Yahoo News Johnny Depp libel trial: Inside the Hollywood drama showing at the High Court
Hollywood arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday.
The showdown has been split across no fewer than five rooms to cater for legal teams, A-list entourages and watching global media. Johnny Depp gave evidence from Courtroom 13 to a handful of leading lawyers and the judge, while his ex-wife Amber Heard — The Sun’s star witness who will give evidence against Depp — looked down on him from the public gallery above. A system of cameras beamed proceedings live to the other rooms around the sprawling estate.
So what have we learned so far? In his evidence, a softly spoken Depp has insisted he is a Southern Gentleman who lives by a strong moral code, while divulging details of his struggle with alcohol and substance abuse.
Others believe the star is a monster lifted from the pages of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas who cannot control his “Jekyll and Hyde” personality.
The Southern gentleman
Kentucky-born Depp said he would never hit a woman because of the moral code that was instilled in him growing up in Southern towns in America. “You would be a Southern gentleman — or it would be beaten into you,” he told the court in his trademark drawl, explaining his principles of “integrity, dignity, honesty, and respect for women”.
Depp never raised his voice or allowed himself to be drawn into arguments over the lurid allegations against him. While the microphones picked up his deep tones for those watching on the screens, he was sometimes too quiet for the courtroom. “Your voice is dropping, I just have to remind you to keep your voice nice and loud,” Mr Justice Nicol told Depp.
The actor has been keen to respect the decorum of the court, addressing lawyers as “sir” and “ma’am” and correcting himself when he called the judge “sir” instead of “your lordship”.
When he made a slip-up in his evidence, Depp was adamant he must apologise: “My apologies for misrepresenting a situation,” he pleaded. “Pardon me and my apologies.”
Best supporting actor Depp’s supporting act is his celebrity barrister David Sherborne, a man not unaccustomed to the limelight. He is said to have Hugh Grant and Harry Styles on speed dial and his back catalogue of clients includes Princess Diana, Sir Paul McCartney and Sienna Miller. He is representing the Duchess of Sussex in her own High Court action against the Mail on Sunday, probably next year.
So far Sherborne has been able to make only minor interjections, challenging the odd question from Wass, and in one memorable intervention debating whether an 18-second clip of grunts and groans — said to be of Depp writhing around in pain on the floor of a private jet after a cocaine and booze binge — needed a transcript. Also on Depp’s star-studded cast list are his ex-partners, singer and actress Vanessa Paradis and Stranger Things star Winona Ryder, who will be beamed into court via videolink next week.
The lawyer
Depp’s opponent in this particular drama was Sasha Wass QC, The Sun’s barrister, who came armed with videos, recordings, newspapers clippings, and testimony intended to damn the Hollywood star. One of Britain’s top lawyers who prosecuted serial killer Rosemary West and disgraced TV presenter Rolf Harris, she has delivered rapid-fire questions in clipped tones.
Depp maintained an air of civility, offering a “bless you” when she succumbed to a sneeze and enquiring: “Are you all right?” when the lawyer’s flow was broken by a dry throat and a bout of coughing.
Their battle was not without its moments of tension: as Wass put forward the worst allegations — from grabbing Heard around the throat and headbutting her to breaking her nose — Depp pulled off his glasses, swept back his hair, and leant over the side of the witness box to answer “no ma’am” to each claim.
The drugs
The actor’s memorable boast of taking all known drugs by the age of 14 was played back to him and he corrected the record — he’s never tried ketamine.
Depp said he was only ever addicted to one drug — Roxicodone or Roxy’s — and gave a graphic account of the “hell” he had endured trying to wean himself off it.
In an unsent email, Heard said she had witnessed Depp urinating and soiling himself during binges, passing out on the floor, and struggling to remember “blackout” periods of an evening.
I went from not being able to pay rent to … going to restaurants and people are staring and pointing
Depp insists her accounts are lies, but confronted some incidents head-on, saying he was “not ashamed” of a notorious appearance at a Hollywood awards ceremony when high on drugs. In a message to his friend, the actor Paul Bettany, Depp laid out his consumption of whisky, vodka, champagne, pills, and “powder” before a flight that is said to have ended in him passing out in the toilet, telling the court: “It sounds like a very self-destructive moment.”
The violence
Depp has well-documented incidents of violence in his past, but he insisted these can all be explained. “Violence is not something I go looking for.”
“There’s a point where if a man is attacking you or if a man puts his hands on you in an aggressive manner, the only thing I know to do is get myself out of that corner,” he said.
Before the questions moved on, Depp urgently added: “These are situations with grown men that really should have known better than to put their hands on another grown man.”
In one of the more bizarre moments, Depp admitted joking about putting Heard’s dog in a microwave.
The star also revealed he has carried around “a lot of pain from youth and the way I was raised”, resolving with Paradis that their children Lily-Rose and Jack would be “never spanked, never hit or exposed to violence”.
He talked at length at his struggles dealing with sudden fame and “notoriety”. “I went from not being able to pay the rent to suddenly having the job, and the next thing I go to restaurants and people are staring and pointing”, Depp explained. “I wasn’t quite used to it and I never got quite used to it.” He added: “You have become a product, your name no longer sounds the way it did when you were growing up. The sound of my own name, even when I speak my own name, sounds foreign to me.”
Seen but not yet heard
The leading lady in this drama is Heard, Depp’s co-star on The Rum Diary, lover, confidante, wife — and now accuser. As Heard looked down from the gallery above, Depp was forced to pick over intimate and personal texts from their volatile marriage. According to the messages, she was Slim to his Steve in their relationship, inspired by the characters of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the 1944 classic film To Have and Have Not.
From next Friday, Heard will go face-to-face with Sherborne over claims she is a sociopath, a liar, and the orchestrator of a #MeToo hoax. She arrived at court hand-in-hand with her female entourage, including sister Whitney, girlfriend Bianca Butti and the human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, a part of Julian Assange’s legal team who was once caught in clinch with Jeremy Corbyn’s spin doctor Seumas Milne.
The drama
Serious allegations of drug abuse and domestic violence are centre-stage in this drama — Depp daubing the house with graffiti using his bloodied severed fingertip; his description of wading through the “hell” of rehab on his private island; claims of swallowing handfuls of pills during blazing rows.
But the case has not been without lighter moments. When Ms Wass suggested ecstasy pills sometimes come with smiling faces and can be dubbed “happy pills”, Depp playfully suggested: “I can see you are more familiar with it than I am.”
The star’s penchant for toilet humour regularly came to the fore as he shared recollections of the effects of his drug and drink hazes: “I’ve never passed out on the toilet, I’ve fallen asleep — not in the middle of relieving one’s self — but sitting on the toilet leaning against the wall or sleeping on the floor.”
Depp passed off a $10,000 bill for trashing a hotel room as “a few dents”, and he let out a smile as he struggled to explain to Ms Wass the “lark” of sucking in pure oxygen on a private jet.
Occasionally the mundanity of court life punctured the Hollywood drama — Depp’s evidence was interrupted by a booming announcement that part of the High Court was being evacuated, causing the judge to reassure him that they needn’t flee. Later wrestling with a ringbinder, Depp muttered: “Might need a locksmith to get this open.”
For now, though, the Hollywood icon has departed the stage.
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Read in full: Amber Heard's 'Jekyll and Hyde' email to Johnny Depp
