page_title: Johnny Depp
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Johnny Depp / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Johnny Depp and Jim Jarmusch at the Cannes film festival
context_page_description: John Christopher Depp II is an American actor, producer, and musician. He has been nominated for ten Golden Globe Awards, winning one for Best Actor for his performance of the title role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Actor, among other accolades. He is regarded as one of the world's biggest film stars. Depp made his film debut in the 1984 film A Nightmare on Elm Street, before rising to prominence as a teen idol on the television series 21 Jump Street. He had a supporting role in Oliver Stone's 1986 war film Platoon and played the title character in the 1990 romantic fantasy Edward Scissorhands.
  Depp has gained critical praise for his portrayals of inept screenwriter-director Ed Wood in the film of the same name, undercover FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone in Donnie Brasco, author J. M. Barrie in Finding Neverland and Boston gangster Whitey Bulger in Black Mass.
context_section_description: Depp's first film role was in the horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), in which he played the boyfriend of heroine Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) and one of Freddy Krueger's victims. After a starring role in the comedy Private Resort (1985), Depp was cast in the lead role of the skating drama Thrashin' (1986) by the film's director, but the decision was later overridden by its producer. Instead, Depp appeared in a minor supporting role as a Vietnamese-speaking private in Oliver Stone's Vietnam War drama Platoon (1986).
  Depp became a popular teen idol during the late 1980s, when he starred as an undercover police officer in a high school operation in the Fox television series 21 Jump Street, which premiered in 1987. He accepted this role to work with actor Frederic Forrest, who inspired him. Despite his success, Depp felt that the series "forced [him] into the role of product." He subsequently decided to appear only in films that he felt were right for him.
  In 1990, Depp played the title character in Tim Burton's film Edward Scissorhands, in which he starred opposite Dianne Wiest and Winona Ryder. The film was a critical and commercial success that established him as a leading Hollywood actor and began his long association with Burton. Producer Scott Rudin has stated that "basically Johnny Depp is playing Tim Burton in all his movies"; although Burton disapproved of the comment, Depp agrees with it. In his introduction to Burton on Burton, a book of interviews with the director, Depp called Burton "... a brother, a friend, ... and [a] brave soul". Depp's first film release in 1990 was John Waters' Cry-Baby, a musical comedy set in the 1950s. Although it was not a box office success upon its initial release, over the years it has gained cult classic status.
  Depp had no film releases in the following two years, with the exception of a brief cameo in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), the sixth installment in the A Nightmare of Elm Street franchise. He appeared in three films in 1993. In the romantic comedy Benny and Joon, he played an eccentric and illiterate silent film fan who befriends a mentally ill woman and her brother; it became a sleeper hit. He then starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Juliette Lewis in Lasse Hallström's What's Eating Gilbert Grape, a drama about a dysfunctional family. In his review of the film, Todd McCarthy of Variety said that "Depp manages to command center screen with a greatly affable, appealing characterization." Depp's final 1993 release was Emir Kusturica's surrealist comedy-drama Arizona Dream, which opened to positive reviews.
  In 1994, Depp reunited with director Tim Burton, playing the title role in Ed Wood, a biographical film about one of history's most inept film directors. Depp later stated that he was at the time depressed about films and filmmaking, but that "within 10 minutes of hearing about the project, I was committed." He found that the role gave him a "chance to stretch out and have some fun" and that working with Martin Landau, who played Bela Lugosi, "rejuvenated my love for acting". Ed Wood received critical acclaim, with Janet Maslin of The New York Times writing that Depp had "proved himself as an established, certified great actor" and "captured all the can-do optimism that kept Ed Wood going, thanks to an extremely funny ability to look at the silver lining of any cloud." Depp was nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance.
  The following year, Depp starred in three films. He played opposite Marlon Brando in the box-office hit Don Juan DeMarco, as a man who believes he is Don Juan, the world's greatest lover. He then starred in Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, a Western shot entirely in black-and-white; it was not a commercial success and had mixed critical reviews. Depp's final film of the year was in the financial and critical failure Nick of Time, a thriller in which he played an accountant who is told to kill a politician to save his kidnapped daughter.
  In 1997, Depp starred alongside Al 
caption: Depp with director-screenwriter Jim Jarmusch at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995
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