The director of Johnny Depp’s ‘comeback’ movie doesn’t deny he was difficult to work with

Even though he emerged victorious in the courtroom after a long and protracted legal battle opposite ex-wife Amber Heard, Johnny Depp hasn’t exactly been welcomed back into the mainstream Hollywood community with open arms.

The actor hasn’t been involved in an American-based production since biographical Minamata began shooting in January of 2019, and even then it ended up being hit with a lengthy delay and bitter behind the scenes battle. Instead, the fallen A-list superstar headed off to France to make period piece Jeanne du Barry, which hasn’t quite been plain sailing, either.

Even though it’s set to open the Cannes Film Festival this year before hitting local theaters at the end of next month, whispers have indicated that there were plenty of disagreements behind the scenes between Depp and writer/director Maïwenn, something the filmmaker didn’t deny when discussing the project with French Premiere (per World of Reel).

“Johnny is a star, a king… and an American! I was told not to let him know that we were waiting for him to shoot a scene, I was not allowed to knock on the door of his dressing room. One day, I did it anyway. And there, he made me understand that I had committed an unacceptable intrusion and asked me how I would have felt if he came knocking on my dressing room door. I replied that everyone does it all the time. Because that’s how a set works in France!”

He was making an effort, even though I could see that it was still confusing to him. I understood that in the United States, the stars don’t really get directed. They explain to the director how they are going to play the scene and the director follows the flow. But in France, the boss is the director. So for every take, I obviously shot his proposals, but I also asked him to interpret my own vision, so we could have a choice during editing. He was game for that.”

That was far from the first time we’ve heard tell of the exiled Pirates of the Caribbean star proving tricky when the cameras weren’t rolling, but there’s going to be a lot of people curious to discover whether or not Jeanne du Barry is a phenom or a failure when it premieres at Cannes regardless.