CANNES, France—Just a year ago, the image of Johnny Depp smiling and waving atop the Palais steps at the Cannes Film Festival would have been unthinkable to most—including to Depp, himself.
“When you hit the bottom, you hit the bottom, you hit the bottom, then you find the basement to the bottom,” Depp told The Associated Press the day after “Jeanne du Barry,” in which he stars as King Louis XV, opened Cannes.
This time last year, Depp was immersed in a libel trial he brought against Amber Heard, his ex-wife, based on a 2018 Washington Post op-ed piece in which she referred to herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” A British court had ruled in 2020 that a tabloid labeling Depp “a wife beater” were “substantially true.” Soon after the ruling in the UK, Hollywood had largely cut ties with Depp, jettisoning him from both the “Fantastic Beasts” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchises….