Johnny Depp v Amber Heard: Can the actor's career ever recover?

You can say what you like about what Johnny Depp is and is not, but one thing he has never been is averse to a grossly unnecessary sequel or remake. This, after all, is the star of no fewer than five Pirates of the Caribbean instalments, each of them slightly worse than the former.

Then there are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland, Murder on the Orient Express and The Lone Ranger. As a rule, it seems that if Depp believes the public could do with seeing the same thing again, only done his way, he will deliver it. And possibly then deliver it again.

Two years ago, Depp and his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, engaged in an extraordinarily high-profile, 16-day libel trial at the High Court in London. Fans massed, dirty laundry was aired and, eventually, Mr Justice Nicol's 129-page ruling described The Sun headline referring to him as a "wife-beater" as "substantially true".

Depp had lost, and that could – perhaps should – have been the end of it. But this is Johnny Depp, star of Gnomeo and Juliet 2: Sherlock Gnomes. He doesn't know when to quit and now he felt wronged. Of course he'd order a sequel. Of course it would be more expensive. Of course people would wonder why he's bothering.

Depp vs Heard 2: This Time It's Televised, which opened this week, is taking place in Virginia and chiefly concerns an article Heard wrote for the Washington Post in 2018, in which she explained she had become "a public figure representing domestic abuse". Depp wasn't mentioned by name but, to him, the damage was done. He is suing for US$50 million (£38.2m); she is countersuing for US$100m (£76.5m).

"The op-ed's clear implication that Mr Depp is a domestic abuser is categorically and demonstrably false," his lawyers wrote in the legal complaint. "Her allegations […] are part of an elaborate hoax to generate positive publicity for Ms Heard and advance her career."

And so this week, Depp, 58, is back in court, back in his dark, boxy three-piece suits, his hair long and jewellery plentiful. Of his 30-odd tattoos, only those on his hands have been visible. One, across his knuckles, once read S-L-I-M – his nickname for Heard when they were married. He later changed it to S-C-U-M. Then he added a red anarchy symbol on the middle finger: S-C-A-M.

Yesterday, one of Depp's older sisters (he is the youngest of four siblings) took the stand. Christi Dembrowski, 61, was called by her brother's legal team to give evidence. She told the court about their difficult childhood in Kentucky, with their "kind, patient, loving, gentle" father, John, and "high-strung, very nervous, anxiety, angry" mother, Betty Sue.

Asked if Betty Sue would ever get angry with John, Dembrowski, who has acted as a personal manager to her brother, said yes. "Mom would scream, yell at him, she would hit him, call him names, that kind of thing." Betty Sue would "scream, yell [and] hit" the children, too, she claimed, as well as call them names. She allegedly called Depp "One Eye", since he once had a lazy eye.

Depp is going head-to-head with his ex-wife Amber Heard in a defamation lawsuit. Photo / Getty Images

Dembrowski went on to say she was "devastated" when her brother announced he was marrying Heard. The couple would argue incessantly, she said, and Heard, now 35, would insult him. She told one story about Depp being offered a Christian Dior partnership. "They're about class and style, and you don't have style," she recalled Heard saying. "An old, fat man" was one insult, Dembrowski said.

The point of Dembrowski's testimony is presumably so there is some basis to Depp's incredulity: "How can I be the abuser since I was raised by an abusive woman?" He, his devoted "Depphead" fans and his many Hollywood friends insist he is guilty of nothing but poor judgment in falling for Heard on the set of 2011's The Rum Diaries, meaning he has no choice but to try to clear his name – no matter how personally embarrassing it is. Then, and only then, he can have his life and once-brilliant career back.

That is the theory, anyway. But for many industry-watchers, that ship sailed as quickly and threateningly as the Black Pearl in one of those many, many Pirates films, and at least two years ago. It may have sunk for good.

"I don't see how he can ever come back in the US now," says Robbie Collin, the Daily Telegraph's chief film critic. "After he lost the London trial, how can you put the guy in a family film?"

The boycott has already happened. In 2020, after the High Court battle, Depp left his role as the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in the JK Rowling-written Fantastic Beasts franchise. Despite Mads Mikkelsen taking the part, it was reported that a contract clause meant Depp still received his $16m (£12.2m) salary.

"Once domestic violence is on someone's record, and so publicly, I don't see how you can claw your way back from it," says Collin.

"It has happened in music, but that's different. In film, you have to play along with the fantasy of this person being someone else, so if they have this personal life thing looming over them, that becomes harder.

Amber Heard is accusing Johnny Depp of sexually assaulting her. Photo / Getty Images

"To me, [this second trial] has become about making Amber Heard equally unemployable, rather than redeem himself and get back to a career he hasn't seemed that interested in lately. It's about saying: 'If my career's in the ditch, you're coming down with me.' "

Casting an eye over Depp's filmography over the past five years supports the idea he is persona non grata. After the first Pirates film, in 2003, he arguably became the biggest film star in the world – a mercurial, relentlessly watchable actor who finally found a mainstream vehicle that could utilise the strange, offbeat style and darkness that served him so well in cult indies.

In recent years, Collin says, it has been all small, relatively unsuccessful films in which Depp "hasn't once looked as if he's been extracting any joy from acting". Hardcore fans still watch them – in fact, one, Minamata, ranked third in the Oscars Fan Favourite contest this year – but major studios and directors won't touch him.

Some troubled stars, like Mel Gibson, can achieve carefully managed comebacks based on roles in which they tackle "demons". But it is difficult to imagine anything Depp can do to rehabilitate his image. If there has been a question mark over Will Smith's mainstream career thanks to a slap, there must be a full stop on Depp's.

Perhaps the exception is Dior, which maintained its faith in him and clearly didn't see him as old or fat, and instead paid him millions to be the face of its Sauvage aftershave. The French luxury brand reportedly saw sales of Sauvage increase during the last trial. "Fearless … and human," Depp says in one ad, striding across a barren landscape with some wolves, having just strummed his electric guitar. "A powerful scent with a lavish and captivating trail," Dior's accompanying text reads, "embodied by Johnny Depp".

But they are more forgiving of a whiff of personal indiscretion in France than in the US or Britain. Depp has two children with the French model Vanessa Paradis, and has spent a lot of time there, but it doesn't seem likely he'd while away his years making films on the continent. Not least because he barely speaks another language.

In the Nineties, Depp's performances in Edward Scissorhands, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Ed Wood, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Donnie Brasco made him one of the most interesting young actors to arrive in years – a leading man who wasn't macho. He was beautiful and a hellraiser with stories of drink and drug excesses and famous girlfriends, among them Kate Moss and Winona Ryder.

Those who met him in the early years remember him as "very sensitive, gentle, funny, poetic, unassuming, courteous, very articulate about Hollywood and celebrity and all the s*** that comes with it". But, they add, "also clearly damaged". He originally wanted to be a musician and now has a band, Hollywood Vampires, with two of his heroes, Alice Cooper and Joe Perry.

As the years went by, the qualities that once made him captivating appeared to fade. Instead of a "bad boy", the excesses gained a sad quality in middle age. The acting went from fascinating to phoned-in. By Collin's estimation, the last great Johnny Depp performance was in Public Enemies. That was released 13 years ago.

The world will watch what happens in that Virginia courtroom. But it doesn't really matter whether Depp's sequel can tell a different story – the ending remains the same.

His next, and only, listed film is French, and as-yet untitled. He'll be playing Louis XV, the king who reigned for 59 years. Beloved in his youth, he couldn't maintain it. He died unpopular, paranoid and accused of debauchery. Depp ought to bring something to that.