Entertainment

Johnny Depp's sound engineer says Amber Heard once yelled 'how dare you talk to me' on a plane

Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp attends the promotion of the animated series "Puffins" in Belgrade on October 19, 2021. Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images
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Johnny Depp's sound technician testified Tuesday that Amber Heard once yelled at him for talking to her on a plane.  

Keenan Wyatt — a sound technician who has worked on Hollywood films for 35 years, including Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise — told a Virginia court that the incident happened during a 2014 private jet flight from Boston to Los Angeles. 

Wyatt said Depp's ex-wife, Heard, appeared to be giving Depp "the cold shoulder" on the plane. At one point, Wyatt said he approached Heard and "said something to the effect of, 'You know he cares about you.'"

Wyatt said Heard responded by yelling at him. 

"All of a sudden she snapped and started yelling at me. 'How dare you talk to me? Get away from me'. So I went back to my seat and minded my own business," he said.  "She was abruptly loud. It was a quiet plane – all of a sudden it got very loud."

 

Depp's sound technician also testified that he's 'never seen' the actor be abusive to others

At several points during the hearing, Wyatt continued to say that he has "never seen Johnny abuse anybody ever." 

Wyatt is one of Depp's many former collaborators who has taken the stand during the trial for his defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard. 

As Insider previously reported, Depp filed a defamation suit against Heard in response to an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post that detailed her experience with domestic violence. Depp's name wasn't mentioned, but the article was widely interpreted as being about him. Heard countersued Depp for $100 million last year due to statements her ex's lawyers made about her. The two divorced in 2016.

The couple's former marriage counselor testified previously in the trial that the exes participated in "mutual abuse," and that Heard told her she escalated fights in order to prevent Depp from leaving.

amber heard johnny depp trial
Amber Heard looks on inside the courtroom during the Johnny Depp vs Heard defamation case at Fairfax County Circuit Court, Virginia, U.S., April 12, 2022.  Brendan Smialowski/Pool via REUTERS

Wyatt also said on the stand that Depp uses an earpiece while filming

Elsewhere during his wide-ranging testimony, Wyatt said that Depp has often used an earpiece while shooting films so that he can be fed dialogue by producers. 

"Johnny typically likes to go to makeup in the morning and write his own dialogue, and rewrite his own dialogue," Wyatt said. "Sometimes, there's not enough time to learn them. So I would read them to him in his earpiece sometimes, along with music playing."

Wyatt continued that he and Depp used an earpiece on "every" film they made together and he believed Depp was always "very prepared" on set and knew exactly how he wanted to portray his characters.

When asked at what point did Depp first adopt an earpiece as part of his acting methods, Wyatt said that the device was introduced on the set of 1997's "The Brave," which Depp directed. Marlon Brando inspired the move, he said.

Wyatt added that after Brando had finished shooting his scenes, he left the film's set. To aid Depp's performance, a recording of Brando's dialogue was placed in an earpiece for Depp to use.  

Afterward, Depp used earpieces to have music inspire his performances, Wyatt testified. The method later evolved to include being fed lines that Depp rewrote in scripts, he said.

"After that, we started to use an earpiece all the time where Johnny would listen to music while acting," Wyatt said. "Sometimes it would be classical, sometimes it would be blues, sometimes it would be rock. It depended on the character." 

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Jacob Shamsian
Jacob Shamsian is a correspondent on Business Insider's Enterprise news desk. He is also a Global Reporter for Axel Springer.He was previously on BI's Legal Affairs desk, covering major litigation, courtroom trials, and the legal industry.Jacob has reported on the criminal trials of Donald TrumpGhislaine Maxwell, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sean "Diddy" CombsR. Kelly, and Anna Sorokin (AKA Anna Delvey), He's also covered blockbuster civil trials, including both E. Jean Carroll v. Trump trials, the New York Attorney General's fraud trial against TrumpSarah Palin v. The New York Times, and Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard.His stories have been cited in judicial rulings, lawsuits, letters from congressional committees, and in numerous media publications. He was a pool reporter in Donald Trump's Manhattan criminal trial.Jacob has been interviewed on CNN, the docuseries "Surviving R. Kelly," ABC's "Good Morning America," and BBC News, among other programs. His work has been cited by media outlets, including The New York Times, Bloomberg News, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and New York magazine. He's also written for GQ, The Awl, The New Republic, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and Modern Farmer.You can reach Jacob on Signal at JacobShamsian.07.