Johnny Depp tops best actor poll for seventh year in Japan

Moviegoers in Japan can't get enough of Johnny Depp: The Pirates of the Caribbean star has been named favourite actor for a record seventh straight year in a survey by Japanese film magazine Screen.

That topped the previous record of six consecutive years for Audrey Hepburn in the early 1960s in Screen's annual 'Golden Grand Prix' readers poll, which the magazine has been conducting since 1952.

Depp, who was named People magazine's "sexiest man alive" for a second time last year, picked up over 4,500 votes for top actor, more than double the number for Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson in second place. Inglorious Basterds star Brad Pitt was third.

"His popularity hasn't gone down since the time of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie," Screen's editor-in-chief, Akihiro Yonezaki, told Reuters.

"He has such a wide fan base ranging from the younger generation to older people," he said, adding that Depp is able to grab audiences with roles in a variety of movies from family fare like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to serious films like Public Enemies.

Public Enemies, in which Depp plays 1930s gangster John Dillinger, was also chosen as best movie for 2009 in the survey, outgunning Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at No.2 and Twilight in third.

Depp's next screen role is as the Mad Hatter in director Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, which opens on Friday in the United States and other markets and in mid-April in Japan.

The results of the survey appeared in Screen's April issue.