Johnny Depp reveals he’s never seen Pirates of the Caribbean: ‘The film did pretty well, apparently’

Johnny Depp revealed that he’s never seen Pirates of the Caribbean as he took to the stand in his $50m (£38.2m) defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard.

Heard is being sued for defamation by Depp for implying he abused her in a 2018 column. Although she did not name him, his lawyers claim her allegations have made it difficult for the actor to land movie roles.

On Tuesday (19 April), during his testimony at the Fairfax County Courthouse in Virginia, when the 58-year-old actor was asked how his hit film turned out, he said that he “didn’t see it”.

Depp first starred as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003.

The actor went on to reprise his role in sequels Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End, On Stranger Tides, and Dead Men Tell No Tales.

The conversation about the films started when Depp was questioned about his career and his famous role.

“Cartoon characters can get away with things we can’t,” he told the jury. “Captain Jack Sparrow can do things that I could never do. He could say things that I could never say. So it was for me, a way to stretch the parameters of a character and take a risk in doing that.

“But if it panned out, and I felt I was on a pretty good mission, I thought that it might be a character who would be accepted by five-year-olds and 45-year-olds, 65-year-olds and 85-year-olds in the same way that Bugs Bunny is,” he continued.

Speaking of his first reaction to the Pirates of the Caribbean script, Depp said: “I thought that it had all the hallmarks of a Disney film – that is to say, a kind of a predictable three-act structure. The character of Captain Jack was more like a swashbuckler type that would swing in shirtless and be the hero.

“I had quite different ideas about the character, so I incorporated my notes into [the] character and brought that character to life. Much to the chagrin of Disney, initially.”

The Transcendence actor then revealed in front of the jury that he had never watched his own film.

“I didn’t see it. But I believe that the film did pretty well, apparently, and they wanted to keep going, making more and I was fine to do that,” he said. “It’s not like you become that person, but if you know that character to the degree that I did – because he was not what the writers wrote, so they really weren’t able to write for him… Once you know the character better than the writers, that’s when you have to be true to the character and add your words.”

Follow our live blog for Depp’s trial here.