Johnny Depp channels Captain Jack Sparrow outside of the courthouse for fans

Last Updated on May 24, 2022

Johnny Depp has said no amount of money will make him return to play Captain Jack Sparrow in a future installment of Pirates of the Caribbean but that doesn’t mean he has totally left the character. As he headed into the courthouse today for another round of the Depp/Amber Heard defamation trial, he channeled the character for fans.

When one fan yelled out “You’ll always be our Captain Jack Sparrow,” Depp enthusiastically responded in the voice of the character by saying, “He’s still around somewhere. I see him now and again. He shows up now and again.” This is just another example of how this trial has turned into pure spectacle but it also shows that Depp continues to win with his fans. While I’m sure Amber Heard has supporters that believe her claims, there is no denying there is more of a groundswell of support behind Johnny Depp.

Depp will possibly be called back to the witness stand this week as the trial winds down. The big claim in the case is that Depp’s reputation and career suffered greatly after Heard wrote a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post where she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Heard didn’t call out Depp by name but the timing of the alleged abuse made it very clear that he was the abuser in question. Depp has alleged that the claims made him lose work but his agents seemed to clash on that matter last week during the trial.

Last Thursday, per Entertainment Weekly, the court heard prerecorded testimony from Tracey Jacobs, a talent agent who represented Johnny Depp from the beginning of his career up to 2016. She testified that “he terminated essentially everyone in his life, and I was along for the ride, I guess.” She went on to say that he “became the biggest star in the world” after the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but his “star dimmed” after word spread of his unprofessional behavior and drug use. This would support Amber Heard’s claims that his career was in shambles long before she alleged abuse against Depp. Here is more of what Jacobs had to say:

“It worsened over time. Initially, crews loved him because he was always so great with the crew, but crews don’t love sitting around for hours and hours and hours waiting for the star of the movie to show up and it also got around town, I mean people talk, it’s a small community, and it made people reluctant to use him toward the end.”

To counter her argument, Depp’s legal team dismissed Jacobs as a disgruntled former employee and turned their attention to witnesses like Christian Carino, another former talent agent of Depp’s. Carino represented both Heard and Depp at one point and he testified that he believes the actor’s reputation remains intact as “one of the finest actors of his generation” but Heard’s claims directly resulted in him losing professional opportunities. For instance, he supports the theory that Depp wasn’t invited back for Pirates of the Caribbean 6 as a direct result of Heard’s claims. He came to this conclusion after numerous conversations with colleagues and studio execs. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer never directly mentioned Depp’s personal problems but he could tell from the nature of the discussions that these decisions were being made due to the allegations.

Who knows how this show is going to end. I think that both parties come out of this looking pretty bad but Johnny Depp does have a lot of love from fans due to his body of work. He’s likely to eventually recover from this but, even if he does, I doubt his career will ever be what it once was. All of this messiness has been made public and now EVERYONE knows about it.

What are YOUR thoughts on the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial?