The Jack Sparrow Effect

After seeing Sherlock Holmes 2, on the walk from the cinema to my car, I had overheard a woman saying 'Give it up, Robert Downey Jr, you don't have to be so quirky.' I whipped around and said 'Oh, I completely agree.'

We talked about what drove us crazy about the film and the performance.

We talked about how the success of Pirates of the Caribbean had led to a new kind of acting tradition where men act self-consciously quirky to the point of irritation.

This is called the Jack Sparrow effect.

Johnny Depp is the man responsible. When I talk to Depp fans, they say they love him because "he's always so different." He's not really all that different -- with every film a weirdo version of a character he's played before.

What's different for Depp is when he plays living and breathing human beings not men in funny costumes with funny accents. That's what I believe makes his performance in What's Eating Gilbert Grape so revered all these years later.