Johnny Depp has built his career on doing what people don't expect, like jumping from a teen TV show to a spooky film about a sad man with scissory hands or becoming the world's biggest star by dressing as a pirate and running around funny.

This philosophy stretches beyond Johnny Depp's professional choices and well into Johnny Depp's private life, too. For years and years Johnny Depp has been shacked up with French singer Vanessa Paradis in unwedded bliss. But now that everyone has stopped asking Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis when they're going to get married, Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis have decided to get married. In a year. Possibly.

Johnny Depp must spend quite a lot of the time kicking himself. For years and years he toiled away making a load of films that only polo-necked film studies morons paid to go and see, and then – out of nowhere – he discovered that dressing up as a pirate, pretending to be Keith Richards and not really doing much more than a succession of comedy double takes would make him the biggest movie star on the planet. Johnny Depp knows a good thing when he sees one, and that's why he wants to keep pumping out Pirates Of The Caribbean movies – and tie-in sea shanty albums – forever.

Being a funny pirate for a living doesn't just mean that Johnny Depp can afford to make films that nobody will go and see – like the Sweeney Todd musical; or refuse to make films that nobody will go and see – like the INXS biopic. Being a pirate also seems to have softened Johnny Depp's stance on marriage and, as Sky reports, it might even mean that he'll get married to Vanessa Paradis at some point:

A source in the US has told The Daily Express that Johnny and Vanessa, who have a £1.5m mansion in the South of France, are readying themselves to tie the knot. They said: "Johnny and Vanessa are planning to get married next summer at their villa. It will be a private event rather than a showbiz extravaganza." … A friend told the Express: "He went off the idea of marriage because of his relationship history. But he'll do it if Vanessa and his kids want him to. Johnny and Vanessa are happier and more in love than most married couples."

We don't know what's more disappointing here – the fact that we've somehow managed to turn Johnny Depp sort of possibly thinking about getting married one day perhaps into a full news story, or that Johnny Depp's wedding to Vanessa Paradis won't be a showbiz extravaganza. Ah, let's say the last one.

Read more:

Will Johnny Marry Ness? – Sky

[story by Stuart Heritage]