Johnny Depp: Age, Biography, Career and Facts

Johnny Depp (born June 9, 1963) is an American actor, musician and director, best known as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films and for his long partnership with Tim Burton on Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd. This profile covers his young years, movies, wives, the Amber Heard trials and his 2026 Hollywood comeback with Ebenezer.

Age

Johnny Depp was born on June 9, 1963 and is 63 years old.

Who is Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp, born John Christopher Depp II in Owensboro, Kentucky, first became famous as a teen idol on the television series 21 Jump Street and then built a reputation for eccentric, transformative characters. He received three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, won a Golden Globe for Sweeney Todd and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and was given an honorary César by the French film academy in 1999.

From 2016 his career was overshadowed by his divorce from actress Amber Heard and the defamation cases that followed in London and Virginia. After several years of working mostly in Europe, he returned to Hollywood studio films in 2026: Paramount's Ebenezer opens on November 13, 2026, and Lionsgate's Day Drinker is set for March 2027.

Johnny Depp in numbers

Indicator	Value
Birth date and place	June 9, 1963, Owensboro, Kentucky, USA
Film debut	A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Oscar nominations	3 (Pirates of the Caribbean, Finding Neverland, Sweeney Todd)
Golden Globe	1 (Sweeney Todd, 2008)
Films with Tim Burton	8
Pirates of the Caribbean films	5 (2003–2017)
Hollywood Walk of Fame	Star received in 1999
Band	Hollywood Vampires (with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry)
Children	2: Lily-Rose and Jack

Johnny Depp young: childhood and music

Depp was born in Kentucky, the youngest of four children of Betty Sue Palmer, a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. The family moved often before settling in Miramar, Florida, in 1970. His parents divorced when he was 15. His mother gave him a guitar when he was 12, and he began playing in garage bands; at 16 he dropped out of high school to pursue music.

His band, The Kids, became a popular local act in Florida, opening for artists such as Iggy Pop, and moved to Los Angeles in search of a record deal. The group broke up in 1984. Through his first wife, makeup artist Lori Anne Allison, Depp met actor Nicolas Cage, who encouraged him to try acting and introduced him to his agent.

From 21 Jump Street to Tim Burton (1984–2002)

Depp made his film debut as Glen Lantz, the boyfriend who meets a famously gruesome end in his bed, in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and had a small role in Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986). Fox's police drama 21 Jump Street (1987–1990), in which he played an undercover officer in high schools, made him a teen idol, a status he found frustrating. He deliberately chose offbeat roles to escape it, starting with John Waters' Cry-Baby (1990).

The same year began his partnership with Tim Burton in Edward Scissorhands (1990), in which he played a gentle artificial man with scissors for hands, opposite Winona Ryder, then his fiancée. Through the 1990s he played the title role in Burton's Ed Wood (1994), Leonardo DiCaprio's older brother in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone in Donnie Brasco (1997) with Al Pacino, Hunter S. Thompson's alter ego in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) and Ichabod Crane in Burton's Sleepy Hollow (1999). He also starred in Blow (2001), as drug smuggler George Jung, and in Chocolat (2000). He received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1999.

Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow (2003–2017)

Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), based on the theme park ride, turned Depp into one of the biggest stars in the world. His slurring, swaying Captain Jack Sparrow, partly inspired by Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and the cartoon skunk Pepé Le Pew, initially worried studio executives but became the heart of the franchise. The role brought him his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor and the Screen Actors Guild Award.

He played Sparrow in four sequels: Dead Man's Chest (2006), At World's End (2007), On Stranger Tides (2011), with Penélope Cruz, and Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017). Two of the films grossed more than $1 billion worldwide. Keith Richards himself appeared as Jack's father, Captain Teague, in the third and fourth films. Depp has often visited children's hospitals in full costume as Jack Sparrow.

In August 2026 producer Jerry Bruckheimer told Deadline that Depp was in active talks to return for a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film. No deal had been announced as of October 2026.

Burton, Oscars and blockbusters (2004–2018)

Between Pirates films Depp earned two more Best Actor nominations: as Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland (2004) and as the murderous barber in Burton's musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), for which he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. With Burton he also made Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), as Willy Wonka, the animated Corpse Bride (2005), Alice in Wonderland (2010), as the Mad Hatter, and Dark Shadows (2012).

He played gangster John Dillinger in Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009), voiced the title character in the Oscar-winning animated film Rango (2011), and played Tonto in The Lone Ranger (2013). His transformation into Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger in Black Mass (2015) was widely praised. He played the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) and The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018), but Warner Bros. asked him to step down from the role in November 2020, after the London court ruling. People magazine named him Sexiest Man Alive in 2003 and 2009.

Johnny Depp movies

Year	Movie	Role
1984	A Nightmare on Elm Street	Glen Lantz
1990	Cry-Baby	Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker
1990	Edward Scissorhands	Edward
1993	What's Eating Gilbert Grape	Gilbert Grape
1994	Ed Wood	Ed Wood
1997	Donnie Brasco	Joseph Pistone
1998	Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas	Raoul Duke
1999	Sleepy Hollow	Ichabod Crane
2001	Blow	George Jung
2003	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	Jack Sparrow
2004	Finding Neverland	J.M. Barrie
2005	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Willy Wonka
2006	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	Jack Sparrow
2007	Sweeney Todd	Sweeney Todd
2009	Public Enemies	John Dillinger
2010	Alice in Wonderland	Mad Hatter
2011	Rango	Rango (voice)
2015	Black Mass	James "Whitey" Bulger
2017	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales	Jack Sparrow
2023	Jeanne du Barry	King Louis XV
2024	Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness	Director
2026	Ebenezer	Ebenezer Scrooge
2027	Day Drinker	Lead role

Amber Heard and the defamation trials

Depp married actress Amber Heard, whom he met on The Rum Diary (2011), in February 2015. Heard filed for divorce in May 2016 and obtained a temporary restraining order, alleging domestic abuse, which Depp denied; the divorce was finalized in January 2017.

Depp then sued News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, in London over an article calling him a "wife beater." In November 2020 the High Court ruled against him, finding the newspaper's words "substantially true," and his request to appeal was refused in 2021. In a separate case in Fairfax County, Virginia, Depp sued Heard over a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which she described herself as a survivor of domestic abuse. The televised trial began in April 2022, and on June 1, 2022, the jury found that Heard had defamed Depp, while also finding for Heard on one count of her counterclaim. In December 2022 the parties settled, with Heard's insurers paying Depp $1 million, which he said he would donate to charity.

Return in Europe (2023–2025)

Depp's first major role after the trials was King Louis XV in Maïwenn's French-language period drama Jeanne du Barry, which opened the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023. In 2024 he directed his second feature, Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness, about the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, nearly three decades after his directing debut The Brave (1997); Al Pacino co-produced and appeared in it, and the film premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival. Depp also continued touring with the Hollywood Vampires and released the album 18 (2022) with guitarist Jeff Beck.

Johnny Depp the musician

Music has remained a constant in Depp's life alongside acting. In the 1990s he played guitar in the band P and contributed slide guitar to Oasis' "Fade In-Out" (1997). In 2015 he formed the Hollywood Vampires with shock rocker Alice Cooper and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, a supergroup named after Cooper's 1970s drinking club whose members included John Lennon and Keith Moon. The band has released two studio albums, Hollywood Vampires (2015) and Rise (2019), mixing covers of songs by late rock stars with original material, and has toured arenas and festivals in North America and Europe. After the 2022 Virginia verdict Depp joined his friend Jeff Beck on stage across the United Kingdom, and their joint album 18 was released in July 2022, months before Beck's death in January 2023.

Johnny Depp upcoming movies: Ebenezer and Day Drinker

Depp's Hollywood comeback centers on two films. Ebenezer, directed by horror filmmaker Ti West for Paramount, is a dark reimagining of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol with Depp as Ebenezer Scrooge, heavily aged by makeup. Variety described it as his first Hollywood studio movie in eight years. He promoted it in character at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2026, and it opens in theaters on November 13, 2026.

Next comes Day Drinker, a supernatural revenge thriller from Lionsgate directed by Marc Webb, which reunites Depp with Penélope Cruz for the fourth time after Blow, On Stranger Tides and Murder on the Orient Express. Lionsgate has set its release for March 26, 2027.

Johnny Depp wife, partners and children

Depp has been married twice: to Lori Anne Allison from 1983 to 1985, and to Amber Heard from 2015 to 2017. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he was engaged to actress Winona Ryder, famously having "Winona Forever" tattooed on his arm, and in the mid-1990s he dated model Kate Moss.

From 1998 to 2012 his partner was French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis, with whom he has two children: daughter Lily-Rose Depp, born in 1999, now an actress known for The Idol and Nosferatu, and son John "Jack" Christopher Depp III, born in 2002. Since 2015 Depp has been the face of Dior's Sauvage fragrance, and he remained with the brand after the 2022 trial.

Quick facts

Real name	John Christopher Depp II
Born	June 9, 1963
Birthplace	Owensboro, Kentucky, USA
Occupations	Actor, musician, director, producer
Best-known movies	Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd
Awards	Golden Globe (2008), SAG Award (2004), honorary César (1999), 3 Academy Award nominations
Band	Hollywood Vampires
Spouses	Lori Anne Allison (1983–1985), Amber Heard (2015–2017)
Children	Lily-Rose Depp, Jack Depp

Timeline

• June 9, 1963: Born in Owensboro, Kentucky
• 1984: Film debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street
• 1987: 21 Jump Street premiered
• 1990: Edward Scissorhands
• 1999: Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; daughter Lily-Rose born
• 2003: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
• 2008: Golden Globe for Sweeney Todd
• February 2015: Married Amber Heard
• 2017: Last Pirates of the Caribbean film to date
• November 2020: Lost his libel case against The Sun's publisher in London
• June 1, 2022: Virginia jury found that Heard defamed him
• May 2023: Jeanne du Barry opened Cannes
• 2024: Directed Modì
• July 2026: Promoted Ebenezer at San Diego Comic-Con
• November 13, 2026: Ebenezer opens in theaters
• March 26, 2027: Day Drinker scheduled release

Photo: Harald Krichel, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons