Over the years Johnny Depp has become famous for taking on bizarre character in pretty much all of his movies going against the Hollywood grain choosing roles that most actors wouldn't touch with a barge pole.His refusal to conform to the pressure of Hollywood to produce movie after movie that is a box office hit, as well as failing to trade on his good looks, has made Depp a favourite with cinema go-ers and gained the respect and admiration from his peers.During his career the actor had brought to the screen some of the most memorable characters including Jack Sparrow and Ichabod Crane.Johnny Depp's top five performances:

1. Edward Scissorhands

The character of Edward Scissorhands was to kick off Johnny Depp's fascination with loner characters that he would go on to play as his career progressed.This film was also the beginning, although no one knew it at the time, of one of Hollywood's best relationship between the actor and unorthodox director Tim Burton that would span almost two decades and six movies.

Depp's breakthrough movie follows Peg, an Avon lady, encounters a shy young man called Edward when she is doing her Avon round in the neighbourhood.

The man, who was living in a decaying mansion and appears to have scissors for hands, is adopted into Peg's typical all American family.

At first Edward struggles to fit in with his new suburban home but his good natured personality and naivety wins over the local neighbourhood.

However they grow to distrust Edward, who has fallen in love with Kim Peg's teenage daughter, and he is ostracized after a series of misinterpreted events make him appear dangerous and out of control.

This was Depp first lead role in a movie, having worked in television, and in preparation for his part he watched Charlie Chaplin movies in an attempt to understand how to create sympathy without the use of dialogue.

The studio was so worried about the public reaction of Depp's appearance that they kept they attempted to keep pictures of the actor in full costume a secret for as long as possible.

Despite these reservations the film was a success grossing over $50 million with virtually no advertising, becoming the twentieth highest grossing film of 1990.

Johnny Depp's performance also secured him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a musical or comedy.

2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

This list really wouldn't be complete if this movie was not included. The 2003 movie, based on a ride was the picture that cemented Depp as a true Holly wood star.

Blacksmith Will Turner teams up with pirate Captain Jack Sparrow after the woman he loves, Elizabeth Swan, is kidnapped Captain Barbossa.

The unlikely pair commandeer the fastest ship in the British fleet, the HMS Interceptor, in a gallant attempt to rescue her and recapture the Black Pearl.

The duo and their crew, that they pick up in Tortuga, are pursued by Elizabeth's betrothed, the debonair, ambitious Commodore Norrington, aboard the HMS dauntless.

Unbeknownst to Will, there is a curse that has doomed Barbossa and his crew to live forever as the undead when exposed to moonlight, they are exposed to living skeletons.

The curse they carry can be broken, only if a once-plundered treasure is restored.

But there was a great deal of unease that surrounded this project; previous pirate movie Cutthroat Island had bombed at the box office, their leading man hardly ever made a blockbuster movie and the studio was concerned over how Depp was portraying the character of Jack.

However upon release the film was met well critically and went on to gross over $600 million at the global box office.

But it was the character of Captain Jack Sparrow that was to win over cinema go-ers as Johnny Depp created one of the biggest cinema icons of recent times, and all modelled on Stones member Keith Richards.

He was to earn an Oscar nomination for the role, his first, but was to lose out to Sean Penn.

What was a simple Disney movie became a massive franchise that was to produce two more films.

3. Finding Neverland

Depp followed up his Pirates success with 2004 hit movie Finding Neverland about the playwright J.M Barrie and how he came to write Peter Pan.

Barrie was in need of some inspiration and he finds it one day during his daily walk with his St. Bernard Porthos in London's Kensington Gardens.

There, Barrie encounters the Llewelyn Davies family: four fatherless boys and their beautiful, recently widowed mother.

Despite the disapproval of the boy's grandmother and Barrie's wife he befriends the family engaging the boys in tricks, disguises, games and sheer mischief, creating play-worlds of castles and kings, cowboys and Indians, pirates and castaways.

From the time spent with the boys he begins to write his masterpiece Peter Pan.

Finding Neverland, which was directed by Marc Foster who brought us Monster's Ball, was meet very well critically, despite being historically inaccurate.

The film revolved around what separates children from adults and how a writer like Barry, a manchild with a huge imagination, tried to bridge that gap with his most famous novel Peter Pan.

For Depp's performance as the playwright he earnt another Oscar nomination, just twelve months after his first, but was to lose of to Jamie Foxx for Ray.

4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Based on the novel by children's writer Roald Dahl Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, released in 2005, was the fourth collaboration between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.

Depp took on the role as the greatest chocolatier in the world this role also carried on the theme of being a loner set by Depp all those years ago in Edward Scissorhands.

Willy Wonka announces that five golden tickets have been placed in five Wonka bars worldwide. Whoever finds the golden ticket will be given a tour of Wonka's factory which has been closed for years.

Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde, Mike Teavee, Veruca Salt and Charlie Bucket are all welcomed into the factory by the eccentric Willy Wonka.

A string of directors were considered to helm the project after Gary Ross left, including Martin Scorsese and a number of actors, including Nicholas Cage, Christopher Walken and Patrick Stewart, were all considered for the role of Wonka before Burton was hired to direct and casted Depp.

The film was a major success at the box office with much of that contributed to Depp's bizarre interpretation of the socially stunted Wonka.

It was rumoured that he based the character on Michael Jackson however the actor has always denied this.

5. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Released in 1993 Gilbert Grape is one of the actor's earlier roles and is based on the book by Peter Hedges.

In a small town in Iowa Gilbert (Depp) is left to care for his mentally handicapped brother Arnie as his morbidly obese mother hasn't left the house in the seven years since her husband committed suicide.

To make matters more complicated for Gilbert he is having an affair with a married woman.

As the film starts they family are planning Arnie's eighteenth birthday when a young woman called Becky and her grandmother become stuck in town when their truck pulling their mobile home breaks down.

But his unusual life circumstances threaten to get in the way of their budding romance.

But on the night of Arnie's birthday their mother goes upstairs to the bedroom, for the first time since her husband's suicide, and, for reason not mentioned in the movie, dies.

Determined not to make a spectacle of their mother by having to have her lifted out of the house by a crane they take out all their belongings and set the house on fire.

The film is a great look at the restrictions of a small town life and the problems of coping with a going nowhere existence.

Sweeney Todd is released 25th January

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

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