Actor Bernard Montiel shares rumors from the set of upcoming French film 'Jeanne du Barry' that Depp and director Maiwenn Le Besco have been 'screaming at each other the whole time' during filming.
- Dec 28, 2022
AceShowbiz - Johnny Depp may be sabotaging his career comeback with his old habits. After slowly rebuilding his image following his defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard, the actor is reportedly clashing with the director of his upcoming movie "Jeanne du Barry", formerly titled "La Favorite".
Actor Bernard Montiel shared rumors from the set of Depp's post-trial movie on the French talk show "Touche pas a mon poste! (Don't Touch My TV Set!)". According to the showbiz commentator, the Golden Globe-winning actor and director Maiwenn Le Besco couldn't get along during production of the French movie.
"I've heard some noise from the shoot, very serious stuff," Montiel said in a panel interview that has recently begun to make the rounds in English-language media. "So, [Depp is] an excellent actor, when he comes on set, except sometimes at six in the morning the crew is ready, and nobody turns up. So of course, Maiwenn, who is the director, gets angry, and the next day she's the one who doesn't turn up. And you've got Johnny Depp, and she's not there."
While the project has eventually wrapped production, Montiel stressed how tense the situation on the set was as saying, "It's finished, over this week, [but] it's going very, very badly. They don't get on at all; they're screaming at each other the whole time."
Depp has been accused of erratic behavior while on set before. His "constant lateness" was among a series of alleged complaints from the crew of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales", which was shot in 2015 in Australia.
According to a production dispatch from The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, "sources close to the production report tales of excessive drinking, physical fights with Heard and constant lateness on set, which often left hundreds of extras waiting for hours at a time."
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, however, defended the actor at the time. "You've got to understand the kind of pressure Johnny was under in Australia," he told the outlet. "At times helicopters would follow him home. There would be so many media outside his gates that trucks were feeding them. There was so much stuff made up about him: that Johnny had a fight on set and had gone back to the States, which we both read about while we were in his trailer."
Depp's former agent Tracey Jacobs also brought up his constant tardiness during his defamation trial against Amber Heard. "His star had dimmed due to it getting harder to get him jobs given the reputation that he'd acquired due to his lateness and other things," she said of how the actor's behavior and drug use were hurting his career in her testimony. "People were talking and the question was out there about his behavior."
Still, Bruckheimer wants to work with Depp again for another "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. Calling the 59-year-old a "terrific actor," he told THR earlier this month about the possibility of having Depp return to the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film franchise, "I would love to have him in the movie."
Acknowledging that Depp's career has been overshadowed by his legal drama, Bruckheimer added, "He's a friend, a terrific actor and it's unfortunate that personal lives creep into everything we do." He, however, noted that the decision ultimately lies in the hands of Disney as saying, "You'd have to ask them. I can't answer that question. I really don't know."
"Jeanne du Barry" will mark Depp's first acting role since he won the defamation case. In it, he will play King Louis XV, with director Le Besco also starring as Jeanne Becu, an impoverished seamstress who rises through the ranks of Louis XV's court to become his official mistress.
