Amber Heard only kept her role in Aquaman 2 because Jason Momoa was ‘adamant’ she remain

Amber Heard only kept her role in Aquaman because its star Jason Momoa and the film’s director fought for her, the jury in Depp’s defamation trial against the actress heard. 

Heard’s witness Kathryn Arnold, a former Hollywood producer who is now an entertainment industry consultant and expert, took the stand Monday afternoon. She evaluated Depp’s claims for damages as a result of Heard’s op-ed as well as Heard’s claim for damages based on comments from Depp’s lawyer that her allegations were a ‘hoax.’

According to Arnold, Aquaman was Heard’s ‘a star is born moment’ but instead of it being a springboard for her career, she was nearly cut from the sequel.

Heard only kept her role because Jason Momoa, Heard’s co-star, and the film’s director James Wan ‘committed to her’ and were ‘adamant she was in the film,’ claimed Arnold, who spoke with Heard as part of her preparation for testifying.

According to Arnold, the first draft of Aquaman 2 her character Mera had a ‘strong romantic arc the entire film and some great action sequences.’

Heard trained five hours a day for several months to do the sequence but when she got to the set a costume designer told her that her role had been ‘diminished.’

The action sequence had been ‘cut out’ and her role was ‘radically reduced,’ Arnold said.

Reports have claimed that the lack of chemistry between Heard and Momoa was to blame for her role being reduced but Arnold denied this.

While Momoa was able to renegotiate his salary for Aquaman 2 from about $3million to $15million, Heard was unable to do the same.

She was ‘fighting for her life’ to be in the film and was paid the same $2million as stated in her original contract.

According to Arnold, Heard should have been able to renegotiate her fee to as much as $6million.

Heard’s reputation has been ‘very negative’ among the public and in Hollywood ‘they like her work but they can’t work with her because every time her name is mentioned the negativity flares up again,’ Arnold said. 

Arnold said that right now it ‘doesn’t make sense’ for Hollywood to currently hire Heard and ‘her world has been silent in terms of opportunities.’

Heard’s losses from statements by Depp’s lawyer Adam Waldman that her allegations were a ‘hoax’ would have been between $45million and $50million, Arnold testified.

She said that over a period of around five years, Heard would have earned at least $4million per movie, though it would have likely been more than that.

That would come to at least $20million, Arnold said.

Heard would have got around four other deals like her contract with L’Oreal, which brought her $1.5million, making a total of $8million.

On top of that would have been TV deals and Heard’s last such production was The Stand where she earned $1.8million for nine episodes.

Arnold said that Heard’s total estimated loss was between $45million and $50million.

For her analysis she looked at contemporaries of Heard such as Momoa, Zendaya, Gal Gadot and Chris Pine.

All of them had a ‘meteoric’ rise after their ‘star is born’ moment and got lucrative endorsement deals and massive paychecks, Arnold said.

Asked who caused the damage to Depp between Dec 18 2018, when the op-ed was published, and Nov 2 2020, the period she had been asked to examine, Arnold said it was Depp

She said: ‘Filing lawsuits, bringing to light the issues is Mr. Depp doing that of his own accord

‘Any statements by his team are associated with Mr. Depp.

‘He’s causing his own demise by bringing these lawsuits forward and continuing to ignite the fire of negative publicity around both of them’.

According to Arnold, after Depp’s lawyer Adam Waldman accused Heard of making a ‘hoax’ against him, it damaged her career.

Depp’s fans began a ‘negative social media campaign’ that used Waldman’s words as hashtags against her.

That included a petition to have Heard removed from Aquaman 2 which has gained more than 4million signatures.

Arnold said that Depp had an ‘extraordinary’ career covering many years dating back to the late 1980s when he was a rising star.

Depp began to breakthrough when he began to work with the director Tim Burton on films like Edward Scissorhands.

Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates movies was a ‘world renowned character’ and Depp himself was ‘well-liked critically and within the industry and with the public’.

Arnold said: ‘At the same time his behavior on and off the set in his personal and professional life started to interfere with his great talent. It started in 2006 to 2010 when his behavior started affecting his work in terms of lateness on set’.

Depp’s agent found it harder for him to get roles because of Depp’s ‘drinking and drug abuse and other issues in his personal life.’

According to Arnold, things became especially hard after 2010 when Depp was doing films like Mortdecai and Murder on the Orient Express.

When Depp looked drunk at the 2014 Hollywood Film Awards his former agency Tracey Jacobs received calls from directors and producers asking: ‘What is going on with your client, can we get him under control?’

According to Arnold, the mood in Hollywood ‘really started to shift’ against Depp during filming of Pirates 5 in 2015.

Lawsuits against Depp had a ‘big impact’ on his reputation including one which alleged he punched a location manager on the set of the movie City of Lies.

Depp didn’t attend a press conference in Japan to promote his film Mortdecai because he was asleep, Arnold said.

Pirates 5 did not do as well at the box office as the previous films and even before then Depp had starred in four or five ‘bombs’ – films that did not do very well – such as The Lone Ranger

Arnold said: ‘As many hits as he’s had he’s had a lot of failures’

The trial in London in 2020 where Depp sued a British newspaper for libel for calling him a ‘wife beater’ was a ‘really tough one’ on him, Arnold said.

After a highly publicized trial a judge ruled the claim was ‘substantially true’

Arnold said that it was hard for studios like Disney to be ‘connected to a star who has texts about burnt corpses and (does) violent behaviour on video’.

The texts in question were messages between Depp and his friend, the actor Paul Bettany, about what should happen to Heard.

Arnold said: ‘Someone who talks about a burnt corpse does not coincide with the brand of Disney’.

Addressing Depp’s claims he has lost money from listing the role of Jack Sparrow in Pirates 6, which has not filmed yet, Arnold was dismissive.

She said: ‘I don’t know how you lose something that hasn’t happened.’

Depp‘s injuries when his finger was sliced off in a 2015 blowout fight with Amber Heard are ‘not consistent’ with the actor’s claims that it was cut off by an alcohol bottle hurled at him, an orthopedic surgeon has testified. 

The first witness Monday in Depp’s defamation trial against Heard was Dr. Richard Moore, an orthopedic surgeon based in North Carolina who specializes in hand surgery. He said that he became a hand specialist because it is a ‘really pretty, beautiful anatomy.’

Dr. Moore said during his 25 year career he had operated on finger injuries like Depp’s after his fight with Heard in Australia ‘hundreds of times.’

During the drink and drug-fueled argument in March 2015 Depp’s fingertips got sliced off. Depp claims that Heard did it when she threw a bottle of vodka at him. She claims that he smashed it off with a phone. The court has heard from witnesses who said that Depp told them he cut it off himself, something he admitted in texts.

Testifying as an expert for Heard’s legal team, Dr. Moore said that the idea that Depp’s finger was sliced off with a bottle was ‘not consistent’ with the evidence.

He said: ‘It’s not consistent with what we see in the described injury pattern or clinical photographs.’

In court Depp looked up and paid attention, shaking his head with incredulity.

Dr. Moore said that there were no injuries to the dorsum of the finger, meaning the back of the hand.

Heard’s lawyer Benjamin Rottenborn asked Dr. Moore if the dorsum was the back of the hand ‘like the Dorsal fin on a shark’ and he agreed – Depp laughed out loud.

Dr. Moore said that it did not appear that the injury happened when Depp’s hand was laying flat on the bar as he claimed.

He said: ‘In that position, were the bottle to strike the finger, it would have struck on the nail and the nail was really not injured. That’s not consistent with that pattern of injury.’

The jury were shown graphic photos of Depp’s injured finger and X-rays which Dr. Moore said showed multiple tiny fragments of bone in the tip and a ‘comminuted fracture’ which was associated with a crush injury.

Such crush injuries could be caused by a finger getting caught in a sliding door or a car door.

Dr. Moore said that the photos showed no injury to the fingernail and if the bottle had hit it there would be injury there.

He said: ‘Everyone who caught their finger in a car door there’s typically bleeding under the bail which creates this hematoma.’

Asked if Depp’s description of the incident ‘lines up’ with photo evidence, Dr. Moore said no.

Depp claimed that the bottle ‘exploded’ after hitting his hand but Dr. Moore said the absence of glass injuries on his hand suggested this was not the case.

He said that the medical files he reviewed ‘did not document the presence of any glass shards and no other associated injuries on the hand.’

Dr. Moore added: ‘This wound doesn’t appear to be a sharp glass laceration.’

Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez tore into Dr. Moore during cross examination. It was the first time she has interrogated a witness since her brutal cross examination of Amber Heard which turned her into a legal star.

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Vasquez asked if it was ‘not entirely accurate’ that, as Dr. Moore had just testified, Depp’s hand was laying flat on the bar.

Dr. Moore said that Depp’s hand was ‘resting on the edge’ of the bar

Vasquez shot back that Depp said his fingers were ‘hanging over the bar?’

Dr. Moore tried to reply by Vasquez cut him off and said: ‘That’s not my question Dr. Moore.’

She said: ‘Is it true Mr. Depp said his fingers were hanging over the bar?’

Dr. Moore said yes.

Vasquez asked Dr. Moore: ‘You can’t determine what object caused the injury to his finger?’

Dr. Moore said: ‘I can’t determine which object did it. I can say with confidence the described mechanism of the bottle was not consistent…’

Vasquez cut in and said: ‘I understand that. My question is very specific,’ repeating the question again.

Dr. Moore said: ‘It’s a little bit more of a non-specific answer. I can’t determine the exact object but it’s unlikely it was sustained in the manner described’.

Vasquez pressed Dr. Moore repeatedly and he admitted that he couldn’t rule out that a car door caused the injury to Depp’s finger.

Dr. Moore said that according doors would be the ‘classical cause’ for this kind of injury.

Vasquez said: ‘You can’t definitely say what caused the injury to Mr. Depp’s finger?’

When Dr. Moore tried to answer, Vasquez cut in.

She said: ‘Dr. Moore. I understand that but this is the time for me to ask you questions. Right now let’s try my question. You can’t definitely say what caused the injury to Mr. Depp’s finger. Yes or no?’

Dr. Moore said: ‘No.’

Vasquez showed the jury photos of the bar area of the property Depp and Heard rented in Australia where the fight happened.

They showed a broken vodka bottle and a bloody tissue with blood drops around it.

Dr. Moore agreed he had not considered the photos as part of his analysis.

Heard’s lawyer Benjamin Rottenborn read back some of Dr. Moore’s testimony and said that Vasquez ‘cut you off’ before the jury could hear the rest.

Vasquez cut in: ‘I don’t think that’s in the transcript.’

Dr. David Spiegel, an expert in behavioral sciences specifically on drug and alcohol use and intimate partner violence, took the stand Monday. 

He said that Depp has exhibited ‘behaviors that are conscience with someone who has a substance use disorder.’

Dr. Spiegel said that his review of the evidence showed that Depp was a ‘perpetrator of intimate partner violence.’

Dr. Spiegel told the court that he was ‘not here to impeach Mr. Depp’s acting skills or his persona, he has way greater skills than I do in that’.

The doctor said he was there to talk about how drugs and alcohol can cause ‘bad things to happen’ when people go past their limit.

Dr. Spiegel reeled off the substances that Depp abused: alcohol, amphetamines, marijuana, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy, opiates and others, often at the same time.

He said that Depp’s drug use caused a concerning level of damage to his memory, as evidenced by his former therapist asking him to remember three words and repeat them five minutes later.

Dr. Spiegel said: ‘Mr. Depp was unable to recall any of them and that’s very unusual for a 50-ish year old male.

‘Generally speaking that age group should be remembering two or all three of those words. I do know his lines were also fed to him by earpiece.

‘Any one of us who used alcohol and cocaine to that level of degree – I’m talking about a severe level – is going to have effects.’

Some patients like Depp can mistakenly think that illegal substances make them function better, something the actor testified to.

But actually it was causing harm and Depp needed his lines fed to him through an earpiece and caused him to pass out drunk.

Dr. Spiegel said: ‘Part of that could have been due to the fact that he confessed to doing a movie entirely wasted, so it would be harder to do that.

‘You can tell the processing speed was down. If your thinking rate is down – I’m talking about so slow when we’re trying to move onto other questions you’re still trying to process the original data passed on to us.

‘Fortunately during this trial I see Mr. Depp’s cognition has improved so I commend him on that.’

Dr. Spiegel said that evidence like the video of Depp smashing up his kitchen and the firing and rehiring of his personal doctor showed he had a ‘significant trouble with delaying gratification.’

One way to make that ‘significantly worse is with substances’, Dr. Spiegel said.

Dr. Spiegel said that Depp’s use of vulgar language in texts was ‘disturbing.’

He said: ‘I have no problem with people being angry but the expressing of it and continual ranting was very uncomfortable to read’.

Depp was taking so many prescription drugs that he needed them to wake up in the morning and send him to sleep.

When Depp took prescription drugs and took controlled substances together, it resulted in unexpected effects.

Dr. Spiegel said: ‘You start getting irritable, you start getting agitated, suspicious, jealous, potentially disinhibited, psychotic.

‘We’re talking about not your average everyday use of these substances, we’re talking about chronic use together

‘You’re playing with fire when you’re talking about substances and intimate partner violence.’

Adding illegal substances to a situation where domestic violence was an issue meant his brain could no longer ‘prevent’ Depp from physically assaulting Heard even though such behavior was ‘wrong’.

According to Dr. Spiegel, Depp had a ‘history of self injurious behavior, meaning cutting himself, burning himself.’

Dr. Spiegel reeled of the characteristics of narcissists and addressed whether they applied to Depp.

He said: ‘Narcissism patients have poor control, rapid mood shifts, undue sense of admiration, worship power, they worship control.

‘They have a lack of empathy and people are generally kept around as long as they are useful to them, a large sense of entitlement. Need for praise, and intimate partner violence’.

According to Dr. Spiegel, being envious and have a ‘fragile self esteem’ were part of being a narcissistic.

Asked if Depp was a narcissistic, he said: ‘I do think that the fact he thought that Amber owed him and only wanted to be together with him because of his fame is an example of that. I think the jealousy is an example of that.

‘This whole trial in terms of a narcissistic insult is what’s going on.’

During cross examination Dr. Spiegel clashed with Depp’s lawyer Wayne Dennison repeatedly.

Judge Penney Azcarate twice had to tell Dr. Spiegel to just answer the questions because he gave meandering answers, frequently licking his lips.

Dr. Spiegel apologized to the judge saying he was ‘getting into’ things with Dennison.

Dennison asked if Dr. Spiegel made his assessment by comparing Depp’s performance in the Pirates of the Caribbean films with a video deposition he gave.

According to Dr. Spiegel, he ‘misspoke’ when he said that.

However he defended the practice and said that ‘you can judge someone’s processing speed at any time as a baseline’.

Dennison asked: ‘Any of Mr. Depp’s other portrayals in movies that affect your analysis of processing speed?

‘Willy Wonka doesn’t matter to you? You seen that movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? You look at that movie when comparing his processing speed?’

Turning to the judge, Dr. Spiegel said: ‘Do I have to answer that question?’ – she replied that he did.

‘I didn’t see Willy Wonka. I didn’t see 21 Jump Street,’ said Dr. Spiegel, referring to Depp’s films.

Dennison asked if it was correct that Dr. Spiegel called Depp an ‘idiot’ in a deposition he gave for the case.

Dr. Spiegel claimed he didn’t call Depp an idiot but called his ‘planning’ an idiot because he had taken an overnight flight from Europe the night before the deposition for the trial.

After if it was his practice to describe his patients as idiots, Dr. Spiegel said no.

Dennison said: ‘You sat for a deposition and described the plaintiff as an idiot?’

Dr. Spiegel said: ‘If I said it, it was an idiot in planning.’