21. JOHNNY DEPP
AGE 44
JOB TITLE Actor/producer
SMART BECAUSE He's
proven that you can sell tickets without selling out. Depp
has carved a niche for himself as Hollywood's wizard of
weird and showed the suits that audiences were hungry
for his handcrafted oddballs. After piloting the Piratesfranchise to $2.7 billion worldwide, Depp is playing a
murderous, singing barber in the bloody operetta Sweeney
Todd. (Seriously, who else would do that?)
NEXT Although
it's delayed by the writers' strike, he'll produce and star in
the international narco-thriller Shantaram, directed by
Mira Nair.
POP ROCKS He first moved to L.A. as a musician,
not as an actor. His band once opened for Iggy Pop.
