oct 29, 2018 - MARIE CLAIRE UK
Amber Heard
She Will Be Heard
PhotoShoot
INTERVIEW
Description:
This article is no longer hosted on the Marie Claire UK website and it is too long for the entirety to be placed here. The Magzter website however does host the full version and is linked below.
STANDING STRONG
Amber Heard on her new superhero status and the power of friendship. Plus, man of the moment Josh O'Connor reigns in our party special, and the fine jewellery pieces you'll fall for
After a turbulent Hollywood marriage - and toxic divorce -Amber Heard has emerged stronger than ever.
She Will Be Heard
Emma Brockes talks to the actress and activist about survival, standing up for what's right and her latest role as a comic-book superhero Amber Heard comes bounding into the hotel bar in New York in a plain white tee and jeans looking, at 32, impossibly young and slight. The actress, who is best known for her roles in Justice League (2017) and The Danish Girl (2015), lives in LA but spends so much time in New York, she really should rent an apartment here, she says. 'Or buy one,' I suggest, to which she dryly replies, 'Yes, but I spend all my money on lawsuits?' It is the kind of remark that makes Heard so likeable, with an ability to hold at amused distance the drama of her last few years.
This included her turbulent two-year marriage and very public divorce from Johnny Depp, against whom she filed and later dropped a restraining order, and her equally public relationship with Elon Musk. Heard has a joyful energy that expresses itself in long, unwinding sentences she calls 'babbling' and that, to her amazement, occasionally end in a point. Sample: 'I like anything that makes you feel,' she says, when the waiter brings hor d'oeuvres. 'Like spicy or pickles. But I hate olives! I want to like them, because I'm very bothered by the idea I'm missing out, and I have tried so many times to redirect my natural aversion to olives, even though I'm an actress and need another food to love like I need another hole in my ear.?' There follows a further two minutes on olives, at the end of which she says sheepishly, "Thanks for understanding?
Heard is an arresting actress, appearing in forthcoming DC Comics adaptation Aquaman as Mera, warrior queen of the sea, and she is serious about playing, and defending, strong women. After her split from Depp, she announced she was giving the $7m divorce settlement to charity, in particular to the American Civil Liberties Union and Children's Hospital Los Angeles, to help those 'less able to defend themselves. She is also well known for her activism.
From her earliest years, Heard says she has instinctively fought for what's right, whether that be gay rights, women's rights, or what it's like to be a young woman in Hollywood under intense pressure to conform. Before Depp and Musk, she was in a five-year relationship with photographer Tasya Van Ree, a woman she says she was strongly encouraged by her advisors to conceal. In the end, she didn't. 'I couldn't lie,' she says.
Aquaman is completely over-the-top, but is it still empowering to play a superhero? 'Very much so! I knew I wanted to do this character when I found myself, as a woman in her thirties, sitting in a nail salon reading the source material before I took the audition, and responding to the integrity of the character: her power, her drive, her strength. It was a scene in which Mera and Aquaman save this small coastal town from a natural disaster, and the townspeople point to Mera and say, "Is that Aquawoman?" And out of the gate, she responds, "I'm not Aquawoman, Ihave a name. My name is Mera." I was like, I like her?'
Bravery is clearly a defining feature of the roles you choose, as well as of your life. You were only 16 when you moved from Texas to model and live alone in New York.
'Those years before I moved to LA in my late teens are what I call the escape-artist years. I was learning how to handle being told how to stand and smile, and look. I tried to accept some of the frustrations of modelling with the joy of the freedom. Now, as someone who feels like an old lady, I think, "How did I do that?" It sounds brave, but I had precociousness and attitude to make up for being skinny and slight; a baby-faced girl.'
Where do you retreat to for comfort? Home to Texas? 'Are you kidding me? I worked 16 long years to [assumes broad Southern accent] crawl out of there. I'm not going back!'
It wasn't a happy place, then? 'I think childhood is an inherently unhappy and bored place. They're one and the same to me: boredom and unhappiness?'
How did your family react when you flew the nest? "To my family, I think I'm an alien sheep. I'm not even a black sheep. From an early age, I learned to recognise my parents did not understand where I came from. I don't blame them. I'm lucky in that I had to develop a strong mechanism to counter their lack of support, in certain areas, and those areas in which I later thrived are developed because of that. And the areas where they were supportive, I'm very thankful?
Modelling can't have been a nurturing environment. 'I would love to see the nature of advertising change - or our cultural and collective appetites - to a point where it's [understood to be] unsavoury to us that a 15-year-old girl is selling anti-wrinkling products to women in their sixties. It's not the advertisers responsibility, necessarily, or the people being photographed, but attitudes around our gender need to change. We're seeing images that tell women on a daily basis: "not skinny enough, not young enough, not sexy enough; too sexy". There's real impact there and it's hard to challenge.... [see scans for full interview]
