Johnny Depp | No 11 | Film Power 100
Actor: Alice in Wonderland, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sleepy Hollow
Producer: Hugo Cabret, The Rum Diary
He straddles indie cinema and multiplexes. Perhaps that should be rephrased: he sashayed over to the multiplex as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. According to Forbes, Johnny Depp, 47, pocketed $75m in the 12 months to June, making him Hollywood's top-earning actor. That would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Before Pirates, it looked as though Depp had slotted into a groove: playing Tim Burton's onscreen alter ego (in seven films to date, starting with Edward Scissorhands) and a string of kooks and outsiders. But these days Depp's films perform phenomenally: the Pirates franchise pulled in $2.7bn, and Alice in Wonderland managed $1bn.
Depp professes not to have a clue about box-office figures. That would sound like actorish sophistry were it not for the fact that he has turned down a string of career-making roles over the years: "I'm not blockbuster boy," he once said. For his decision to star in a film based on a theme-park ride, detractors called him a sell-out, but Depp emerged from Pirates with his first Oscar nomination and his reputation intact. His upcoming films dip into both worlds, indie cinema and multiplex: a fourth Pirates is due next year, and he plays leading man to Angelina Jolie in the upcoming thriller The Tourist. But we'll also see him in a film of Hunter S Thompson's novel The Rum Diary – Depp made friends with Thompson while filming Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and it took him nearly a decade and a dip in his own pockets to bring Diary to the screen.