Top 10 Actor-Director Pairings
Johnny Depp and Tim Burton
These two were made for each other, and in a more conventional movie era they would have been typecast to much milder fare. Burton emerged from the Disney animation shop to make live-action cartoons about the angelic and the damaged. Depp never let his dreamboat looks hold him back from playing monsters and madmen. Together they created the sweet Frankenstein Edward Scissorhands and his tonsorial opposite, the soulful slicer Sweeney Todd — Edward Razorhands.
Depp has embodied Burton's vision of the artist who won't let incompetence derail his ambition (Ed Wood) and the bumbling sleuth who finds the Headless Horsemen (Sleepy Hollow). In their latest collaboration, Burton's fantastically fun take on Alice in Wonderland, Depp is, of course, the Mad Hatter, declaiming The Jabberwocky in a thick Scottish burr. May they continue to perplex, amuse and astound us.