Long before he warbled Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum, Johnny Depp was an offbeat actor known for his eclectic choices. And he still is.
Just because he’s recognized these days for essentially playing a live-action Disney cartoon doesn’t mean he’ll forever be sailing the high seas, as Wednesday’s Public Enemies demonstrates.
Time will tell if his performance as John Dillinger registers as one of his most memorable. If so, it will join the ranks of the following five including - how could it not? - Capt. Jack Sparrow:
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
The film that in many ways defined Depp’s cinematic career. At the time, he was known for the cops-in-high school TV series 21 Jump Street, but this dark fantasy about a boy with metal blades for appendages not only announced Depp’s intention to subvert the Hollywood norm, but initiated his enduring professional partnership with surrealist Tim Burton.
What’s most remarkable about Depp’s turn as the solitary outcast Edward is how he does so much with so little, largely deprived of dialogue and buried under layers of make-up.
Ed Wood (1994)
Just because you’re terrible at something doesn’t mean you should forfeit your passion. And possibly no film celebrates this philosophy more endearingly than Burton’s black-and-white oddity about the so-called worse director in Hollywood history: Wood, the mastermind behind the notorious “classic” Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Rather than a cruel satire, though, Depp and Burton’s movie is a love letter to Wood, no matter how awful and unwatchable his movies were, wires and all.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
What could have merely been a sell-out paycheque gig - aligning himself with mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer for a Disney franchise - became something else entirely in the clutches of the ever-mischievous Depp.
The actor, who once said he modeled his Sleepy Hollow character on a 13-year-old girl, took a standard-issue swashbuckler and turned him into Keith Richards. The resulting sun-baked buccaneer was something rarely seen in Hollywood blockbusterdom: an action-hero original.
Finding Neverland (2004)
For all the outlandishness of his better-known roles, Depp is equally effective when underplaying. Case in point: this drama concerning Peter Pan creator J.M. Barrie.
Depp received an Oscar nomination for his subtle, stirring work in the under-seen period piece, directed by Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, Quantum of Solace).
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Nearly 20 years after John Waters’ Cry-Baby, Depp underscores his versatility with a go-for-broke performance in Burton’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical.
As the crazed, vengeful barber who makes mincemeat (literally) out of his enemies, Deep is a gore-soaked revelation: murderously fiendish but also sad, witty, empathetic and wrenching.
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