Exec chemistry almost cost amber heard her aquaman role

When it came time to shoot the film “Aquaman,” Amber Heard almost lost her gig as Aquaman’s love interest, Mera. But according to a studio executive, it had nothing to do with any drama between her and ex-husband Johnny Depp, as Heard had claimed.

Rather, it turned out Heard and co-star Jason Momoa “didn’t really have a lot of chemistry together,” according to Walter Hamada, the Warner Bros. Pictures division president who oversees all of the studio’s superhero and supervillain movies.

Hamada was testifying Tuesday via video deposition as a rebuttal witness for Depp in the actor’s ongoing defamation trial against Heard, which Court TV is livestreaming from a Virginia courtroom.

“The reality is, it’s not uncommon in a lot of movies for two leads to not have chemistry. It’s sort of movie magic ... to sort of put performances together with the magic [of] a great score,” the executive said.

Experts for Heard and the actor herself testified previously that drama with Depp almost cost her the “Aquaman” role.

“After I got my temporary restraining order [against her ex-husband], I lost opportunities,” Heard testified May 17. “I got canceled from jobs. I got dropped from a campaign I had shot. I fought to keep my job in the biggest movie opportunity I had to date — ‘Justice League,’ with the option for ‘Aquaman.’”

The Mera character had first appeared in 2017’s “Justice League,” and Warner Bros. had an option to keep Heard in the role. But because of the lack of chemistry between the two, Hamada said, the studio considered recasting the role rather than making the 2018 follow-up movie, “Aquaman,” with Heard. They decided to move ahead as originally contracted.

“We were determined to hold our actors to their option agreements,” he said.

Hamada, whose testimony was recorded in March, said the studio was able to “fabricate” chemistry after principal filming was complete.

“So at the end of the day, I think if you watch the movie, they look like they had great chemistry,” Hamada said. “But I just know that through the course of postproduction, it took a lot of effort to get there.”

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Contrary to another witness' testimony, a Warner Brothers executive made his own court statements saying that Johnny Depp's claims of Amber Heard fabricating her domestic violence allegations did not affect her casting in Aquaman 2.

Seeing as Heard's legal team has recently rested their case without calling Depp to the stand, it seems that a jury's decision in his $50 million defamation lawsuit and her $100 million countersuit is getting closer by the day.

And while there are many facts about the case that are hotly in dispute, one factor that has become particularly relevant in the latter days of the trial concerns whether Heard ruined Depp's career or vice versa.

Although Depp maintained that Heard's abuse allegations resulted in Disney blocking him from reprising his role as Captain Jack Sparrow, an entertainment industry consultant recently claimed that Depp's attorney jeopardized Heard's role in Aquaman 2 by framing her allegations as a "hoax."

But while one Warner Bros. executive agreed that Heard's ability to reprise her role as Mera wasn't a certainty, he argued that this was the case for reasons completely unrelated to Depp.

On May 24, DC Films President Walter Hamada testified in a video deposition about Depp's effect on Heard's role in "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom."

As USA Today reported, he said that contrary to Heard and entertainment industry consultant Kathryn Arnold's claims, her character Mera's presence in the script was not reduced in the wake of Depp's defamation allegations and was always as small as it is now.

He further stated that Heard was never intended to be a co-lead of the movie alongside Jason Momoa.

Instead, Hamada claimed that the script was always centered around Momoa's Arthur getting along with Patrick Wilson's character Orm.

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He went on to say that even the earliest stages of the script's development had this dynamic in mind and it was "always pitched as a buddy comedy between Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson."

As for the studio's hesitancy to recast Heard, Hamada said that had more to do with her chemistry with Momoa than anything.

He said that the chemistry "wasn't there" and that it was largely because of skilled editing, music, and sound design that their scenes together worked.

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As he put it, "Editorially, they were able to make that relationship work in the first movie, but there was a concern that it took a lot of effort to get there."

So for a time, he said that executives considered finding another actress whose chemistry with Momoa was considered more natural. He also stressed that this decision was not influenced by public backlash as a result of Depp's or his lawyer's claims about Heard.

In his words, "It was all concerns about whether she was the right fit of casting for the movie."

Of course, Heard would end up securing the role once again and Hamada said that the studio didn't end up auditioning any other actresses for the part.

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But while Arnold had previously testified that Heard would have been able to renegotiate a $4 million salary instead of the $2 million she did receive if Depp hadn't compromised her leverage, Hamada maintained that this wasn't likely either.

He said that there were never any plans to increase Heard's pay as it's apparently part of the studio's "philosophy" to hold actors to their original contracts.

Since these testimonies are so widely opposed to each other, only time will tell which side of the story will have more credibility with the jury.

h/t: USA Today

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