Johnny Depp

We all know Johnny Depp as a skeevy actor who loves to dress up as creepy bullshit and scare his audience, but once upon a time, he was just a skeevy kid who loved to dress up as creepy bullshit and scare his parents. Like most under-achievers with average-to-low intelligence and arms like wet spaghetti, he dreamed of a future as a rock musician, so he went Southern California, where he would likely spend the rest of eternity pumping gas, playing dives, and giving hand-jobs for bus tokens. Then fate stepped in, as it often does, in the form of Nicolas Cage. One of Depp's old buddies, Cage told him he should get into acting, and Depp tried out for a rather forgettable role in a little B-slasher flick called A Nightmare On Elm Street. But Wes Craven didn't wanna cast him, because of what a pasty-faced weenie he was. End of story. What's that you say? Johnny Depp was cast in Elm Street? Yeah, about that. As it turned out, while Johnny Depp seemed like an twerpy little puss to men, to women, he was ass-thumpingly hot.

And so it was, Depp went on to act his way out of one wet paper bag after another, in movies like Private Resort and Platoon. Then he was cast as the lead in 21 Jump Street, a TV show created after one FOX exec finally managed to fart Bubble Yum into his own ear. The show was about a group of cops that can apparently pass as teenagers and so go under cover as high school students. It was a massive hit. I'm serious, look it up, people loved that shit. And Hollywood loved Depp, but Depp didn't quite return the sentiment. Just as he was beginning to actually give a nut about acting, he had become self-aware and realized his career was being digested by the teen idol machine, and would eventually be fired out and forgotten like so much steamin' Joey Lawrence. Whoa, indeed.

Rather than wait for his Jump Street contract to expire, like a normal person, Depp started throwing on-set tantrums and making everyone's life miserable, in an attempt to get fired for being a big horse's ass. And he was! He immediately set out to get himself a career he could be proud of as box office poison, cutting his teeth on John Water's musical load, Cry Baby. From then on, Depp seemed to actually start acting for a change, and despite the decidedly fruity aftertaste of some of his films, his own performances had become frightfully stellar. Then, on what may have been an impish whim, he started taking on leading-man type roles, like in Nick of Time and Donnie Brasco, and kicked their asses. And dearest to most all of our hearts, was the metal Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Depp formed a long standing relationship with director Tim Burton, playing pale, pretty weirdos with Stig of the Dump haircuts and Monokuro Boo wardrobes, bravely distracting Burton long enough for Michael Keaton to escape.

All the while, the media, desperate for any piece of Depp's seemingly screwy personal life, labeled him a bad boy and started treating him like a caged gorilla. And they pretty much climaxed when he stared acting like one, busting up hotel rooms, fighting the paparazzi, talking crazy emo B.S. to journalists, and getting engaged/married to every skinny waif on the planet. Until he met Vanessa Paradis, fathered a baby, and calmed the fuck down. Sort of.

All through the late 90's and early aughts, Depp went frolicking about in obscure, obscene, and homosensual films, to the point where, if you were a producer looking for a return on your movie, you'd have to be crazy to hire him. Enter Jerry Bruckheimer. Against all laws of god and man, Depp was cast as the lead in a Disney film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, as Captain Jack Sparrow, a pirate. No, this is a Disney film, the other kind of pirate.... Maybe. As a pirate movie, based on a theme park ride, made by Disney, with everyone in wigs and Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush as action stars, the film pissed in god's eye and became the biggest hit of 2003. Depp suddenly became more accessible than a Jonas Brother, gained fans of all ages and nationalities, and become a studio darling overnight. Sure, Depp still makes horrible movies, but now people actually watch them!

Depp is currently living in France with his family, working on more movies everyone on the internet is sure to hate, and continues to dress like a douche. And twenty-six odd years after Elm Street, he's still the #1 guy you girlfriend would kill you for. With a pencil.