Massive reminders that your talent is matched only by your reluctance to say ”no”. But here, looming over the horizon, come Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and Alice in Wonderland 2. Occasionally you’ll bump into something great: Rango (an animated western in which you were a scaredy-cat chameleon forced to be sheriff) was fun and your meaty role in Black Mass (playing James “Whitey” Bulger) was tipped as a return to form. Then came the millennium and, frankly, your resume got blotted. The 90s had room for two more of your great performances – as an undercover FBI agent in Donnie Brasco and in Terry Gilliam’s whacked-out Hunter S Thompson adaptation Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Then came What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, where you played the hunky, sensitive older bro to a disabled sibling (coaxing Leonardo DiCaprio to a performance that’s close to his best) and Ed Wood (Burton again, in a biopic of the hapless director).

It was hard not to see it as a reflection of your own appeal: all of us suburban housewives swooning over your elfish sexiness. You were a vulnerable recluse whose freakish appendages first appall, then attract the picket-fencers of Smalltown, USA. You’ve had a long (and patchy) history of collaborations with him since, but this was a highlight. After bit parts in A Nightmare on Elm Street and Platoon, you cut a path to fame as Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton’s shear-fingered innocent. Back in the 90s, when you were the most versatile – and probably the hottest – actor in the business.

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