Before he played charming oddballs in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Edward Scissorhands and, well, insert most of his acting résumé here, Johnny Depp was your garden-variety teen idol on Fox's 21 Jump Street. Back in 1990, cult film director John Waters gave Depp his big-screen break — and a chance to send up his Tiger Beat image — in Cry-Baby. And since the Cry-Baby Director's Cut DVD is out today, TVGuide.com has a chance to touch base with Waters, for some "I knew Depp when" reminiscing and chatter about the rest of his freaky film exploits.

TVGuide.com: Cry-Baby was perhaps the most mainstream or "ready for prime time," of all your many wacky movies.
John Waters: I disagree. Pecker is probably my nicest movie. Just 'cause Cry-Baby is a musical, people forget that I have a very dysfunctional, disturbed family in it. I have an ingenue who drinks her own tears because she's in love with Johnny Depp. That's some kind of sexual fetish I don't even have a name for; I didn't even have tear drinkers in A Dirty Shame. Plus, [adult film-star-turned-actress] Traci Lords is in it, Patricia Hearst... I hardly think it was your normal studio movie.

TVGuide.com: Of course. I'm just saying it feels tame and mainstream by John Waters standards, if you compare it to much freakier fare like Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble.
Waters: If ever I made movies that were sneak attacks, maybe Hairspray and Cry-Baby were the ones. They both became big rentals for children's parties! And Cry-Baby's going to be a Broadway musical [like Hairspray] now. But if you look at what it's saying — the heroines are a girl so ugly she's considered beautiful; an insane, thieving grandmother; and an unwed mother who's happy to be knocked up — it's a very unconventional story. So maybe these movies, rather than preaching to the converted, actually did corrupt somebody!

TVGuide.com: Do you claim any credit for Johnny Depp's huge film career?
Waters: Johnny would've been a huge star and a very successful actor without me. I'm glad he started with me, though. I'm glad he starred in my movie. More people have seen Cry-Baby, because of Johnny Depp, than any of my movies. I'm glad that I'm the first person who ever got him a million-dollar paycheck. And I'm glad we're still friends. We still e-mail and he calls me "Mr. Waters," because that's what people in Baltimore call me. And I'm sure you can't put my nickname for him on TVGuide.com.

TVGuide.com: Speaking of TV, were you as enthralled by the surprise summer hit Dancing with the Stars as the rest of America?
Waters: I've never even heard of it. That shows how much I am in the mainstream of America. I'm not sure what the difference is between reality TV and amateur porn. They often look similar — but I'll go with the porn.

TVGuide.com: Do you watch any television?
Waters: I've recently watched The Wire on HBO and the Michael Jackson trial reenactments on E! I also enjoyed an episode of Pamela Anderson's show Stacked. I worked in a bookshop like her character does and also, Marissa Jaret Winokur — the star of Hairspray: The Musical — is in it.