HE MAY be one of Hollywood's leading heart-throbs, but you'd be hard-pressed to see the face of Johnny Depp under the orange wig and make-up.

His usual golden tan and dark hair, which help send the pulses of women around the world racing, are hidden beneath the frizzy hair, a gaudy top hat and ghoulish white make-up on his face and hands.

The actor is shown in this picture as the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's upcoming adaptation of Alice In Wonderland, which was partly filmed in Cornwall.

Disney, which is behind the eccentric Burton's version of the Lewis Carroll classic, has released new pictures of the stars in character.

Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter

The 46-year-old Depp joins Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway, Little Britain's Matt Lucas, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry and Helena Bonham Carter in the eagerly anticipated film.

As well as being transformed by their costumes, the cast's features have been digitally altered, making them look far removed from their normal selves. Bonham Carter especially, who plays the Red Queen, appears with an enlarged bulbous head, while Matt Lucas plays both Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee as animated characters, his movements captured by motion-capture technology. The film's producer, Richard Zanuck, described the Mad Hatter as, perhaps not surprisingly, "off his rocker".

"He [Depp] is so much fun and so nutty, I can't imagine anyone else doing it," he said.

Filming took place at Antony House near Torpoint last September and October. Extras from Plymouth and the surrounding areas were dressed in period costume for two weeks at the National Trust-owned stately home. Its gardens form the backdrop for the scenes before Alice, played by little-known Australian actress Mia Wasikowska, 18, is transported to Wonderland.

In August, 3,000 people queued in Plymouth for the chance to be cast as extras, with 250 being successful.

The film is scheduled to be released in both traditional and 3-D format on March 12 next year.