Johnny Depp Receives Support From Former Co-Star Eva Green Amid Amber Heard Trial
Actress Eva Green has joined the growing chorus of voices supporting Johnny Depp in his defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard. Depp and Heard are approaching their final week in court for Depp's lawsuit, alleging that Heard damaged his career when she wrote about her experience of domestic abuse in 2018. Green, weighed in on the case on Instagram on Thursday, saying that she believes her colleague will prevail.
"I have no doubt Johnny will emerge with his good name and wonderful heart revealed to the world, and life will be better than it ever was for him and his family," Green wrote in the post. She added this to a photo of herself and Depp when they co-starred in Dark Shadows together. In no time, her post picked up nearly a quarter-million likes and an onslaught of comments. Not all of them were positive, of course -- this trial has become incredibly divisive and has kept social media preoccupied for weeks now.
Green is an actress and model from Paris, France. Now 41 years old, she has a similar reputation to Depp in that she is known for seeking out dark roles with a grim, twisted aesthetic. In a 2016 interview with Maxim, she joked about this habit, saying: "I don't really understand why I do that. I need to go through therapy!"
Green has her own highly publicized sexual assault story to contend with in the public eye. The actress joined many others in 2017 by accusing Harvey Weinstein of making inappropriate sexual advances on her in the workplace. According to a report by Variety, Green said that she physically pushed Weinstein off of her.
The context of that 2017 "Me Too" movement is important to the Depp and Heard trial -- particularly to the public fervor around it. Heard wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in 2018 which did not name Depp specifically or identify him in any way except that he was her only ex-spouse. Heard's article was about her experience with domestic violence and the public fallout from it. Both she and Depp had accused each other of abuse during their divorce, but they had later settled amicably.
Depp's 2019 lawsuit claims that Heard's article damaged his career and cost him several high-profile jobs due to bad publicity. This means that the current Depp v. Heard court case must determine whether Heard's article was defamatory. Legally speaking, that means lawyers can attack the story's authenticity and call into question its protection under the First Amendment. However, to fans -- and, apparently, to Green -- it is more simply a case to decide whether one or both of the spouses were abusive during their relationship.
The public spectacle goes on through Friday, May 27 in court. After that, the jury will be sent away to deliberate. In the meantime, more and more analysis is focusing on high-profile reactions like Green's and the wide-reaching implications this case has for the public conscience.