Johnny Depp says he planned on giving Jack Sparrow a ‘proper goodbye’ with more films before he was dropped

Johnny Depp testified Monday (25 April) that he wanted to continue making Pirates of the Caribbean movies in order to give Jack Sparrow and other characters a “proper goodbye”.

The actor is currently in court in the US suing his ex-wife Amber Heard, who divorced him in 2016, for defamation over a 2018 op-ed in which she allegedly implied he had abused her. Depp is seeking $50m (£39m) in damages over The Washington Post column which, he claims, impacted his Hollywood career directly.

On his fourth day on the stand at the Fairfax County Courthouse, Virginia, Depp told the court of returning for a sixth Pirates film: “My feeling was that these characters should be able to have their proper goodbye.

“A franchise can last only so long. And there’s a way to end a franchise like that, and I thought the characters should have a way out, to end the franchise on a very good note. And I planned on continuing until it was time to stop.”

Depp was officially dropped from the franchise’s planned reboot in 2018, days after Heard’s op-ed was published.

“Captain Jack Sparrow was a character that I had built from the ground up, and was something that I put a lot of… you put a lot of yourself into characters,” Depp added on redirect examination Monday.

“And also having worked on those films with those people, and having put a lot of my own rewriting, dialogue, scenes, and jokes and whatever they are,” Depp continued, “I didn’t quite understand how, after that long relationship, and quite a successful relationship, certainly for Disney, that suddenly I was guilty until proven innocent.”

Depp said he was approached to contribute to the screenplay of the sixth Pirates movie before his exit, but the project is now in “dangle mode”.

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.

During cross-examination, Depp was asked by Heard’s lawyer about an October 2018 article in the Daily Mail published prior to her op-ed, which reported that the actor had already been dropped as Jack Sparrow due to “financial issues and personal dramas”.

Depp testified: “I wasn’t aware of that, but it doesn’t surprise me. Two years had gone by of constant worldwide talk about me being this wife beater. So I’m sure that Disney was trying to cut ties to be safe.”

In the same month she filed for divorce in 2016, a judge granted Heard a restraining order against Depp over allegations of domestic violence on his part, which became global news. Depp’s lawyers denied the claim, alleging in a court document that year that Heard was “attempting to secure a premature financial resolution by alleging abuse”. The two eventually settled their divorce out of court.

The Depp v Heard trial is currently ongoing. You can follow all the live updates here.