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A humble and defensive Johnny Depp spoke at the Cannes press conference this morning for the festival’s opening night film Jeanne du Barry. Not only was he moved by the standing ovation at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, but he also referenced the aftermath of Amber Heard’s trial headlines (without naming him), exclaiming, “As far as I’m concerned and my life, most of what you read is fantastically horribly written fiction.
Ask by Deadline on whether he still felt boycotted by Hollywood, feelings he expressed in an August 2021 Sunday Times interview, the 3x Oscar nominee replied,
“Did I feel a Hollywood boycott? Well, you wouldn’t need to have a pulse to feel at that moment, “None of this is happening, it’s just a weird joke or I’ve been sleeping for 35 years.” Of course, when you’re asked to quit a movie you’re doing, because of something that’s just a bunch of vowels and consonants floating around in the air, you feel boycotted,” he said. -he declares.
“Do I sense a boycott now? No not at all. I don’t feel boycotted by Hollywood because I don’t think of Hollywood. Myself, I don’t need Hollywood anymore,” he added. “I think it’s a very weird and fun time when everyone wants to be themselves, but they can’t. , they have to line up, conform and if you want to lead this life, I’ll be on the other side.”
Jeanne du Barry was billed as the actor’s big-screen comeback movie after a three-year hiatus, as he battled his ex-wife Amber Heard in court, winning a libel suit against her last summer.
But Depp took issue with the “return” line.
“They use it as a kind of slogan. “The guy is making a comeback”. I had about 17 comebacks in passing, apparently,” he said.
“I keep wondering about the word ‘comeback’ because I haven’t been anywhere,” he continued. “I actually live about 45 minutes away so, yeah. Maybe, maybe people stopped calling. I don’t know what their fear was at the time. I didn’t go anywhere. I remained seated. So the “return” is almost like going out and tap dancing or something.
Asked by a journalist what he thought of the controversy surrounding his presence at Cannes, in particular those who didn’t want him here at the 76th edition, Depp replied: “And if they told me, I can’t go to McDonald’s for life because somewhere if you have them all in one room 39 people saw me watching me eat a Big Mac on repeat Who are they Why do they care Certain species or tower of mashed potatoes covered in light from a computer screen? Anonymous.”
In Jeanne du Barry, Depp plays Louis XV while filmmaker Maiwenn plays his newly recruited mistress, Countess Jeanne du Barry.
The actor discussed Maïwenn’s bravado in selecting a non-French actor to play King Louis. The director mentioned that she had already dated some deceased French actors, but found Depp an anomaly, not for how long he lived in France, but also for his extensive knowledge of politics, art and of the country’s cinema. “He knew more about Louis VX than I did,” admitted the filmmaker.
“I was surprised to be cast in this role,” Depp said, “Yes, I thought someone had made a terrible mistake.”
“Maybe you want to try a Frenchman as King Louis,” the actor said, “She thought about it for a second. I thought about it for a second. It was brave of her to choose a hick from Kentucky…”
Depp later said that one of his biggest goals for the role was to portray Louis XV in a way that audiences would forget it was him on the big screen.
“You have to find a way for the viewer to forget who you are, all the baggage you’re carrying…it was my biggest hope that the viewer would forget who was in front of them,” the actor said.
Off-screen playing her rebellious lead character, Maïwenn, admitted in a recent TV interview to assaulting Mediapart editor-in-chief Edwy Plenel, which involved pulling her hair back and spitting on her in a Parisian restaurant.
“She’s openly anti-#MeToo and she made a move to please her world, and that’s why she bragged about it on TV. You could see a kind of pride that echoed that world,” lambasted Plenel about Maïwenn in a recent Variety interview about the altercation.