Now, no more. Kids are savvy and they're fickle. They don't usually need movie role models as much as 70-story virtual video games where they're the gamers choosing their own adventures. Entertainment options are endless, from the iPod to the Internet, so why be stuck with pretty faces being mass marketed to them by their uncles and older brothers at a film studio. It makes perfect sense that a fairly normal-looking kid like Shia LaBeouf, who could believably instant message with the best of them, is the star of the future, with a hit in Disturbia and upcoming roles in Transformers and the latest Indiana Jones.
It's nice to know then, from a thirtysomething perspective, that an icon like Johnny Depp translates to multiple generations. To me, he’ll always be Tom Hanson on 21 Jump Street, or the unlucky teen Glen, whose body gets inverted by a water bed into a hemoglobin mess in A Nightmare on Elm Street. But I’m glad that some movie stars are still big movie stars, and that Depp -- as the irascible, irreverent Captain Jack Sparrow -- is someone both I and the local nineteen-year-olds like to watch.
Depp IS Pirates of the Caribbean. There is no franchise without Johnny. His rocker on the red seas, Keith Richards-inspired, toothy, grinning, Cheshire cat pirate is lovable exactly because he couldn't care less. He doesn't seem like a story conferenced confection. He seems like a genuine rebel let loose in the biggest playground known to moviedom - a multimillion dollar Jerry Bruckheimer production. Even for Depp, Sparrow isn’t as consciously strange as some of his other characters. Sparrow's just naturally goofy and fun-loving. He says exactly what you want to say but don’t…or maybe you do…he looks like a fun guy to play, and he’s a fun guy for audiences to play with.
A lot of people will tell you Depp was never calculated in his career, and that he’s always remained true to his maverick indie spirit, and this is the reason why he’s respected. But as someone who grew up on Depp's performances in the pre-‘eccentric’ era, I can honestly say Depp wasn't always an 'artiste.’ As a teen, me and my friends would huddle in the basement for an all-night movie marathon that would start with Johnny Depp and Rob Morrow as spring breakers on the loose in Private Resort , and end seven movies later with Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon. Sure, Depp’s potential was noted from the beginning (see the all-important "And Introducing" opening credit on Elm Street), but after a small role as a soldier/translator in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, he still went for the paycheck as the t.v. pin-up on Jump Street.
That's where the fine line was drawn between Richard Grieco and Johnny Depp. Both pretty boys. Both suitable (enough) acting chops. But whereas Grieco’s G.Q. cop in a trench coat went on to the short-lived spin-off Booker, Depp strategized a game plan for success by acting intentionally ‘offbeat’ in projects like John Waters' musical Cry-Baby and Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands.
By the time I was a freshman at USC, knee deep in film and journalism classes, I'd grown up just enough to be unsure whether I truly thought Johnny Depp was a great actor. Sort of like Nirvana and the grunge movement, his whole ironically 'cool' pose didn't do much for me. I remember Winona Ryder, dating Depp at the time, remarked about how she and Johnny abstained from the whole "Hollywood scene." Huh? In the early '90s, they WERE the Hollywood scene.
Whether he really was highbrow or just constantly trying to get away from his God-given looks, Depp drew me back into the fold by adding some other dimensions to his Benny & Joon whacky persona shtick. For every effectively kooky performance in an Ed Wood or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, there was a balance…Depp playing something a little more nuanced and less showy...the torn FBI agent in Donnie Brasco…the determined sleuth in the Hughes Brothers’ underrated From Hell.
All of which leads up to this latest Pirates of the Caribbean. I still think Depp's known mostly because he plays against his leading man looks, and that in and of itself doth not a great actor make. But 20+ years on, he's managed to channel all of those rogue elements into an endlessly amusing creation. Because of that, he's Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z’s most successful leading man (topping our list of 2007’s hottest actors). It’s a mantle the actor would have once tried hard to avoid. But in subversive Deppian fashion, he's done it by playing a star role that’s nothing like the star role, and it’s a joke everyone’s happy to be in on. For the third go round, here’s hoping…more Johnny…less CGI tentacles…
Got a favorite Johnny Depp movie? Let us know!
More on Pirates in our Summer Spotlight!
