After Johnny Depp won a defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard and eventually reached a settlement with her over the appeals both made in the aftermath, it seemed like Depp was on his way back to Hollywood stardom. However, a report by The Daily Beast indicates that he’s been showing up late to the set of his upcoming film Jeanne Du Barry (something that had been a previous complaint about the actor) and has taken to screaming at director Maïwenn Le Besco.
“I’ve heard some noise from the shoot, very serious stuff…So, [Depp is] an excellent actor, when he comes on set, except sometimes at six in the morning the crew is ready, and nobody turns up. So of course, Maïwenn, who is the director, gets angry, and the next day she’s the one who doesn’t turn up. And you’ve got Johnny Depp, and she’s not there. It’s finished, over this week, [but] it’s going very, very badly. They don’t get on at all; they’re screaming at each other the whole time.”
Actor Bernard Montiel on the Jeanne Du Barry set environment.
The once-popular star of Pirates of the Caribbean and the first two Fantastic Beasts films lost many of his roles after Heard accused him of domestic abuse. He was removed from the third movie in the Fantastic Beasts series (the much-maligned Crimes of Grindlewald), and Disney reported that they would not include him in any new Pirates of the Caribbean films. However, his victory in court made it seem like a return to his popular roles was all but guaranteed.
However, just because someone’s found not guilty of domestic violence doesn’t mean they’re not a complete emotional wreck, and Johnny Depp admitted to many things in his trial, including that he is less than stable. With a childhood fraught with abuse that led to a life plagued by drugs and alcoholism, Depp told the court that his life “went weird” after being cast in the enormously-successful Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. He testified that he became addicted to Oxycontin after an on-set injury while filming Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. \
Johnny Depp has stated that he sued Amber Heard to help restore his reputation after she released an op-ed that accused him of physically-abusive behavior. However, while that might have been the straw that broke the film industry’s back, it’s not the only thing that sullied the actor’s reputation. He often appeared to be drunk or high during interviews and was reportedly often drunk and constantly late to the set of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
For Johnny Depp to make a true comeback in Hollywood, he needs to prove all the naysayers wrong — not just Amber Heard. His legal victory over Heard hasn’t convinced everyone that Heard’s claims were false. It’ll be difficult for directors to take a chance on such a controversial figure even after the jury decided that Amber Heard had lied about his abuse. If Depp also proves to be difficult to work with, directors may be less inclined to include the divisive star in their cast.
