It was indicative of how Johnny Depp begrudgingly rose to stardom that he tried to fight it off so vociferously, only to gradually accept that whether he liked it or not, he was a hugely popular figure that the mainstream was going to get its hands on eventually.

He’d already appeared in classic horror A Nightmare on Elm Street and ‘Best Picture’-winning war story Platoon before he landed his true breakthrough role on 21 Jump Street, but at no point did he give off the impression he was overly enthused about being viewed as a sex symbol and heartthrob.

After extricating himself from his contract, Depp would go on to establish himself as the eccentric maverick of independent cinema, one who shied away from the biggest parts and the productions that carried the biggest budgets. At least until Pirates of the Caribbean came along, after which he ended up as the single highest-paid actor in Hollywood.

Ironically, the project that first pushed him in that direction could have been headlined by a much bigger name than Depp, but none of them seemed willing to sign on. In the early 1990s, anybody who found themselves competing directly against Tom Cruise for the lead in a film being helmed by the director coming hot off the back of an era-defining blockbuster would have been guaranteed to lose.

Fortunately, Cruise asked too many questions about Edward Scissorhands, to the point it was decided that he was the wrong man to lead the line. He was out, Depp was in, and in one of his first-ever leading roles in a movie, he struck up a firm kinship with Tim Burton, earned a Golden Globe nomination for ‘Best Actor – Musical or Comedy’, and watched his career rise too the next level.

Then again, Depp wasn’t exactly confident that he was going to beat Cruise to the part, as he admitted in an interview with Tom Burke. “I couldn’t believe it, the script was one of the top five things I ever read – any story, novel, anything – but I thought I had no chance,” he said. “Who wouldn’t want Tom Cruise in their movie? Automatic box office.”

Whereas the Top Gun star was more concerned about the mechanics of Edward taking a piss, Depp ignored the logistics in favour of the lore. “Tim and I felt the same way about the story,” he continued. “That it’s a classic fable, a metaphor, like Beauty and the Beast. it’s my Wizard of Oz. It fascinated me that Edward wasn’t human, that he had the innocence and trust a child has, but instead of hands he had these long, lethal shears. What he loved, he couldn’t touch.”

It’s impossible to imagine Cruise headlining Edward Scissorhands, with Depp knocking it so far out of the park that actor and character have become forever intertwined.