Leave it to Johnny Depp to pick the oddest characters out there and to make them endearing.

He made the extremely pale, frightfully scissor-handed Edward of the 1990 film “Edward Scissorhands” a bashful, kind-hearted man who had the courage to isolate himself in order to protect the woman he loved.

He let us see how Ichabod Crane, his character in the 1998 adaptation of the Washington Irving story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” was ambitious but also cowardly, highly intelligent but also struggling to accept his emotions.

And of course his portrayal of Sweeney Todd in last year’s screen adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical – that of a man torn between grief, hate, desire of revenge, tenderness and despair –earned him an Academy Award nomination, the third of his career.

What these characters have in common, along with several other choices Depp has made over the decades, is, other than director and longtime friend Tim Burton, the uniqueness. Depp transforms oddballs, outcasts, freaks if you will, into persons, into beings that the audience can actually relate to.

Therefore, news that Johnny Depp will portray the Mad Hatter in Burton’s upcoming adaptation of the beloved Lewis Carroll novel “Alice in Wonderland” is simply reassurance that we are to see yet another brilliant performance from him.

Rumors had been circulating for a while now that he would take on this role and they were finally confirmed today, during the Walt Disney Studios Showcase in Hollywood.

Entertainment Weekly reports that Depp himself showed up, bedecked in his Jack Sparrow costume (yet another of his incredible characters), to confirm that he would soon fill the shoes of the Mad Hatter…and of the Lone Ranger’s sidekick, Tonto.

Accompanied by a marching band, Depp confirmed that he had signed on to star in Jerry Bruckheimer’s production of “The Lone Ranger.” A studio executive also hinted there was a third role to be announced for Depp – in due time.