: Johnny Depp was/is just about one of the prettiest male actors there is - alongside Brad Pitt perhaps. And like Pitt, Depp likes to roughen those looks up, often sporting raggedy hair and a whole range of bum fluff face furniture. He has recently even had two gold teeth put in.
: Depp's face is his fortune but he seems to have spent most of his career in denial of it and trying to prove there is more to him than high cheekbones.
: It was interesting that in Edward Scissorhands, now celebrating its 10th anniversary, he played a beautiful freak whose hands were lethal blades and who regularly slashed his own face to ribbons. In Sleepy Hollow, Depp's hands have puncture marks all over them and his face is frequently splattered with blood. Significant eh?
: Johnny, a classic matinee idol, could so easily have just taken on sex symbol roles but instead has opted to go against the grain and throw in his lot with the weirdos. " I'm deeply obsessed by the idea that some people are considered drop-outs " he says " I would like someone to explain to me for once what 'normal' means. People best accepted in society, accomplished in their daily lives, those you call 'neat', these are the ones I find the most scary "
: He explores the idea in the movie The Astronauts Wife, where he uses his physical beauty to build this image of an archetypal all American hero. It's a diabolical exercise. Later, the American dream is shattered as we learn he is in fact a murderous rapist, oh and an alien.
: Johnny has it, everyone agrees. He has the ability to send slight expressions across his face- a twitch, an eye movement, a smile, tics that speak louder than a page of dialogue. " I think I was first aware of his magic when I saw him in Edward Scissorhands " says director Terry Gilliam " He comes out in that fright wig and all that make up and I thought 'this is horrendous', but within 15 minutes he had completely convinced me that he was a real character who I cared about. To be able to do that seems to me to be at the heart of what real acting is about. He doesn't engage the audience by asking for their sympathy. He's not like Chaplin saying ' oh please love me', he's probably closer to Buster Keaton - he does it all with a straight face.
: In Sleepy Hollow, Depp's character, Ichabod Crane, is not a typical hero. He is squeamish and frequently faints away at the events he witnesses - he is an innocent abroad. " The characters I play are deeply damaged " he says to bang home the point. : In real life, however, he has used his perfect looks quite ruthlessly, courting first Winona Ryder, then Kate Moss, commonly held to be two of the most desirable women in the world. Once over Kate, he moved into a house in Paris with Vanessa Paradis, another beauty from that elfin mold with whom he now has a child. She has turned him on to the French way of life and he has taught her some guitar chords.
: Depp has emerged from the deep gloom that stemmed from River Phoenix's death outside his Viper Room club in L.A in the mid 90's and is out there playing the game more than ever.
: He even put himself through the humiliation that is the American chat show circuit to promote Sleepy Hollow " I've never peddled my ass so much in my life " he groaned. Sleepy Hollow is the third movie he has made with Tim Burton " He is an artist " gushed Depp of his friend " A genius, an oddball, an insane, brilliant, brave, hysterically funny, loyal, non-conformist, honest friend!" Filmed in England, it has fantastical, sumptuous sets yet washed out colour and melodramatic acting, especially from Depp who gives an intentionally stilted almost amateurish performance. With a cameo role from Christopher Lee, the film is nothing less than a 21st century Hammer Horror with a traditional thrilling final chase scene - and you don't see Depp doing that action hero thing very often.
: Up Close and Personal : For Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, he allowed writer Hunter S Thompson to shave his head, and then ha da toupe made with 17 long hairs scraped across his bald pate. The movie was directed by Terry Gilliam with whom Depp is now making The Man who killed Don Quixote.

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