Are audiences ready for the return of Johnny Depp?
Playing his first lead role in three years, the controversial actor is making a comeback in “Jeanne du Barry,” which opens Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday.
The French-language film follows the trials of a mistress of King Louis XV of France. Depp plays the king and stars opposite French actress Maïwenn, who directs.
Depp’s explosive defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard last summer garnered widespread interest. After both Depp and Heard accused each other of physical and verbal abuse, a civil jury awarded $10 million in damages to Depp and $2 million to Heard − a win for Depp, and a partial win for Heard.
To many, the trial verdict vindicated Depp. However, Cannes organizers’ decision to open with Depp’s film has still garnered backlash. In the past week, more than 2,000 Twitter users have tweeted the hashtag #cannesyounot, many of them sharing quotes unveiled during Depp’s two defamation lawsuits.
In response to this discourse, Cannes director Thierry Frémaux said at a news conference Monday, “If there’s one person in this world who didn’t find the least interest in (Depp’s) very publicized trial, it’s me. I don’t know what it’s about. I care about Johnny Depp as an actor.”
Is Depp’s acting all that matters? Here’s a look back at his recent controversies.
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What happened to Johnny Depp?
Depp was once one of Hollywood’s biggest A-listers, with starring turns in everything from Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” to Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands.” However, his star began to wane in the mid-2010s, when he suffered financial troubles, a series of box-office disappointments, and a separation from his longtime partner Vanessa Paradis.
Depp met his now ex-wife Heard in 2009 when he cast her in his film “The Rum Diary,” and they married in 2015. In 2016, Heard filed for divorce and shortly after filed for a temporary restraining order against Depp. Heard accused Depp of verbal and physical abuse, but the pair later settled their divorce out of court.
In 2018, Depp sued The Sun after the British tabloid called him a “wife beater.” A British judge ruled against Depp’s defamation claim in 2020 and determined that 12 incidents of domestic violence had occurred.
In his ruling, Justice Andrew Nicol noted several times when Heard feared for her life, including one that Heard described as a “three-day hostage situation” in Australia in March 2015 while Depp was filming a “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.
“I accept her evidence of the nature of the assaults he committed against her,” the judge wrote. “They must have been terrifying.”
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Did Johnny Depp win his lawsuit against Amber Heard?
In 2019, Depp also sued Heard for $50 million in the U.S., claiming that she defamed him in a 2018 opinion piece Heard wrote for The Washington Post. The piece did not name Depp; it was titled: “I spoke up against sexual violence − and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.”
Both testified in the trial, which was televised, and shared graphic details of their abuse claims. Heard countersued, also for defamation, over comments made by Depp’s former lawyer Adam Waldman, who had previously called Heard’s abuse allegations a “hoax.”
The jury ruled that both had defamed each other, awarding Depp $10 million in damages and Heard $2 million. In December, they reached a settlement.
Depp said he was “truly humbled” that the “jury gave me my life back” in a statement to USA TODAY following the verdict.
Some news outlets raised concerns about the verdict, given that the jury, composed of five men and two women, wasn’t sequestered and may have been influenced by the volume of anti-Heard posts on social media.
Where does Johnny Depp’s career go from here?
Depp’s court cases have resulted in several career setbacks. In 2020, Depp was dropped from the “Fantastic Beasts” film series several days after he lost his suit against The Sun. Also in 2020, The Hollywood Reporter published a story on Depp titled “‘He’s Radioactive’: Inside Johnny Depp’s Self-Made Implosion” and cited unnamed studio executives who described Depp as a liability.
However, Depp’s highly publicized U.S. trial seems to have rehabilitated his public image somewhat. In 2022, Depp appeared as the MTV Video Music Awards mascot, the moonperson. In November, he walked in Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty fashion show. Last week, Variety reported that Dior signed a $20 million deal with Depp, which the outlet described as “the biggest men’s fragrance pact ever.”
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The future of Depp’s film career, however, remains uncertain. It’s currently unclear when, or even if, Depp’s new film “Jeanne du Barry” will be released in the U.S., and Cannes has been accused of being too welcoming of men accused of misconduct. Last week, acclaimed French actress Adèle Haenel wrote an open letter saying Cannes and other pillars of the film industry were “ready to do anything to defend their rapist chiefs.”
The reaction this week to his new film will likely help signal what lies ahead for Depp’s career.
Contributing: Hannah Yasharoff, Naledi Ushe and Maria Puente, USA TODAY, and Jake Coyle and Pan Pylas, The Associated Press
