Johnny Depp's Teeth Have Gone Through Quite The Transformation

Johnny Depp entered the public eye in the '80s when he landed a starring role in the television series "21 Jump Street." The actor, who would go on to be named People's Sexiest Man Alive twice, has played everyone from Captain Jack Sparrow in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, Willy Wonka in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," the titular character in "Edward Scissorhands," and the Mad Hatter in "Alice in Wonderland." 

Depp's never been one to shy away from transforming for a character — if anything, the actor embraces the chance to change his look and totally get lost in a role. "When [audiences are] seeing what they know to be this guy called Johnny Depp and all his baggage and all his movies, I want them to forget me," he told Variety in 2016. "But if they immediately go, 'I'm watching some guy in makeup,' then I'm screwed." 

In 2024, Depp revealed he'd altered his real-life look in a major way. As an unnamed source claimed to In Touch Weekly, the actor presumably spent a great deal of time in the dentist chair to try to treat the dental issues he'd racked up over the course of his life. "Johnny never hid his hard-partying lifestyle, but the extent of his drinking and drug use made headlines around the world. Something had to give," they said. "He's become hyper-aware of how certain parts of his body are falling apart and now he's mapping out a health plan." Part of that plan apparently includes Johnny Depp's teeth. Here's how the celebrity has totally transformed his smile. 

Johnny Depp made his silver screen debut in 1984's "A Nightmare on Elm Street," and a few years later his career took off in a major way when he landed the role of a baby-faced cop in Fox's "21 Jump Street." At 25, he was a bona fide hunk with bright eyes and a big, gleaming smile. However, when the cameras flashed, he rarely showed off his teeth. Rather, you were more likely to see the '80s heartthrob pose with his mouth closed. 

As Depp told Rolling Stone in 1988, he had no interest in being known as a sex symbol. "I don't want to make a career of taking my shirt off," he said. "I'd like to shave off all my hair, even my eyebrows, try it that way." Sure enough, two years later he shaved his head for John Waters' 1990 film "Cry-Baby," in which he played gang leader Wade Walker.

The sex symbol thing never quite grew on him. After he was named People's Sexiest Man Alive in 2003, he couldn't wrap his head around it. As he said on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "It's so absurd a notion." Looking back on a photoshoot from early on in his career, he remembered not feeling like himself. "It was a strange time because I had become this product, and it made me very uncomfortable," he told Winfrey. After "21 Jump Street," Depp tried to distance himself from the sex symbol label, eschewing typical leading man roles in favor of weirder characters. 

In a 1995 interview with Premiere magazine, Johnny Depp not only opened up about the dental work he'd had done a few years prior, but literally opened up his mouth to show the interviewer the state of his teeth. "I had a root canal done eight years ago that's unfinished," he said. "It's like a rotten little stub." A root canal treatment is a procedure that involves cleaning the canals inside a tooth's root to save a decayed tooth without taking it out. An unfinished root canal can lead to further issues, such as infections and abscesses. Depp also noted that he had multiple cavities and had no interest in having his bottom row of teeth straightened. "I like it... I'm proud of these. When I see people with perfect teeth, it drives me up the wall," he said. 

As previously noted, Depp did not want to be a conventional hunky Hollywood leading man type, and he embraced his natural smile — unfinished root canal and all. As "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" writer Peter Hedges said in the aforementioned Premiere article, "He has an almost burning desire to make ugly choices. He comes with a physical beauty that's just astonishing, and at the same time he has no interest in being that."

While Johnny Depp might've brushed off certain dental procedures early on in his career, that's not to say he wasn't up for getting dental work done for the sake of a character. In the 1993 film "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," he took on the role of a young man who lives in a small town who shoulders the responsibility of raising his sisters and autistic brother while also taking care of his mother. When creating his character, Depp based his look on a kid he grew up with named Bones, who was described as having red hair and chipped teeth. Depp not only dyed his hair for the movie, but had his teeth carved and bonded to create a smile that he believed better fit the part. "I remember kids growing up, how their teeth always looked chipped," the actor told the Los Angeles Times in 1993. "Gilbert wouldn't have the money to fix them, and he wouldn't have cared." 

Tooth bonding is a cosmetic dental procedure done to the surface of the teeth to correct the shapes and colors. The procedure includes applying composite resin to the surface of the teeth to repair damage and close small gaps. The chipping of a tooth, on the other hand, is less common than teeth bonding since people usually undergo procedures to fix a chipped tooth. 

At age 12, Johnny Depp began smoking cigarettes. Over the years, he's attempted to cut back on the habit, but it's been easier said than done. "I've weaned myself down to about, on a great day, on a really great day, three cigarettes," he told Rolling Stone in 2005. "It used to be quite a bit more. It used to be, I'd smoke these tables. I'd smoke the patch. I'd smoke the gum. So I feel good about it."

Depp has never been one to mince words about his smoking. In one interview with Cosmopolitan (via The Seattle Times), for example, he suggested that his daily cigarette consumption wasn't cutting it. "I want to have another mouth grafted onto my face to smoke more," he quipped. "Instead of three packs a day, I want to smoke six packs a day." 

It's no secret that smoking is something that can ruin a person's smile. As prosthodontist Dr. Brett Langston explained on his website, "The big impact it has on your mouth is the heat, the damage to the tissues from that, and other chemicals that go to your lung. They can lead to periodontal disease, which is bone loss." While we don't know exactly how smoking has impacted Depp's overall oral health, we have to imagine his decades-long cigarette habit hasn't helped matters. 

Like cigarettes, alcohol and drugs can also take a toll on one's oral health. Alcohol can lead to tooth decay and cavities, while drug misuse can lead to oral health problems such as tooth loss and dry mouth. There's been a lot of speculation over the years about how drug and alcohol use have impacted Johnny Depp's own teeth, as the actor has long been candid about his history of substance misuse and recovery.

Depp started taking drugs as an adolescent. "My mother used to ask me to go and get her 'nerve pills' and I think I was around the age of 11 that it dawned on me that 'nerve pills' were calming her nerves, so I brought her her nerve pills and I took one and that began [my drug use]," he told the court during his 2020 libel trial, as reported by People.

In a 1993 GQ interview, Depp recalled experimenting with chemical substances early in his life. "I'm sure my brain stopped at 17," he said. "I was really happy then... In a way, I'm sort of stuck there." Years later, he would suggest that his longtime drug and alcohol use had become an issue. "I was poisoning myself with alcohol and medicating myself. I was trying not to feel things, and that's ridiculous," he told Playboy in 2004 (via Chicago Tribune).

From 2003 to 2017, Johnny Depp played Captain Jack Sparrow in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. When playing the character, who was modeled after Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, he sported a red bandana, beads in his hair, black makeup around his eyes, and gold caps on his front teeth. Now, these gold caps weren't something he had applied in the makeup chair every morning. Rather, he had them applied by an actual dentist before it was time to film the first movie in the series. 

Alas, Depp jumped into the procedure without communicating with Disney first. There were already some concerns about the film being too adult-oriented for kids, and the gold teeth didn't appeal to the executives as the actor had hoped for. "[Producer] Jerry [Bruckheimer] was slightly uncomfortable and the Disney executives weren't exactly enthusiastic about it," Depp told the Los Angeles Times in 2003. 

Determined to stick to his creative vision, Depp threatened to quit. "I said, 'Look, these are the choices I made. You know my work, so either trust me or give me the boot.'" Though Depp got to keep his job, he compromised by taking a few gold caps off, which resulted in Captain Jack Sparrow having selected gold teeth. For Depp, the removal procedure was brutal. "They bond these things onto my own choppers," Depp told 3am in 2007 (via OK Magazine). "The process of taking them off can be ugly." 

Johnny Depp initially planned on having all of his gold caps removed after the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" film. However, that didn't happen, as he didn't get a chance to visit his dentist before leaving Los Angeles. As he told Filmink in 2003, "I was in a hurry to get back to Europe, so I didn't get a chance to go to the dentist. It was only afterwards that I realized I was going to be stuck with these teeth for another four months."

What's more, he feared that the gold cap removal process would uncover other dental issues — and he wasn't interested in dealing with anything of the sort. "I think I'll have to [remove them] at some point. The problem is, every time I go to a dentist, they demand that I get in a chair and they have to perform a root canal or something horrible," the actor shared on a 2007 episode of the "Late Show with David Letterman."

Depp left the caps on his teeth for a long time, and there's been a great deal of speculation regarding the longterm impact of this dental decision. In an interview with 3am in 2007 (via OK Magazine), Depp shared that he did have some problems with the caps over the years. "Sometimes it just comes off, shoots off and other times you have to really address the issue more intensely," said the actor.

At the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Johnny Depp attended to promote "Jeanne du Barry," a historical drama that received a seven-minute standing ovation during the premiere. The "Edward Scissorhands" actor, who'd been mostly laying low since his legal battle with his ex-wife Amber Heard, made his grand return to the limelight at the event. While his performance in the movie certainly got some tongues wagging, there was a decent amount of chatter about the actor's teeth and questions about his oral health. "Johnny Depp just looks like someone grabbed his teeth and painted them black," one person wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Seeing that pic of Johnny Depp's teeth on my tl just ruined my mood," another remarked.

After the pics of Depp at Cannes went viral, celebrity dentist Dr. Michael Apa offered his take on the situation to Page Six. He told the outlet that he believed the actor's smile looked that way because of a lack of upkeep combined with consumption of things that stain teeth, such as coffee and cigarettes. "He has wear, which has been a cumulative effect over a lifetime," Dr. Apa said. "Wear like that, sometimes we see it in 30-year-olds in really aggressive cases, and sometimes we see it in cases like Depp." Apa also noted that veneers would probably be Depp's best bet given the state of his teeth. "I would do veneers because he needs his bite reestablished. He's worn his teeth down so much," Apa said. 

Evidently, Dr. Michael Apa was onto something. After his teeth made a splash at Cannes, Johnny Depp apparently went and got a set of veneers. In August 2024, a bartender at Lorraine's Cafe in the Bahamas shared on Instagram that Depp not only stopped by the establishment, but was rocking some pearly white teeth. 

In the aforementioned In Touch article, the unnamed source stated that after Depp had more or less reached his breaking point with his teeth, he was ready to take the plunge. "It was a result of all those years of letting himself go," the source claimed. "He had no choice, his teeth were rotten to the bone and his breath reeked, and it was either veneers or risk some serious health problems, like infection and maybe even heart disease." The source went on to suggest the actor was happy with the changes he'd made to his teeth. "Now he's done the dental work, and he can smile with confidence. His choppers gleam," they said.

As Los Angeles based cosmetic dentist Dr. Dani B told The List, Depp's made changes to his teeth that not only altered the look of his smile, but presumably will help his overall oral health. "It appears that Johnny Depp has undergone an aesthetic and functional rehabilitation using a combination of porcelain veneers and crowns," he told us. "The purpose of the procedure was to correct his worn down, stained, and decayed teeth." 

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).