The defamation lawsuit against Johnny Depp and Amber Heard has taken hold of headlines because of the often grotesque and sordid details of the couple’s troubled marriage. But jurors are also asked to consider whether any of them suffered real damage to their careers due to the other’s lies about them.
And while there is evidence that his two careers have been injured, it is much more complicated to try to connect this damage with specific defamatory statements.
Depp has alleged that he lost tens of millions of dollars due to Heard’s allegations of domestic violence, which he alluded to in a 2018 opinion piece. But the testimony showed that Depp was a star in serious decline even before the allegations, and a series of legal setbacks made it virtually unoccupied by large studios.
Depp’s former agent and former business director stated that Depp’s unprofessional behavior had dampened Hollywood’s enthusiasm for the actor, causing serious financial hardship for the free-spending star. On the set of the fifth film “Pirates of the Caribbean” and other films, Depp was often late and unprepared, relying on a headset to feed his lines.
“I was very honest with him and I said,‘ You have to stop doing this. It hurts. ‘ And he did, “recalled Tracey Jacobs, a UTA agent who helped orchestrate the rise of Depp’s career over three decades of working with the actor.” His star had darkened. ” he added, bluntly.
Things had gone so badly on the set of the latest “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie that Disney, the studio behind the series, had an employee parked outside the house where Depp was staying to report on the movements of the actor and warn the set when he was awake and could work. The production sank after Depp’s fingertip was cut off, which he said happened after Heard threw a bottle at him. The studio had to rely on a broad CGI to cover his injury, another example, one that manifests itself in pixels and green screens, of the drama surrounding Depp painting his professional life.
Depp is far from the only star who has behaved in a shy, crazy or cheeky way. His idol, Marlon Brando, used to terrify the studios with his luxurious demands and his peculiar setbacks, while everyone, from Bruce Willis to Vin Diesel, has had the kind of production clashes that are headlines.
When movies work, studios are more lenient. And, for a time, Depp was the rarest commodity, an actor with such a magnetic presence on the screen that he could get his asses in the seats. Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” with Depp as the Mad Hat grossed more than a billion dollars, while the duo was also a hit with their remake of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and ” Sweeney Todd “. But over the past decade, Depp’s box office prowess had dwindled, with failures like “Mortdecai”, “Transcendence” and “Black Mass” piling up and piercing his commercial reputation. However, Depp had become accustomed to having studies that would suit his whims and please him after the great success of the “Pirates” movies. He faces his problems despite the declining performances that the studios enjoyed on his films.
“At first the teams loved him,” Jacobs said in his recorded deposition. “He was always great with the crew. But the teams don’t like to sit for hours and hours waiting for the star to show up.”
Depp is suing for the 2018 opinion piece that Heard published in the Washington Post, in which he described himself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” His team claims the piece cost Depp papers, speeding up his sliding.
“After the comment, it was impossible to get him a studio film,” said Jack Whigham, the talented manager who took over from Jacobs after he was fired in 2016.
But the opinion came two and a half years after Heard first filed allegations of abuse, which had already led studios to start moving away from the star. Heard initially accused Depp of physically abusing her during their relationship when she filed for divorce and a restraining order in May 2016. In her testimony, Depp said Heard’s 2016 allegations they had cost him “everything.”
“The second the charges against me were made … then I lost,” he said.
But Depp signed a divorce agreement in which he waived any right to sue Heard for the 2016 claims. Thus, instead, Depp has been forced to sue for the December 2018 edition.
His team has tried to prove that it was the publisher, not the previous statements, that did the real damage to his career. Depp continued to work in 2017, but after “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” was shot in the fall of 2017, he made no other studio films. Whigham stated that Depp did not work hard in 2018 on purpose, because “he wanted to take some free time to rest.”
His team also tried to show that the comment damaged his Q scores, which are used to measure the popularity of performers. But that impact is hard to discern. His own expert stated that Depp’s negative score had increased by five points, and his positive score had dropped four points, following the 2016 complaints. But after the December 2018 publication, the impact was very high. more subtle. His positive score dropped just two points, while his negative score also dropped one point.
The Depp expert also showed data from Google Trends that showed an increase in interest in Depp in May 2016, but no increase around the publisher.
Whatever previous damage he suffered, Depp seems to have become really unoccupied after losing his 2020 defamation trial in the UK. That’s when Warner Bros. he fired Depp from the “Fantastic Beasts” series and replaced him with Mads Mikkelsen. Warners had already grown to be in business with him. A 2019 Rolling Stone article described the actor as drunk and drugged, and had raised alarms about the unwanted publicity he could bring to projects.
The jury is not limited to awarding “actual damages,” that is, damages that may be directly related to defamatory statements. They may also simply “assume” damage to the reputation of either party, without direct evidence, based solely on the inherently harmful nature of defamatory statements. But they have been given very little guidance on how to award damages that cannot be directly related to career damage.
For his part, Heard has claimed that Depp orchestrated a smear campaign that almost cost him a role in the sequel to “Aquaman,” along with endorsements and other television and film opportunities. He presented his own expert, who testified about the spikes in the tweets against Heard that were allegedly related to Depp’s lawyer’s claims that his allegations were a “deception.” This expert, Ron Schnell, admitted that his analysis could only show mathematical correlations, not clear causal links.
The testimony about the study’s decision-making process was clouded as well. After Heard appeared in the first film and in “Justice League,” Warner Bros. he thought about returning to the role, Heard and the head of DC Films, Walter Hamada, said. Heard said he had to “fight very hard” to keep his role as Aquaman’s love interest in the upcoming sequel and that even when he prevailed, he still had to fight with reduced screen time. .
Hamada remembered things differently. It was not a negative publicity stemming from Depp’s legal fight that almost lost Heard the role, he argued in a recorded statement. Rather, it was reduced to the lack of chemistry with Jason Momoa, the star of the film.
“It’s not uncommon in movies that two tracks don’t have chemistry,” he said. Hamada said skillful editing and other movie tricks wallpapered the lack of spark.
“You can make that chemical,” he said. “I think if you look at the film, it looks like they had a lot of chemistry, but I just know that during the use of post-production it took a lot of effort to get there.”
Heartd’s agent also pointed out an Amazon movie that was taken from him, but acknowledged that it was difficult to prove that he lost his job specifically because of the backlash against his allegations.
“No one can say out loud, ‘We’re taking this out because of this bad press,'” said agent Jessica Kovacevic. “But there’s no other reason.”
Kovacevic said “Aquaman” was a global blockbuster, grossing more than $ 1 billion, and that Heard’s performance was reviewed favorably, arguing that it should have reached stardom after this, citing Ana de Armas as a possible comparable career. But “Aquaman’s” reviews weren’t really evenly brilliant, with one calling for the delivery of Heard’s “wooden” line and another calling his character “one of the less interesting big screen love interests.” of recent memory “.
Depp’s team opposed a number of compositions (including Zendaya, from Armas, Momoa, Chris Pine and Gal Gadot) offered by Heard’s side, and noted that several of these actors had played lead roles and had careers. much more established than Heard.
Depp has claimed that Heard’s comment cost him a lucrative return to the “Pirates of the Caribbean” world, and he lost a $ 22.5 million paycheck. Although, here too, the cause and effect become blurred. Depp’s agreement for the film, if it existed, was never committed to writing.
Heartd’s opinion piece was published in December 2018, but a report in October of that year in the Daily Mail had already stated that Depp was out of the franchise. Depp seemed to acknowledge that he could have been evicted before Heard’s piece, but still related it to his initial allegations in the 2016 divorce filing.
“I didn’t know it, but it doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “It’s been two years of constant conversations around the world about who I am this time around. So I’m sure Disney was trying to cut ties to be safe. The #MeToo movement was in full swing at the time.”
The Disney representative stated that there was nothing in the …