10 h, jul 31, 2021 y - THE TELEGRAPH Johnny Depp Can he bounce back?

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Can Johnny Depp bounce back?

He was the box-office king, but then his marriage to Amber Heard imploded and accusations of domestic abuse swirled. Can he come back?

by Katie Glass

It feels portentous now watching Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands, seeing the peculiar tenderness he brought to a role that turned him from ’80s heart-throb into ’90s indie icon (and earned him his first major awards nomination – a Golden Globe for best actor). In Scissorhands (1990), Depp plays a fragile loner whose strangeness makes him captivating, yet ultimately isolates him. It was a part for which Depp seemed destined (although, weirdly, Tim Burton wanted Tom Cruise to play it), propelling him to other roles as eccentric outsiders that came to define him. In What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Ed Wood (1994) and Donnie Brasco (1997), he was sealed in the public imagination as a wounded hero, personifying the ’90s grunge backlash against ’80s pop. For biographer Michael Blitz, Depp encapsulated an era: ‘The curious by-product of conflicting forces in American popular culture and, to a lesser extent, European pop culture.’

On screen Depp played misunderstood outsiders, amplified off-screen by his wild-child image. His reputation for heavy drinking and rumoured drug-taking later saw him confess to Rolling Stone, ‘I spent years poisoning myself. I was very, very good at it.’ His dysfunction seemed bound to his relationships. He was engaged to Winona Ryder within five months of meeting her, having ‘Winona forever’ tattooed on his bicep, later amended to ‘Wino forever’. He dated supermodel Kate Moss – being arrested for vandalising a hotel room they were staying in, causing £8,000 worth of damage. He only seemed to find some stability when he met (in 1998) long-time partner Vanessa Paradis, who wrote love letters to him in French Elle. They had two children, Lily-Rose, now 22, and Jack, 19.

Actor Greg Ellis, who has known Depp since their children attended the same preschool and kindergarten in LA, describes him as ‘humble, down-to-earth, funny, generous, a wonderful dad’. In 2003, as Lieutenant Theodore Groves, Ellis appeared with Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. It was Depp’s first outing as Captain Jack Sparrow, who he based on Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood. ‘Jack Sparrow is a piece of cinematic history,’ says Ellis. ‘To play an effeminate, drunk, bejewelled pirate was risky – but it worked.’ It turned Depp into the mega-star of a blockbuster brand. Pirates earnt Depp his first Oscar nomination and – over five instalments – a reported $300 million. By 2010, when Depp commanded $55 million for Alice in Wonderland, he was one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors.

Yet now, just over a decade later, the 58-year-old’s career seems to have crashed. Amid a bitter divorce, allegations of abuse from his ex-wife Amber Heard and a devastatingly public libel trial that labelled him a ‘wife beater’, he has been dropped from film projects. With his latest movie Minamata, a biopic of photographer Eugene Smith, being released on 13 August with a fizzle, it’s unclear if this is Depp’s comeback or swan song.

Some might suggest that Depp’s career had long been on the downturn. He’d had flops with The Tourist (2010), Dark Shadows (2012) and The Lone Ranger (2013). For some fans, the actor’s downfall began in 2009 when he met Amber Heard – 23 years his junior – on the set of The Rum Diary. Within three years, Depp and Paradis had split. By 2015 Depp and Heard wed. Just 15 months later they filed for divorce amid stories of a tumultuous and toxic relationship, with Heard accusing Depp of domestic abuse and obtaining a temporary restraining order against him.

Depp fans refused to believe the allegations; his team denied them. Pointedly, a joint statement released in 2016 when Depp and Heard reached a $7 million divorce settlement read: ‘Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love… There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm.’

It was a message confused by reports that Heard would donate a chunk of her settlement to a domestic violence charity, and the subsequent op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post about domestic abuse. In it she described how she’d ‘felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out’. (An article over which Depp is now bringing a $50 million libel suit.)

But the pivotal moment came when a 2018 column published in The Sun questioned Depp’s casting in Fantastic Beasts, calling him a ‘wife beater’. For Depp, a line had been crossed. ‘When your son is coming home in tears because he’s been bullied about never-ending news stories about his father’s alleged “violent” behaviour, I think a parent, particularly a father, gets to a point where you’ve had enough and say, “I have to take a stand now,”’ says Greg Ellis. ‘Depp has two kids, they look at social media, they’re aware of the outrageous things that are written. I think for his kids’ sake, for their futures, so he could look them in the eye and say, “I tried,” he felt he had to take a stand and say enough was enough.’

Depp brought a defamation case against The Sun. It was a move international media law specialist Mark Stephens, of firm Howard Kennedy, describes as ‘self-immolation’. He explains such libel cases are ‘extremely rare’ because they carry such huge reputational risk: ‘Even if you win on legal merit you lose the reputational war.’

Defamation cases attract what is known as the Streisand Effect: named after singer Barbara Streisand’s attempt to suppress photographs of her Malibu home, which only publicised them further. ‘Bringing this case meant attracting the attention of every single journalist worldwide – you’re going to ignite an explosion,’ says Gary Farrow, one of Britain’s best-known entertainment publicists, whose clients have included Sir Elton John. ‘Footage of you at court is going to be all over every TV station and is going to be forever associated with you.’

‘In his best interest would have been to swallow his pride and put his head down,’ adds leading talent manager Jonathan Shalit OBE (who discovered Charlotte Church). ‘Depp has never been charged or convicted of a criminal offence, so when The Sun wrote [that Depp was a ‘wife beater’] some would have believed it and some wouldn’t have believed it.’

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