Johnny Depp recently told The Telegraph that he remembered thinking “fuck you” when Warner Bros. asked him to exit his role of Gellert Grindelwald during the making of “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.” The decision was made a day after Depp lost his 2020 libel trial against The Sun. The actor sued the U.K. publication for referring to him as a “wife beater,” but the court ruled this characterization of Depp was “substantially true.”
Warner Bros. said in a statement after the verdict: “Johnny Depp will depart the ‘Fantastic Beasts’ franchise. We thank Johnny for his work on the films to date.”
“In light of recent events, I would like to make the following short statement,” Depp wrote on Instagram at the time. “Firstly, I’d like to thank everybody who has gifted me with their support and loyalty. I have been humbled and moved by your many messages of love and concern, particularly over the last few days.”
Depp was eventually recast with Mads Mikkelsen and only filmed for a single day on “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore” before his exit. He now shares his more honest thoughts on the matter with The Telegraph: “It literally stopped in a millisecond, like, while I was doing the movie. They said we’d like you to resign. But what was really in my head was they wanted me to retire.”
What was his response to the decision? “Fuck you. There’s far too many of me to kill. If you think you can hurt me more than I’ve already been hurt you’re gravely mistaken.”
Depp would go on to be “shunned, dumped, booted, deep-sixed, canceled” in Hollywood or “however you want to define it,” he added to The Telegraph.
A second, even more highly-publicized trial centered on Depp took place in the U.S. in 2022 after Depp sued ex-wife Amber Heard for defamation over an op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post in which she referred to herself as “a figure representing domestic abuse.” The jury ultimately ruled that Heard did defame Depp in the op-ed, while also ruling Depp defamed Heard in the course of fighting back against her charges. Over the course of the trial, shocking details about Depp and Heard’s personal lives were revealed.
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“I knew I’d have to semi-eviscerate myself. Everyone was saying, ‘It’ll go away!’ But I can’t trust that,” Depp told The Sunday Times last month about the viral trial. “What will go away? The fiction pawned around the fucking globe? No it won’t. If I don’t try to represent the truth it will be like I’ve actually committed the acts I am accused of. And my kids will have to live with it. Their kids. Kids that I’ve met in hospitals. So the night before the trial in Virginia I didn’t feel nervous. If you don’t have to memorize lines, if you’re just speaking the truth? Roll the dice.”
Depp said he survived “all the hit pieces, the bullshit” that accompanied the trial, adding: “Look, none of this was going be easy, but I didn’t care. I thought, ‘I’ll fight until the bitter fucking end.’ And if I end up pumping gas? That’s all right. I’ve done that before.”
The actor is now getting the chance to come back to Hollywood by starring opposite “Blow” co-star Penelope Cruz in the Lionsgate action comedy “Day Drinker.”
From Variety US