Johnny Depp’s 10 Best Performances

4) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

One of Johnny Depp’s defining qualities is his ability to make a role so specific and detailed that after seeing him in a part, it’s impossible to imagine the character being depicted by anyone else. It’s so impossible to imagine another actor trying to portray Hunter S. Thompson that thirteen years later he essentially reprised his Thompson-esque role in The Rum Diary. Because who else could play a Hunter S. Thompson character at this point? All they’d be doing is imitating Johnny Depp or trying way too hard to deviate from Johnny Depp and failing because the only person who can play a Hunter S. Thompson character is the man who is named Johnny Depp.

Director Terry Gilliam has a certain style that is, in a word, odd. His Monty Python animations are indicative of his aesthetic sensibilities, and his taste for the bizarre. It’s easy to decry this but probably a good thing because it takes all kinds, right? You’re certainly unlikely to see another movie quite like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. If it’s meant to be an experience about drugs, excess, and excessive drug use, it fires on all cylinders, or all pipes, or whatever. And Depp’s distinct rhythm of speech and physicality and matter of factness is unlike any character in movies before or since.