What is Johnny Depp afraid of?

Johnny Depp is afraid of clowns. He has described this fear in interviews, explaining that clowns’ painted smiles make it difficult to tell whether they are friendly or secretly threatening.

The fear is commonly called coulrophobia. Depp has said that surrounding himself with clown posters and paintings was, in a strange way, an attempt to confront or ward off the fear. His comments helped turn the detail into one of the best-known pieces of trivia about him.

People sometimes confuse this answer with Johnny Depp’s fear of flying, ghosts, or pirates because those themes appear frequently in his films and celebrity stories. Pirates, in particular, are associated with his hugely famous role as Captain Jack Sparrow, but they are not the answer to this question.

Depp’s fear also creates an amusing contrast with his career: he has repeatedly appeared in dark, surreal, and unsettling movies, including Tim Burton productions filled with macabre imagery. Being comfortable performing frightening characters does not necessarily mean an actor is comfortable with the real-life object that scares him.