 1970s. He does very well at playing the dead-beat father and drug lord, but why would he stop there? It is hard to say there is a part he cannot play because he's pretty much played them all.
The early 2000s began a new era. The infamous Captain Jack Sparrow blessed us all with his strangely attractive absurdity. "Pirates of the Caribbean" started a huge fandom and Depp was its poster boy. As his daughter says, "Who else can say their dad is a pirate?" A pirate whose face is now a part of one of Disney's most loved attractions.
To say Depp is man with many faces would be an understatement. He's a man with all faces. He's played the psychotic murderer, the vampire, the mad hatter, the mobster. The one thing he never has to play is himself. A quiet, calm and collected man who lives for himself and his family, not for his fame. A quote by Depp says, "I've also gotten weird letters, suicide letters, girls threatening to jump if I don't get in touch with them. So you think, 'This is bullshit,' but then you think, 'What if it's not? Who wants to take that chance?' I write them back, tell them to hang in there, if things are that bad, they have to get better. But I'm not altogether stable myself, so who am I to give advice?" Just another reason to love a real man who can play all others.
