Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp is an American actor and musician born on June 9, 1963, in Owensboro, Kentucky. His family moved frequently during his childhood before settling in Miramar, Florida. Depp left high school at sixteen to pursue music, performing with the band The Kids. After the group moved to Los Angeles, Depp appeared in the horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), playing Glen Lantz, a teenager targeted by Freddy Krueger. His early television breakthrough came with the police drama 21 Jump Street, which ran from 1987 to 1991. Although the series made him widely known, Depp sought more unusual film roles. He played the title character in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands (1990), beginning a long creative partnership with Burton. Depp later portrayed the eccentric director Ed Wood in Burton’s Ed Wood (1994), earning a Golden Globe nomination, and appeared in Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. His performance as Sweeney Todd won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Depp became an international box-office star through Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). His portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow, inspired partly by Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and the cartoon character Pepé Le Pew, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He repeated the role in several sequels, including Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End, On Stranger Tides, and Dead Men Tell No Tales. Other notable performances include J. M. Barrie in Finding Neverland (2004), intelligence officer Joseph D. Pistone in Donnie Brasco (1997), Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow (1999), and journalist Paul Kemp in The Rum Diary (2011). He also played gangster John Dillinger in Public Enemies (2009), Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Whitey Bulger in Black Mass (2015). Beyond acting, Depp has remained connected to music. He played guitar with Hollywood Vampires, a rock supergroup formed in 2015 by Depp, Alice Cooper, and Joe Perry. The group’s name refers to Cooper’s 1970s drinking club and its albums combine original songs with covers of classic rock material. Depp’s career has therefore combined mainstream commercial success, character-driven filmmaking, musical performance, and repeated collaborations with distinctive directors and performers.