Walter Hamada, president of DC Films at Warner Bros., says that Amber Heard’s role in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was not reduced due to Johnny Depp. Hamada commented on Heard’s role through a pre-recorded deposition from March presented as testimony during Depp’s ongoing defamation trial against Heard.
“I think editorially they were able to make that relationship work in the first movie,” the movie boss stated. “But there was a concern that it took a lot of effort to get there and that would we be better off finding someone with more natural chemistry with Jason Momoa and move forward that way.”
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He continued: “The size of the role in the film that she had was determined in the early development of the script, which would be in 2018. The character’s involvement in the story was sort of what it was from the beginning. From the early stages of the development of the script, the movie was built around the character of Arthur [Momoa] and the character of Orm [Patrick Wilson].”
Heard had claimed in the testimony of her own, last week, that her part as Mera was “very pared down” due to the drama with Depp.
“I was given a script and then given new versions of the script that had taken away scenes…they basically took a bunch out of my role. They just removed a bunch out,” Heard said at the time.
Heard’s talent agent Jessica Kovacevic also alleged that negative press and online attacks directed at her client were what caused DC to distance itself from the actress.
Depp and Heard’s ongoing defamation trial is expected to wrap up later this week.
[Via]