Actor Johnny Depp reportedly tried to get his ex-wife, actor Amber Heard fired from the superhero film Aquaman.
The Hollywood Reporter quotes sources familiar with Depp’s ongoing legal troubles with his former lawyer that ex Warner Bros chairman Kevin Tsujihara has been served a deposition notice to appear and testify whether or not he was asked to remove Heard from the film.
THR says Depp ‘personally lobbied Tsujihara to remove (Heard) from Aquaman and block her from getting other projects.’ Heard had been cast as the princess Mera in Warner Bros Justice League, and eventually appeared in Aquaman, which became the highest grossing film on a DC Comics property ever. Depp plays the villainous Gellert Grindelwald in Warner Bros’ Harry Potter prequel series, Fantastic Beasts.
Depp’s casting in the films has been controversial among fans, who’ve lobbied to have him removed. Series writer and producer JK Rowling personally defended his casting, and implied that she believed he was innocent in the ongoing legal matter between him and Heard, who has accused him of physical assault.
Heard had written about the potential troubles surrounding her involvement in Justice League and Aquaman in a Washington Post op-ed, in which she wrote that her advisors had warned she may be blacklisted. “Questions arose as to whether I would be able to keep my role of Mera in the movies Justice League and Aquaman,” she’d written.
In a separate statement, she’d said that she lost a part in at least one film after her split from Depp. “Following my highly-publicised separation from Johnny, … I lost a part for a movie in which I had already been cast.” Depp and Heard were married from 2015 to 2017.