Depp will walk the Cannes red carpet for “Jeanne du Barry”‘s opening night.
On Tuesday, Johnny Depp returned to the Cannes Film Festival as King Louis XV.
Despite winning a defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard last year over domestic abuse charges, the 59-year-old’s Hollywood career has plummeted.
Depp has been slowly returning to work and will appear on the Cannes red carpet for the opening night of “Jeanne du Barry,” a French historical drama about an 18th-century ruler who fell in love with a prostitute.
Festival director Thierry Fremaux told reporters he was “not interested” in Depp’s trial, but “I am interested in Depp the actor.”
The inaugural ceremony will recognize Michael Douglas with a Palme d’Or.
The fifth and last “Indiana Jones” film, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” premiered Wednesday at the French Riviera festival, which runs until May 27.
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio will present “Killers of the Flower Moon” on Saturday.
“May December” stars Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.
It’s one of 21 Palme d’Or contenders by a record seven woman filmmakers.
“I refuse congratulations, it is an evolution,” Fremaux remarked of the festival’s “fundamental question” of boosting women’s participation. We pick movies, not gender.”
Two-time Palme winner Ken Loach, Hirokazu Kore-eda, and Wim Wenders are competing again.
Sweden’s Ruben Ostlund (“Triangle of Sadness”) leads the jury, which comprises Brie Larson and Paul Dano.
The event has 1,000 police and security guards amid worries of protests over President Emmanuel Macron’s controversial pension changes, with the CGT union threatening to cut electricity.
‘A lot of worry’
Depp’s “Jeanne du Barry” is apparently still seeking US distribution.
His cinematic language is brief to hide his American accent.
French actress Maiwenn, who directs and stars, said she was concerned about his legal issues.
“The film was shot last summer and he was coming out of his second trial,” Maiwenn, who goes by one name, told AFP last week.
I worried a lot. “I wondered ‘what will his image become?'” she remarked.
She also has issues.
at March, well-known French journalist Edwy Plenel of Mediapart filed a criminal complaint against Maiwenn for approaching him at a restaurant, grabbed him by the hair, and spitting in his face.
She declined to discuss the “ongoing case” with AFP but confessed the attack on French TV without details.
Depp was fired from Harry Potter spin-off “Fantastic Beasts” after Heard’s abuse charges, although he was not “cancelled”.
Last week, Variety reported that he signed a record $20 million contract to remain Dior’s fragrance face.
He will direct Al Pacino in a Modigliani movie later this year.
