He was Johnny Depp before there was even a Johnny Depp

Not a bad analogy at all.
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there will be snark

I agree. But Tim should have been bigger than Johnny Depp and gotten the roles Depp starred in and then maybe Tim would be more known.

a very little, unmeaningful difference: JD is much, much, much more handsome than TC (at least from a classical point of view).
Just nothing for movie business...

It's not an analogy. It's a comparison.

Curry is older than Depp, so he couldn't have gotten the same roles. The timing was off.

Also, isn't Tim Curry gay? That makes it harder to be a leading man, if not impossible.

Depp was a sexier, younger man. He played a young man who thought he was Don Juan, for example. He was good looking and sexy enough to pull that off. I don't see Curry being able to do that. He didn't have the firm jaw, the chiseled cheek bones, etc., that Depp had. Curry was cute and sexy, for sure. But not in the leading man sort of way, IMO.

I do think Depp is a little small for my taste. He seems a little too short and slim to be what most leading men are, but that's just my preference.

Agree with everything you said. I find them both charming and talented (5 years or so ago, I’d have said that Depp was in more good films, but that’s changed drastically). I also think Depp has a delicacy and femininity that Curry doesn’t, which makes him better for playing shy and/or eccentric characters (I’m namely thinking of Sleepy Hollow, Pirates, and Wonka); Curry has a more menacing air. In general, I have trouble buying Depp as a villain (excepting Secret Window) and Curry as a hero.

He's not gay

For all we know, he might be. Tim keeps his personal life private.