The Sunday Times - UK (2022-05-29)

The Sunday Times May 29, 2022 15

NEWS

The blockbuster libel trial between
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard repre-
sents the most high-profile airing of Hol-
lywood’s dirty laundry in years.
Millions of people around the world
have watched on television as the two
film stars and a parade of studio execu-
tives raked over not only the protago-
nists’ personal lives but also their
careers, pulling back the curtain on the
inner workings of the film industry.
Depp sued his ex-wife for $50 million
(£40 million) over a column she wrote for
The Washington Post in 2018 in which she
never named him but described herself
as “a public figure representing domestic
abuse”. Depp said her article had dam-
aged his career. Heard responded to his
defamation claim by countersuing for
$100 million. This has led to the six-week
trial in Fairfax, Virginia. Both know a loss
will prove calamitous to their career.
Courtroom disclosures under oath
have exposed matters usually only dis-
cussed behind the closed doors of studio
boardrooms, from complaints about
non-existent sexual chemistry on screen
to arguments over nudity clauses and the
eye-watering salaries of leading actors.
The testimony provided by Tracey
Jacobs, Depp’s former agent and one of
the most powerful women in Hollywood,
represented a particularly extraordinary
deviation from Tinseltown norms. Called
to the stand by Heard’s team, she
explained in devastating detail how Depp
had been the biggest movie star in the
world before sabotaging his career
through persistent lateness and unpro-
fessional behaviour.
“His star had dimmed due to it getting
harder to get him jobs, given the reputa-
tion he had acquired,” Jacobs said, sup-

$100m

The amount she is demanding

from Depp in her countersuit

Crazy pay, suing over nudity and flying

to Oz to discipline Depp for being late

porting Heard’s argument that Depp’s

downfall was largely self-inflicted.

Jacobs detailed how Depp, who is

believed to have earned more than

$650 million over his 38-year career,

asked for $20 million from the United Tal-

ent Agency in 2016 because he was in

“financial desperation”. She also

revealed she had to twice fly to Australia

during the filming of a fifth Pirates of the

Caribbean film to speak to Depp about his

lateness and smooth-talk the producers.

Her evidence supported the image of

the actor offered by Heard’s lawyers: that

Depp was the epitome of Hollywood

excess — spoilt and difficult to work with.

Depp’s financial woes did not escape

the notice of executives at Disney, the stu-

dio behind the Pirates franchise, which

had grossed more than $4.5 billion with

the star in the lead role of Jack Sparrow.

In emails, high-ups at the company

shared news articles about the actor’s

declining career with comments such as

“sad” and “depressing”. Tina Newman, a

production executive at Disney who gave

evidence via video, was among the recipi-

ents of an email about Depp’s 2020 libel

trial in the UK. She said that while the stu-

dio’s leadership had shared negative arti-

cles about Depp, she was unaware of

Heard’s column influencing the decision

not to proceed with a sixth Pirates film.

That admission, added to the testi-

mony from Jacobs, appeared to support

Heard’s claim that Depp did not need her

help in torpedoing his career.

Another executive also denied that

casting decisions had been influenced by

the acrimony between Depp and Heard.

The actress had told the court that her

role in Aquaman 2, scheduled for release

next year, had been significantly cut back

because of a smear campaign orches-

trated by her former husband.

However, that claim was also chal-

lenged in another fascinating glimpse of

the Hollywood decision-making process.

Walter Hamada, president of DC Films,

testified that while Heard was almost

kicked off the Aquaman sequel, it had

nothing to do with Depp. Instead her lack

of chemistry with Jason Momoa, the

film’s star, was to blame, he said.

Pulling the curtain back, Hamada said

that “movie magic” — editing and special

effects — can fix that, however. “When

you watch the movie, it looks like they

have great chemistry,” he explained. “But

I know it took a lot of effort in post-pro-

duction to get there.”

Stephen Galloway, the dean of Chap-

man University’s film school, said that

Hollywood has a history of hiding its

more unsavoury episodes — making the

disclosures during the trial even more

remarkable.

“You rarely get this kind of detailed,

behind-the-scenes stuff,” he said. “Cover-

ups have been going on as long as Holly-

wood has been around. That goes back to

accidents where people were killed and

the studios would cover it up.

“But with lawsuits and subpoenas, it’s

very hard to cover things up — and when

you testify, you’re under oath.

“So what is mind-boggling for me is

that Johnny Depp would put himself in a

situation where all this stuff would inevi-

tably come out.”

Some of Depp’s pay days were

revealed during the trial. He received $

million upfront for starring in 2017’s

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No

Tales, Jacobs said, while for Murder on the

Orient Express the same year he earned

“$5 million for four consecutive weeks [of

work] plus a great back-end, which he has

received significant money on subse-

quently”. A back-end deal is the bonus an

actor receives from a film’s profits, which

can prove lucrative if it is a success.

Depp was paid $13.5 million for Fantas-

tic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, a

franchise he was fired from after losing

his 2020 libel case against The Sun after it

labelled him a “wife beater”.

Heard’s pay cheques were not as gen-

erous as her former husband’s. She

earned $1 million for Aquaman, $2 mil-

lion for its sequel and $200,000 an epi-

sode for the 2020 TV series The Stand.

In one of the more eccentric examples

of behind-the-scenes drama that were

revealed, a furious Depp attempted to

have the film London Fields “shut down”

over nude scenes involving Heard. “It is

in Amber’s contract that there will be no

nudity and her f***ing agents are weak

and insipid,” Depp emailed Jacobs.

In a separate message, Depp said: “It

must be shut down or I will sue them 18

ways from f***ing Sunday. These people

are nobodies in this business and they

should be made to understand that we

will ruin them instantly.”

Professor Jonathan Kuntz, a film histo-

rian at UCLA, said the trial may represent

the most unvarnished look at the work-

ings of Hollywood since the Sony Pictures

hack resulted in a massive leak of confi-

dential information in 2014.

He said: “We have had things like this

over the past 100 years. The difference

today is we have more of the documents,

we have more pictures, and we can get

that testimony out there — not just to the

people in the courtroom but to the whole

world.”

The jury in the case has now retired to

consider its verdict. No matter what the

outcome, Hollywood’s weary executives

must hope that the next warring celebrity

couple take a more discreet approach to

resolving their differences.

Keiran Southern Los Angeles

As Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s libel trial ends, the sheer madness of Hollywood daily life has been exposed

‘Why should

professor

and student

love affairs

be taboo?’

recommending that all

institutions should “strongly

discourage close personal

relationships between staff

and students. Where

relationships do happen, the

staff member should declare

this and be removed from all

responsibilities which could

mean a conflict of interest.”

Reader reviews for the

book have been positive, but

some users of the Goodreads

website expressed distaste at

the subject matter. “I’m tired

of trying to defend abuses of

power imbalances,” wrote

one reader.

the wake of #MeToo, they are

viewed as exploitative, even

dangerous, and in many cases

are outright banned.

Skidmore College’s own

policy on these relationships

is: “Sexual relationships

between faculty and students

and staff and students are

problematic due to the

inherent power differential.

Therefore, sexual or romantic

relationships between faculty

and students and between

staff and students are

absolutely prohibited.”

In February, Universities

UK issued new guidance,

One change is in students’

attitude to the teaching

process. “When I went to

school I thought of professors

as god-like figures. I

worshipped them ... I was in

thrall to them. I feel like

students today have a much

more collaborative idea of

what the professor-student

relationship should be.”

Jonas, who went to NYU

Tisch School of the Arts and

then continued her studies at

Columbia, said: “There were

professor-student

relationships and they were

seen as potentially sexy.” In

New York, where Jonas, 41,

lectures on playwriting.

Jones, who took a year off

to write Vladimir and have a

baby, said she has “never

gone through a scandal or

even seen a scandal second

hand”, but said she has seen

“older professors feeling at

sea with new students”, as US

campus culture has changed

so much in such a short time.

“They’ve gone from feeling

like they were on the right

side of history and part of

liberal progressivism, and

then having those ideas

challenged.”

feel rather more sinister?

In the novel, set in a small

liberal arts college, an English

professor called John faces

allegations of improper

conduct by former students

with whom he had affairs

many years previously.

The story is told from the

perspective of his wife, who is

never named. The pair are in

an open marriage, and she

believes he did nothing

wrong by sleeping with his

students.

The fictional college is

modelled on Skidmore

College, in Saratoga Springs,

“When I was at school, many

students felt chosen or

special for having

relationships with

professors,” says Julia May

Jonas. “Who knows what they

think about them now?”

The US academic and

playwright’s first novel,

Vladimir, was published in

the UK last week, and it

tackles that uneasy truth

head-on. What is to be done

in the #MeToo era about

relationships that both

parties once wanted, but now

Laura Hackett

$25m

Johnny Depp’s payday for the fifth

Pirates of the Caribbean film

$650m

Career earnings — although in 2016 he

said he was in ‘financial desperation’

$1m

Amber Heard’s paycheque for

her role in the first Aquaman film

‘financial desperation’

We’re going to need a bigger yacht — marauding orcas ram Spanish sailors

Sailors off the coast of Spain
and Portugal have been
warned to be vigilant after a
surge in attacks on boats by
killer whales. Last week a
single group, or pod, of orcas
is believed to have knocked
two yachts out of action in a
single day.
On Monday afternoon the
Spanish lifeboat Salvamar
Enif towed the 15m (49ft)
yacht Alboran Champagne to
safety, then put to sea that
night to rescue three crew
from the Cachacha in the
same area. In both cases, the
orcas rammed and broke the
yachts’ rudders.
These were the latest of at
least 22 incidents reported
since April. Ten of the yachts
were so badly damaged that
they had to be towed to
harbour. In one case the

orcas returned during a

rescue in the Bay of Barbate

and tried to bite through the

rope towing the boat to port.

Orcas — members of the

dolphin family, rather than

whales — gather in inshore

waters along the Spanish and

Portuguese coast every

spring to feast on the annual

bluefin tuna migration. This

has always brought them

near leisure craft, but it was

only in 2020 that the first

attacks were reported.

By the end of last year,

more than 100 incidents had

been recorded off the Iberian

Peninsula, with at least 30

boats requiring rescue after

their rudders were broken.

Matt Johnston, sailing a

35ft yacht from Belfast to

Almeria last October, was one

of the victims. “We’d left

Sesimbra in Portugal early

and were staying close

inshore because that was the

advice we’d be given,” he

said. “At 11.30, a pod of four

orcas approached. The two

young ones went at the

rudder like labradors fighting

over a treat while the two

larger ones were ramming

the boat, spinning it around.

The attack went on for about

40 minutes — at one point I

saw one of them swimming

away with a piece of the

rudder on its head like a

trophy and I had some

concerns that the bigger ones

might split the hull.”

Johnston was towed two

miles into Sines at a cost of

€500 (£425), then paid

€12,500 for repairs. He says

he “has no intention of sailing

the Strait [of Gibraltar] or the

Portuguese coast again”.

A fully grown male orca

can measure 10m, weigh 10

tonnes, and at full speed can

reach 35mph. In 1972 a pod of

orcas sank the 13m yacht

Lucette in the Pacific 200

miles west of the Galapagos

and in 1976 the Italian racing

yacht Guia III was sunk by an

orca off the coast of Brazil.

As incidents off Spain

increased last year, the

coastguard barred boats

under 15m from the Bay of

Barbate and an area off the

Galician coast. There are calls

for that ban to be reimposed.

Nobody knows why the

orcas are harassing sailors.

Some believe the conflict may

be related to the competition

between fishing fleets and

orcas for the bluefin tuna.

The wildlife photographer

Francisco Gil, who claimed

last year to have seen orcas

scarred by improvised

harpoons, said he believed

the attacks on yachts were “a

protest” by the animals.

On the quayside at Barbate

some fishermen have a

darker theory: that the

migrants who try to cross the

strait every night are the

reason for the change in orca

behaviour. The human rights

group Caminando Fronteras

reported that 335 migrants

went missing at sea last year,

and there are many who

believe that when orcas ram

small pleasure boats, they are

looking for food.

Biologists dismiss that

explanation, preferring to

characterise the behaviour as

interactions rather than

attacks. They fear the

demonisation of the killer

whale. “We don’t want the

orca to become the new great

white shark,” said one, while

acknowledging that the

ocean’s most feared predator

is routinely hunted and killed

by orcas.

“During the past two years

orcas have approached

surfers, inflatables, fishing

boats, monohull sailboats,

catamarans and tall ships, but

they prefer to interact with

medium-sized sailboats,” said

Alfredo López of the Atlantic

Orca Working Group. “We do

not know the exact reasons

why. But orcas have no

intention of harming

humans. That’s why we

define the behaviour as an

interaction.”

While there are no

confirmed reports of wild

orcas killing humans, the

species has demonstrated it is

capable of doing so. Four

fatalities have been attributed

to captive orcas since 1991,

with three of the victims

killed by the same animal: an

aggressive male known as

Tilikum, in theme parks in

Canada and Florida.

Chris Haslam Asturias

Boat attacks

since April

WHALE-SIZED PROBLEM

Source: Cetacean Research & Rescue Unit/National Geographic

Common name:

Orca/killer whale

Scientific name:

Orcinus orca

Class: Mammal

(largest member

of dolphin family)

Size:

5.5m to 9.8m

Weight:

Up to 10 tonnes

Top speed:

30 knots

(35mph)

Diet: Fish,

penguins, turtles,

marine mammals

Group name: Pod

Average lifespan

in the wild:

50 to 80 years

KILLER FACTS

22

Camels ridden by robot

jockeys compete in a

10km race across the

desert in Abu Dhabi. The

robots strapped to the

camels’ backs may seem

futuristic, but the

technology has been used

in such races for the past

two decades — and

judging by the ropes and

the handler sent tumbling

to the sand, it may need a

little more work

THE SAND

NATIONAL

SOUVIK BANERJEE/SOLENT NEWS

e Unit/National Geographic protest” by the animals.