Johnny Depp Doesn’t Feel 'Boycotted By Hollywood' Anymore: 'I’ve Had About 17 Comebacks'

Johnny Depp is opening up about his return to the big screen after facing a “boycott” for three years.

If you’ve been keeping up with the controversial actor, you may have heard he’s involved in a new film, which is said to be part of his big Hollywood comeback. As you know, he was removed from Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore in 2020, and shunned by the better part of the industry after losing his libel case against a UK tabloid over his ex-wife Amber Heard’s “wife beater” claims the same year. However, as pretty much the whole world knows, he WON his highly publicized defamation case last summer, and has since been inching his way back into the spotlight while attempting to rehabilitate his image.

Now, he’s addressing everything head on.

While speaking at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival press conference Wednesday morning amid his film, Jeanne du Barry’s launch of the celebrated event, he candidly reflected on the rough patch he’s faced the last few years:

“In regards to me and my life, the majority of what you’ve read is fantastically horrifically written fiction.”

Deadline then asked him if he still feels boycotted by Hollywood, which he previously expressed in a 2021 interview with the Sunday Times, and he shared:

“Did I feel a boycott by Hollywood? Well, you’d have to not have a pulse to feel at that point, ‘None of this is happening, it’s just a weird joke or I have been asleep for 35 years.’ Of course, when you’re asked to resign from a film you’re doing, because of something that is merely a bunch of kind of vowels and consonants floating in the air, you feel a boycott.”

However, he claims to have now moved past those feelings:

“Do I feel a boycott now? No, not at all. I don’t feel boycotted by Hollywood because I don’t think about Hollywood. I don’t have much further need for Hollywood myself. I think it’s a very strange, funny time where everybody wants to be themselves, but they can’t, they must fall in line, conform and if you want to lead this life, I’ll be on the other side.”

If that wasn’t a jab at Hollywood for shutting him out the past few years, we don’t know what is! As for Jeanne du Barry, the three-time Oscar nominee doesn’t love the “comeback” discourse. He explained:

“They’re using it as a kind of catchphrase. ‘The guy’s making a comeback.’ I’ve had about 17 comebacks by the way, apparently. I keep wondering about the word ‘comeback’ because I didn’t go anywhere. As a matter of fact, I live about 45 minutes away so, yeah. Maybe, maybe people stopped calling. I don’t know what their fear was at the time. I didn’t go nowhere. I’ve been sitting around. So ‘comeback’ is almost like I’m going to come out and do a tap dance or something like that.”

The 59-year-old still isn’t out of the woods yet, though, as there has been controversy with him attending the coveted film festival at all, let alone his film kicking it off. But he doesn’t let that get him down. He shared in a rather confusing Depp-ism:

“What if they said to me, I cannot go to McDonald’s for life because somewhere if you got them all in one room, 39 people saw me watching me eat a Big Mac on a loop. Who are they? Why do they care? Some species or tower of mashed potatoes covered in light from a computer screen? Anonymous.”

Uhhh, yeah, Johnny. That totally makes sense…

Watch the film’s full press conference (below):