Tim Burton hasn’t ruled out working with Johnny Depp again, saying it would be all about if it was the right ‘character’ for him.
The Hollywood director and the actor have collaborated on numerous successful movies over the years, including Edward Scissorhands, Dark Shadows, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd.
The 64-year-old filmmaker has now confirmed he would work with Depp again if the right part came up, despite his recent high-profile legal battles with his ex-wife Amber Heard.
‘If the right thing was around, sure,’ he replied in a new interview.
He added: ‘I never do things for an intellectual level, I just do things because I want to do them. I just take one at a time, I have no ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
‘I think with anybody, you just – I never work with anybody, even with my friends, it’s not like a party so I always would like to try with him or anybody to kind of go; what is the part? What is the thing? And then is it the right thing, is it the right character? I take things on those basis [sic] and no others,’ he told Reuters.
Depp has recently hit headlines again following his confirmed involvement with Rihanna’s latest Savage x Fenty fashion show, for which he has filmed a special cameo appearance.
Years & Years singer and actor Olly Alexander announced he was ditching wearing the brand after the news broke, rapidly spreading on social media.
The actor has also appealed what his lawyers branded the ‘erroneous’ decision that awarded Heard $2million (£1.7m) in damages in their defamation trial.
The former couple were embroiled in a six-week trial earlier this year over an op-ed the Aquaman actress wrote in 2018 about being a victim of domestic violence.
While he wasn’t named in the piece, the actor’s legal team argued it suggested he was the partner who was physically and emotionally abusive towards her.
After the unanimous verdict, where Depp, 59, won all three of his defamation claims, the Pirates of the Caribbean star was awarded $15m (£13m) in total, broken down as $10m (£8.3m) in compensatory damages and $5m (£4m) in punitive damages.
However, this was capped at $350,000 (£293,000) per Virginia state law, reducing the total to $8.35m (£7m).
Meanwhile, Heard was awarded $2m (£1.7m) in compensatory damages after winning one of her countersuit claims – and it is this verdict Depp wants to overturn.
The $2m in damages related to a series of statements made by Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, who described Heard’s allegations about a 2016 incident as ‘an ambush, a hoax’. The jury found that Depp defamed Heard via Waldman.
However, in the appeal brief from their filing on November 2, his lawyers have argued that he should not be held liable for Waldman’s comments.
Depp’s lawyers argued in court documents that, despite an ‘emphatic favorable verdict’ for their client, ‘the trial court was confronted with a number of novel and complex legal and factual issues, and although the trial court decided the vast majority of those issues sensibly and correctly, a few rulings were erroneous’.
Depp’s team also argued that Heard’s lawyers gave no evidence that he was involved in making the remarks, and Waldman didn’t witness any interactions between Depp and Heard before he was hired.
The brief describes Waldman’s statements as the sole issue with the verdict.
Heard filed to appeal the verdict in July this year.
A spokesperson for Heard told Metro.co.uk: ‘We believe the court made errors that prevented a just and fair verdict consistent with the First Amendment.
‘We are therefore appealing the verdict. While we realise today’s filing will ignite the Twitter bonfires, there are steps we need to take to ensure both fairness and justice.’
Depp’s spokesperson also said: ‘The jury listened to the extensive evidence presented during the six-week trial and came to a clear and unanimous verdict that the defendant herself defamed Mr Depp in multiple instances. We remain confident in our case and that this verdict will stand.’
