Amber Heard says she lost job opportunities after her split with Johnny Depp, and that her role as Mera in the upcoming Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was significantly diminished after Depp’s alleged “smear campaign”.
As reported by EW, the actress said she almost lost her role in the DCEU’s Justice League during her third day of testimony in the ongoing defamation trial between Depp and Heard
“I had to fight really hard to keep my career after I got my [restraining order against Depp],” Heard testified. “I lost opportunities. I got dropped from jobs and campaigns. I fought to keep my job and the biggest movie opportunity I had to date [with] Justice League with the option to [star in] Aquaman. I had to fight really hard to stay in Justice League because that was the time of the divorce.”
Heard said her contract with DC and Warner Bros. is a three-film option, which will end up including Justice League, Aquaman, and Aquaman 2. Heard also described how her role was pared down in Aquaman 2.
“I was given a script and then given new versions of the script that had taken away scenes that had action in it, that depicted my character and another character, without giving any spoiler aways, two characters fighting with one another, and they basically took a bunch out of my role,” Heard testified. “They just removed a bunch out.”
Heard plays the character Mera, a princess from the underwater kingdom of Xebel, and Aquaman’s future wife and Queen in the comics. Heard has played Mera in the first Aquaman movie as well as in Justice League, and will reprise her role for the Aquaman sequel,
After a delay pushed the sequel out of its December 2022 release window, Aquaman 2 is now set to hit theaters on March 17, 2023.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.