Johnny Depp’s comeback movie is stuffed with scandal each on-screen and off, as he exams out his French within the function of King Louis XV.
There have been rumors Depp solely had a couple of minutes of display time in “Jeanne du Barry”, which opens the Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday and has a nationwide launch in France the identical day.
But the 59-year-old actor is current for a lot of the movie, even when his dialogue is stored to quick phrases that assist disguise his American accent.
Depp performs the 18th century monarch, who fell in love with a prostitute to the horror of a lot of his household and courtroom.
He signed up for the function earlier than the courtroom instances in opposition to ex-wife Amber Heard involving bitter accusations of home violence that threatened to derail his profession.
Maiwenn, the French star who directs and performs the lead function in “Jeanne du Barry”, admitted she was fearful in regards to the affect of the trials.
“The film was shot last summer and he was coming out of his second trial,” Maiwenn, who goes by a single identify, informed AFP.
“I had a lot worries. I was wondering: ‘What will his image become?'” she mentioned.
But Maiwenn mentioned she had no doubts about casting Depp.
“It was so clear (he was right for the role),” she mentioned, although she approached two French actors first.
Depp provides a formidable bodily efficiency — principally by way of amused and imperious facial expressions — and his quick bursts of dialogue recommend an honest stage of French for the actor, who was beforehand married to French star Vanessa Paradis.
Many nonetheless see Depp as a poisonous determine, regardless of his victory within the final defamation trial in opposition to Heard, however he has already lined up his subsequent movie, directing Al Pacino in a biopic of artist Amedeo Modigliani.
Depp’s trials should not the one scandal surrounding “Jeanne du Barry”, nonetheless.
In March, a well known French journalist, Edwy Plenel of Mediapart, lodged a prison criticism for assault in opposition to Maiwenn, accusing her of approaching him in a restaurant, grabbing him by the hair and spitting in his face.
She refused to debate the “ongoing case” with AFP, however admitted the assault in an interview on French TV this week, with out going into particulars.
Plenel says it might have been motivated by articles in regards to the rape allegations surrounding Maiwenn’s ex-husband and father of considered one of her youngsters, director Luc Besson (“The Fifth Element”).
Maiwenn, now 47, obtained concerned with Besson when she was nonetheless under-age they usually married when she was 16 and he was 33.
She appeared considerably irritated simply being requested about her motivations for making “Jeanne du Barry”.
“It’s hard to always justify your desires. It was just like that — she intrigued me,” Maiwenn mentioned, impatiently.
But she added that her first curiosity within the courtesan got here from watching Sofia Coppola’s 2006 movie “Marie Antoinette”.
“I always fantasised about making a period drama one day, but it was the discovery of Jeanne du Barry as played by Asia Argento that completely obsessed me,” Maiwenn mentioned.
Her movie is a grand costume affair, shot within the Palace of Versailles, and its $20 million finances was part-funded by Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Foundation.
Maiwenn dismissed any moral issues about taking money from the dominion, which is accused of spending lavishly on tradition and sports activities to distract from its myriad human rights abuses.
“It’s proof that mentalities are evolving,” she mentioned. “And the 18th century is expensive.”
© 2023 AFP