This summer marked two years since Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s defamation trial reached a verdict, and the actors are attempting to move forward now. Depp in particular is doing so by being the director behind one of the 2024 movies on their way to theaters (Italian theaters at least, for now). As Depp and his cast promoted Modi this week at the San Sebastian Film Festival, one of the movie’s actresses shared a blunt response to Depp’s comeback.
Antonia Desplat is part of the cast that also includes Al Pacino, Stephen Graham in Depp’s first directorial effort in nearly 30 years with Modi. While speaking about the movie at the film festival in Gipuzkoa, Spain, Desplat was asked about the actor’s comeback after his public decline in recent years as a result of his defamation trial with Amber Heard. Here was her response:
People need to move on.
During an interview with the cast for The Hollywood Reporter, Desplat shared that she’s very much in support of audiences giving Johnny Depp a “second chance” after working with him on Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness. The movie’s star, Riccardo Scamarcio (who plays Modi), added that Depp was the “nicest, the kindest, the sweetest man I’ve ever worked with in my life.”
The movie follows Bohemian Italian artist Amedeio Modigliani as he spends 72 hours in a war-torn Paris in 1916 while on the run from the police. Desplat plays Modi’s English lover, Beatrice Hastings. Johnny Depp came across his new directing gig after he received a call from Al Pacino, who suggested he direct the movie about Modi after Pacino was going to initially direct it himself.
As Depp recently shared, “when Pacino speaks, you listen” even though he initially didn’t think it was in the cards for him to helm another movie. Since Modi premiered this week, it’s received mixed reactions from critics thus far. The Hollywood Reporter called it a “bland biopic” while Variety calls it “ostensibly free-spirited,” and Deadline says it’s “tiresome” but “not the terrible muddle of self-aggrandizement that was widely expected.”
Modi comes after Depp previously starred in his first film since his highly public trial with ex-wife Amber Heard, Jeanne du Barry, which had him playing King Louie XV. Depp greatly won the trial against Heard considering she was found guilty on three counts of defamation. However, Depp didn’t leave unscathed, considering he was found guilty on one count in her countersuit.
