As far as breaking into movies goes, Johnny Depp did a sterling job establishing himself as a fast-rising star with an incredibly bright future, which he’d accomplished within his first five feature-length appearances.

Debuting in one of the most influential horrors ever made wasn’t a bad way to announce himself to the world, and while the actor may have faltered somewhat by following up Wes Craven’s classic A Nightmare on Elm Street with forgotten flop Private Resort, he swiftly found himself back on the right track.

His third theatrical credit came in Oliver Stone’s ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’-winning Platoon, and he followed it up with the lead role in the John Waters cult classic musical rom-com Cry-Baby. That project would go on to spawn a multi-time Tony Award-winning musical before he cracked the mainstream playing the title character in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, which also netted him a Golden Globe nomination in the ‘Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy’ category.

The ensemble cast of Stone’s riveting anti-war epic was loaded with promising talents like Depp, Charlie Sheen, Forest Whitaker, Kevin Dillon, and John C. McGinley – while there could have been one more had Keanu Reeves not turned it down – but many of them were left at the mercy of the editing suite.

The future Pirates of the Caribbean headliner is only the 12th-billed name in the ensemble as background bit-player Gator Lerner, a military interpreter who speaks fluent Vietnamese. Along with the rigorous boot camp, the Platoon cast endured to convince as battle-hardened soldiers, Depp took it upon himself to master the language to a conversational level to make his performance more convincing.

Unfortunately, that’s hardly apparent in the final cut, which only features him speaking a couple of sentences. Stone confirmed on the home video release’s commentary track that not only did Depp have a much larger part initially that included two major dialogue scenes opposite Willem Dafoe’s Elias, but he’d spent enough time studying Vietnamese that he was more than capable of conversing with the locals.

In fact, there’s only one scene where Lerner puts his translating skills to good use, with the character largely reduced to lurking on the fringes of the frame. The last time the audience sees him in Platoon, he’s seriously injured and being placed on a helicopter for evacuation, with no confirmation even offered as to whether or not he survived.

It’s an impressive level of commitment for an actor who was nowhere near the top of the call sheet to go out of their way to aid the authenticity of their performance by knuckling down and learning Vietnamese, especially one who was only 22 years old when principal photography started, still an industry rookie, and plunged into the baking heat of the Philippines. Sadly, it was largely for nought in the grand scheme of things.