Amber Heard claims to know the reason her screen time in Aquaman 2 was allegedly scaled way back.
On May 16, while on the stand as part of Johnny Depp's $50 million defamation lawsuit against her, the actress opened up about her role in 2023's Aquaman 2. After starring in 2017's Justice League and 2018's Aquaman, Heard is set to reprise her role of Mera in the upcoming sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. However, according to Heard, her part was cut down after Depp's former lawyers called her abuse allegations a "hoax" in 2019.
"I was given a script, then given new versions of the script that had taken away scenes that had action in it," she testified. "That depicted my character and another character—without giving any spoilers away—two characters fighting with one another. They basically took a bunch out of my role. They just removed a bunch."
Heard also stated that she "couldn't renegotiate" her contract after the fact and that Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was her last movie under the contract.
She says she was paid $2 million for her role in the sequel, twice what she says she earned for the first film.
E! News has reached out to Warner Bros. for comment and has not heard back.
Heard's comments come almost one year after the movie's producer Peter Safran addressed whether Heard would be removed amid her ongoing legal dispute with her ex-husband.
"I don't think we're ever going to react to, honestly, pure fan pressure," he said in a July 2021 episode of the Hero Nation podcast. "You gotta do what's best for the movie. We felt that if it's [director] James Wan and Jason Momoa, it should be Amber Heard. That's really what it was. One is not unaware of what is going on in the Twitter-verse, but that doesn't mean you have to react to it or take it as gospel or accede to their wishes. You have to do what's right for the film, and that's really where we landed on it."
Back in 2018, Heard wrote an essay for the Washington Post in which she described herself as a "public figure representing domestic abuse." Although the article never mentioned Depp by name, his attorneys previously said in court documents that Heard's op-ed was all part of an "elaborate hoax" that resulted in a loss of work and income for the actor. Depp is now suing Heard for defamation, and Heard is countersuing for $100 million.
Heard's testimony began on May 4. For the most shocking moments from the trial so far, click here.