Johnny Depp started acting at the age of twenty-one in his first movie Nightmare of Elm's Street (1984) simply to support his musical career. Since then, he's been in the industry for twenty-five years and has been nominated twice for an Oscar as well as five Golden Globes. Depp relied heavily on the influence of other actors that he worked with in the years of his success, and the skills and style of acting he obtained through analysing human mannerism and downright becoming a completely different being by taking on the responsibility to become something else.
His key motivations derived from the actors he worked with and how he was able to learn from them in the process of filming a movie. Depp states in a 2002 interview with James Lipton that "the opportunity to go and work with Marin Landau was a great, great gift," as he restored his faith and work as an actor. Depp draws from these great actors talents and skills that help him throughout his career as an actor, and sometimes even impersonating them in scenes - such as his imitation of his close friend Marlon Brandon in the Secret Window (2004).
Johnny Depp style of acting can be recognised through his costuming of long hair and quirky hats, however, his most noticeable trait yet is his choice of roles as "freakishly eccentric outcasts whose oddities are misunderstood by society, and usually have a flamboyant appearance and mannerism." [Shankar 2009] James Lipton [2002] gave the statistics that 99.9% of actors yearn to take the path of traditional leading man roles, yet Depp deliberately avoided that option. Depp replied that it's the "element of surprise" that drove him and the discomfort he felt when he was so popular in the media. [Depp 2002]
Depp becomes inspired and draws out his characters through instinct and imagery that he has in his mind from past experiences and imagination, forming in his head what he thinks could be similar to character's personality. Since he has taken on many factual based characters (seven in total from 1994 to 2005), he feels a great responsibility to that person he is acting to literally become them in mannerism and behaviour so as not to disrespect their value as a human being. "For me, all I wanted was for [Joe Pistone; the real Donnie Brasco (1997)] to be happy, because he lived it and I played it, but then he has to live with it, and his family has to live with it for the rest of their lives. So I was very touched that they were satisfied."
Depp's acting moments were portrayed as a charmer in Cry-Baby (1990) and a "pathetic, sweet and lovable freak" [Wood 2001] in Edward Scissorhands (1990). Though, for the most part, Depp was hardly ever considered as a "box-office friendly name" [IMDB.com 2009] for those slight errors he made and was arrested for in 1994 and 1999. Therefore, when director Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was released in 2003, his career sky-rocketed once again to its peak as the movie made US$330,000,000 [Letterman 2006] with him as the leading actor Captain Jack Sparrow.
Depp defines a character through their human behaviour and the level of truth and honesty they are created from (realistically speaking). "I'm interested in what makes people do what they do, and what makes people tick, and why they have these nervous gestures." [Depp 2002] When he reads a screenplay, he'll decide how to define his character on the initial feeling and instincts he gets from reading about the character's behaviour, attitude, lifestyle, etc. He sought out Hunter Thompson, author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972) to become acquainted with his character when acting in the movie in 1998, and to "figure out a way to steal his soul" [Depp 2002] and be able to become him in every aspect.
He's very intuitive. It's kind of contradictory because he's incredibly intelligent and smart, but he will react from his heart and not from his head. For me, really good actors don't act, they react; they become a character and they're put in a situation that their character's in and react to it.
[Jarmusch 2000]
Overall, Johnny Depp had debuted in 1984 with Nightmare of Elm's Street on the mission to work in the music industry, and instead grew to fame through acting peculiar character roles such as Edward in Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). His fascination with the concept of outcasts and the "normality" in society drives him to design characters beyond recognisable, creating a whole new level of acting and living.
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