Johnny Depp

He didn't want the fame that 21 Jump Street handed him. The show paid $45,000 an episode and turned him into a teen heartthrob, which he reportedly hated enough to deliberately sabotage his own image. The escape hatch was Tim Burton, who cast him as Edward Scissorhands after Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, and Michael Jackson had all been considered. Depp studied Charlie Chaplin to figure out how to play a character who couldn't speak his way through scenes. The film grossed $53 million domestically and started an eight-film collaboration with Tim Burton. That's the version of his career he actually wanted.

Disney dropped him from Pirates of the Caribbean in 2018 after Amber Heard's Washington Post op-ed about domestic abuse. He sued her for $50 million, and in June 2022 a Virginia jury found she couldn't prove her claims were true and awarded him $10.35 million. That's a lot of money, but the more useful verdict was that the public had already picked a side. His first major role after the trial, the French period drama Jeanne du Barry, opened Cannes 2023 to a seven-minute standing ovation. Whether Hollywood forgives differently than audiences do is still being worked out.

His mother bought him a $25 guitar when he was 12 and he reportedly spent nearly a year teaching himself to play. He dropped out of high school at 16 to join a garage band called The Kids that opened for Talking Heads and B-52s. Acting was an accident: Nicolas Cage introduced him to a Hollywood agent after Depp was working as a pen salesman. He's been nearly blind in his left eye since birth, a condition no surgeon could fix. Which makes his entire career built on physical expressiveness slightly more interesting.