50 Fun Facts About Johnny Depp

In which state was Johnny Depp born in 1963?

Kentucky. Depp was born in Owensboro, but his family moved often and settled in Miramar, Florida, when he was seven, so he grew up a Floridian.

What was Depp's feature film debut, in 1984?

A Nightmare on Elm Street. Depp, who had never acted before, plays a teenager who is swallowed by his own bed, which then spouts a geyser of blood.

Which actor advised Depp to try acting and helped him land his first film audition?

Nicolas Cage. Depp's then-wife introduced them, and Cage steered the struggling musician to a Hollywood agent.

Depp became a teen idol playing an undercover cop on which Fox series, from 1987?

21 Jump Street. Depp resented being marketed as a teen heartthrob, so when he left the show he chose odder film roles with maverick directors.

Which instrument did Johnny Depp take up at 12, then leave high school at 16 to play in a band?

Guitar. Depp left school at 16 for a band that moved to Los Angeles, where he first took acting jobs to cover the bills his music couldn't.

Which garage band did Johnny Depp join as a teenager in Florida?

The Kids. They moved to Los Angeles chasing a record deal, but money was so tight that Depp worked as a telemarketer, and the band split without one.

In From Hell (2001), Depp plays a police inspector hunting which real-life killer?

Jack the Ripper. Depp's Frederick Abberline was the real inspector who led the 1888 Whitechapel hunt, and the title quotes a taunting letter mailed with half a human kidney.

Which John Waters musical comedy was Depp's first film release of 1990?

Cry-Baby. Depp played a 1950s teen rebel to shake off his own heartthrob image, and the film was later turned into a Broadway musical.

Which silent star's films did Depp study to play the near-wordless Edward in his first Tim Burton film?

Charlie Chaplin. Depp studied how Chaplin expressed himself without words, and said the one thing Tim Burton stressed was keeping the character 'pure', without begging people to feel sorry for him.

An extinct arthropod with prominent claws was named after Depp thanks to which role?

Edward Scissorhands. The palaeontologist who described the Cambrian fossil said its claws made him think of the character, and admitted he was a bit of a Depp fan.

Which 1993 sleeper hit had Depp playing an eccentric, illiterate silent-film fan?

Benny and Joon. Its soundtrack turned the Proclaimers' five-year-old 'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)' into a top-three hit in the United States.

Who played Bela Lugosi opposite Depp in Tim Burton's Ed Wood (1994)?

Martin Landau. He won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar as the faded Dracula star, even though the film failed to earn back its budget.

Which 1995 Jim Jarmusch Western starring Depp was shot entirely in black and white?

Dead Man. Neil Young improvised the score alone in a studio while watching the film, and Depp plays an accountant who shares the poet William Blake's name.

FBI agent Joseph Pistone's years undercover in the Mafia became which Johnny Depp film?

Donnie Brasco. That was Pistone's alias as a jewel thief inside New York's Bonanno crime family, and Depp spent time with the real agent to prepare.

What was Johnny Depp's 1997 directorial debut, co-starring Marlon Brando and never released in the US?

The Brave. Depp also co-wrote it and stars as a destitute Native American father who sells his life to snuff-film makers to lift his family out of poverty.

Depp played Raoul Duke, alter ego of which writer friend, in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

Hunter S. Thompson. Depp became a close friend, and after the writer's death in 2005 he paid for the funeral, at which the ashes were fired from a cannon.

Depp said Angela Lansbury, Roddy McDowall and Basil Rathbone inspired his take on which Tim Burton character?

Ichabod Crane. Depp borrowed the drive of Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes and Lansbury's 'righteousness' for Sleepy Hollow's constable, whom he saw as 'a frightened little girl'.

Which two figures did Depp say he modeled Captain Jack Sparrow on?

Keith Richards and Pepé Le Pew. Disney executives asked whether the slurring pirate was meant to be drunk, and Richards later played Sparrow's father in two sequels.

Which role brought Depp his first Oscar nomination?

Jack Sparrow. After years of cult films, a pirate from a movie based on a Disneyland ride made Depp a Best Actor nominee.

Which real author does Depp play in Finding Neverland (2004)?

J. M. Barrie. The film shows the playwright befriending the Llewelyn Davies boys, whose make-believe games gave him the idea for Peter Pan.

For which film did Depp win his first Golden Globe, for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy?

Sweeney Todd. It was the first film role that required Depp to sing, as Sondheim's vengeful barber whose victims are baked into meat pies.

Depp plays the victim in a 2017 film of which Agatha Christie mystery?

Murder on the Orient Express. Depp's shady businessman Ratchett is found stabbed a dozen times, and director Kenneth Branagh investigates as Hercule Poirot.

Which Burton and Depp film adapts a 1960s soap opera?

Dark Shadows. Depp had loved its vampire, Barnabas Collins, since boyhood, pushed Burton to film the soap, and co-produced it as well as starring.

Which real gangster does Depp play in Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009)?

John Dillinger. Federal agents shot the bank robber dead in 1934 as he walked out of a movie at Chicago's Biograph Theater.

Which Depp collaboration became Tim Burton's first film to gross over $1 billion worldwide?

Alice in Wonderland. Disney's film chief said its $1 billion success in 2010 prompted the studio's run of live-action remakes of its animated classics.

What kind of animal does Depp voice in the Oscar-winning animated film Rango (2011)?

A chameleon. Rango is a pet lizard who bluffs his way into becoming sheriff of a desert town, and the cast acted out their scenes on a stage for the animators.

Secret Window (2004), starring Depp as a blocked writer, is based on a novella by which author?

Stephen King. In his novella Secret Window, Secret Garden, a stranger turns up at a writer's cabin and accuses him of stealing his story.

Depp's casting as which Native American character in a 2013 Disney Western drew accusations of whitewashing?

Tonto. Depp gave him black-and-white face paint and a dead crow worn as a headdress, a look he said he took from a painting.

Which Boston crime boss does Depp play in Black Mass (2015)?

Whitey Bulger. The Boston mobster rose to power while secretly informing for the FBI, which he always denied, then spent 16 years on the run.

Which luxury house signed Depp in 2015 as the face of its men's fragrance Sauvage?

Dior. In 2019 the house pulled a Sauvage advert starring Depp after critics objected to its use of Native American imagery beside the fragrance's name.

Who replaced Depp as Grindelwald after he resigned from the Fantastic Beasts franchise in November 2020?

Mads Mikkelsen. Depp had already filmed one scene for the third film when Warner Bros. asked him to go, and the Danish actor was cast within weeks.

In Minamata (2020), Depp's photographer W. Eugene Smith exposes a Japanese town's poisoning by which metal?

Mercury. A chemical factory piped it into Minamata Bay for decades, poisoning the fish the town ate, and Smith's photographs documented the victims.

Depp played which French king in Jeanne du Barry, the opening film of Cannes 2023?

Louis XV. Depp played him in French, his first role in the language and his first major part after the Heard trial, and the premiere drew a standing ovation.

Which Godfather star co-produced Depp's 2024 film Modì and plays an art collector in it?

Al Pacino. He and Martin Scorsese tried to film the painter Modigliani's story in the 1980s but no studio would back it; Depp finally directed it four decades on.

Which two rock veterans formed the supergroup Hollywood Vampires with Depp?

Alice Cooper and Joe Perry. The band takes its name from Cooper's 1970s Los Angeles drinking club, whose regulars included Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson.

With which English musician did Depp record the 2022 album '18'?

Jeff Beck. Depp made a surprise appearance at his Sheffield gig in May 2022 while the jury in his defamation trial was still deliberating.

Which Los Angeles nightclub did Depp open with partners in 1993?

The Viper Room. Within three months of its opening, actor River Phoenix collapsed outside in the early hours of Halloween and died of a drug overdose.

After splitting with Winona Ryder, Depp altered his arm tattoo of her name to read what?

Wino Forever. The tattoo first read 'Winona Forever', inked after the pair got engaged five months into dating; they split in 1993.

While filming which Roman Polanski thriller did Depp meet Vanessa Paradis, mother of his two children?

The Ninth Gate. Depp met the French singer and actress in France during the 1998 shoot, and their daughter Lily-Rose, now an actress herself, was born the next year.

Depp and Amber Heard met while making which 2011 film?

The Rum Diary. They played lovers in the film, shot in Puerto Rico in 2009; they married in February 2015 and Heard filed for divorce 15 months later.

Which newspaper did Depp unsuccessfully sue for libel in the UK over a 2018 'wife beater' article?

The Sun. The High Court found 12 of the 14 alleged assaults proven in November 2020, and within days Warner Bros. asked Depp to leave Fantastic Beasts.

Depp sued over Amber Heard's 2018 op-ed in which newspaper?

The Washington Post. Heard's op-ed never mentioned Depp by name, yet in 2022 a jury found that three of its statements defamed him.

A jury in which US state awarded Depp $10 million in his 2022 defamation case against Amber Heard?

Virginia. State law cut a further $5 million in punitive damages to $350,000, and the same jury awarded Heard $2 million on her countersuit.

Which People magazine title has Depp won twice?

Sexiest Man Alive. People chose him in 2003 and 2009, an actor who had left television partly to escape being marketed as a heartthrob.

Who played Depp's younger brother Arnie in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)?

Leonardo DiCaprio. Depp had the title role, but it was his 19-year-old co-star who earned the film's Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor.

Depp's company Infinitum Nihil co-produced which Martin Scorsese film, released in 2011?

Hugo. Depp produced it through the company he runs with his sister Christi Dembrowski; it earned 11 Oscar nominations yet lost money at the box office.

Depp was arrested in 1994 for wrecking a New York hotel room he was sharing with which supermodel?

Kate Moss. The couple stayed together for several more years, and Moss later said the break-up left her with 'years and years of crying'.

Which Australian law did Depp and Heard breach in 2015 by not declaring their two dogs?

Biosecurity law. Australia's agriculture minister said the Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, must fly home or be put down, and the couple later filmed an apology video.

Depp had a small early role as a soldier in which film about the Vietnam War?

Platoon. Before filming, director Oliver Stone dumped Depp and his castmates in the Philippine jungle for a gruelling boot camp of forced marches and mock night ambushes.

Which Depp role was the voice lead of a 2005 Tim Burton stop-motion film?

Victor in Corpse Bride. The nervous groom practises his vows in a forest, slips the ring onto what he takes for a root, and finds he has married a dead woman.