The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial has been grist for the gossip mill for over a month now, and its revelations have run the gamut from heartbreaking to jaw-dropping. And then there are the little moments of levity like today, when the courtroom was treated to Heard’s lawyer doing an off-the-cuff Johnny Depp impression.
And if no one chuckled out loud, it at least brought a smile to Heard’s ex-husband’s face.
The exchange happened as Heard’s lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, was examining her client. Bredehoft was recounting an example of Depp’s alleged behavior when she stated, “and she [indicating Heard] read out, or she played a tape in which Mr. Depp said, ‘You will not see my eyes again.’ Do you recall that?”
However, rather than just reading the evidence into the record, Bredehoft added a theatrical flourish of her own, attempting to imitate Depp’s rather idiosyncratic and deep-toned way of speaking. She didn’t really hit the nail on the head though, and instead spoke in a sort of movie vampire sotto voce, reminiscent of Bela Lugosi by way of Marlene Dietrich.
The incident seemed to amuse Depp if nothing else, and though he had been hunched over pensively listening to the testimony behind his omnipresent sunglasses, he broke into a quick but broad grin at listening to the sub-par impression.
To be fair, Depp’s incredibly distinctive accent is a hard one to pull down even for a professional. He’s been praised for mimicking other dialects, such as the Glaswegian accent he used in Finding Neverland, and it sometimes seems that each new accent he adopts gets somehow pastiched into his day-to-day voice — meaning Bredehoft would have to master a passable Hunter S. Thompson, J.M. Barrie, and Captain Jack Sparrow before she could really attempt it.
