July 9, 2009
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i’m coming to a slow realization here that might offend some of you. i realize this is a sensitive topic, especially for the women here, and i’m most likely treading on sacred ground, but i’m going to say it anyway. i think johnny depp is an overrated actor, especially lately. there, i said it.
actually i always have, and still do, respect him, ever since 21 Jump Street. (for all you infant fuckers that don’t know what 21 Jump Street is go get an education!) this guy could have lit up and burned out completely while erasing every ounce of personal dignity in the process. The Machine was oiled up and ready to consume him as a hearththrob product, and he dutifully rebeled (some might say raged) against it and came out with a pretty respectable career.
but if you’re talking about acting ability… you know, stuff like nuance, depth, feeling real. i don’t see it anymore. the roles he’s played over like the last 10-15 years have all been caricatures for the most part, all one-dimensional, all circus act, never real. well you could say that those are the roles he plays: willy wonka, captain jack sparrow, sweeney todd, etc. true. but why does he almost exclusively pick those roles? it can’t just be for the money.
also, i would argue that he has chosen roles in the past that did allow for, and maybe require, some depth of true humanness, like his role in Blow, the character that was supposed to be this drug dealer doing well in a violent subculture that usually thrives on violence. that should have been a meaty role, but he turned it into a dopey smiley face role. (then again Blow is a biopic and all biopics end up one-dimensional.) what else is there… Donnie Brasco. he was actually not bad there. there’s one. what else… Finding Neverland was a good movie, but i am kind of remembering his character being caricaturish there too.
quite frankly, i’m not sure he’s played a real human being since What’s Eating Gilbert Grape in 1993, but he was overshadowed there by a young, up-and-coming Leo Dicaprio, in the performance of his career. actually think about that for a second. that one overlooked and nearly forgotten movie is possibly the talent peak of not one but two superstar acting careers, Depp’s and Leo’s. interesting… so Gilbert Grape and Donnie Brasco over a celebrated twenty year acting career. that’s not much real acting.
anyway, of course this doesn’t mean that i think Depp is a bad actor. sometimes balls to the wall, extreme acting works well like Heath Ledger as The Joker and Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood. but to be considered a really good actor, an actor’s lifelong resume has to offer a little more than clown paint and distracting accents.
Comments (5)
Actually, if you read recent interviews with him, he’s said that his choices now are motivated by what he can take his children to see. Although, Sweeney Todd was done because Tim Burton asked him to do it and he said yes. Anything Tim Burton wants him for, he’s there.
But I’m still going to disagree about the overrated bit. I don’t find the characters he’s played to be the slightest bit uni-dimensional. In fact, quite to the contrary, even when there’s not a lot of character development in the script, there is within him. Jack Sparrow was NOT the swaggering, misunderstood hero type that Disney originally wanted (Errol Flynn on steroids). Willy Wonka was not the Gene Wilder portrayed mystery man. All of his characters have been wildly different from each other, all idiosyncratic, and most definitely multi-dimensional. And not a spot of the true Johnny Depp in there anywhere.
I’m going to go see Public Enemy this weekend and I fully expect him to pull something out of Dillinger’s hat. And to answer the question, I’m not that gaga over Johnny Depp like most of my female friends. But I have begun to appreciate the talent.
This will sound very strange, but I watched many Johnny Depp movies without every realizing it was the same actor in each. I wasn’t watching for him, I was watching because someone recommended the films to me. When I watched Benny and Joon, I was so enthralled by Sam, that I could not look away. He was beautifully sad, and yet joyful, and he was so simple as to be brilliant. A couple years later, I watched What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, mostly because someone said they thought Leo DiCaprio played a brilliant autistic role. Ok, Leo did good, I admit, but he wasn’t the focus of the movie. It was Gilbert, who could convey a mood with only his eyes, and I was very swept up by the grace in which he handled being trapped in the disaster that was his life. I saw two very completely different performances, and never realized they were the same actor until I read the credits.
Johnny Depp brings a different persona to every role he plays. There is no spill over from one to the other. There was no hint of Jack Sparrow in James Barry — or any other roll.
Take another look. He is far more than a pretty face.
yes, you have offended me.
oh no you di’in’t….
He’s perhaps one of the most fantastic character actors ever. He always twists them into these multi-dimensional, likable, realistic people, biopic or not. I love Jack Sparrow, so him notwithstanding, by the end of Blow I was rooting for George Jung, and Edward Scissorhands makes me cry every time. And yes, he is very pretty.