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When Warner Bros. released their first look at the of the sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, fans weren’t exactly excited. Sure, Harry Potter fans are up for a sequel to the 2016 prequel movie, but they were not up to see Johnny Depp in the cast photo of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. And they’re definitely not happy that he’s playing the film’s titular character, Gallert Grindelwald.
The outcry on Twitter, and oh there was an outcry, was so loud because Depp has recently faced allegations of domestic abuse from his ex-wife Amber Heard. With other powerful men (Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Jeffrey Tambor, Jeremy Piven, etc.) seeing fallout from accusations of misbehavior, fans are shocked that Depp has been let off the hook after facing very serious allegations.
But all that hasn’t really affected Fantastic Beasts director David Yates, who has stuck by the decision to bring Depp into the Potter-verse in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“Honestly, there’s an issue at the moment where there’s a lot of people being accused of things, they’re being accused by multiple victims, and it’s compelling and frightening,” said Yates. “With Johnny, it seems to me there was one person who took a pop at him and claimed something. I can only tell you about the man I see every day: He’s full of decency and kindness, and that’s all I see. Whatever accusation was out there doesn’t tally with the kind of human being I’ve been working with.”
Yates then cited other accounts from Depp’s previous exes, ones that have come forward to defend him. Winona Ryder, who was with Depp for four years in the ’90s, told Time that he was “never, never that way towards me. Never abusive at all towards me. I only know him as a really good, loving, caring guy who is very, very protective of the people that he loves.”
Yates says that’s the Depp he’s working with on Crimes of Grindelwald. “By testament, some of the women in [Depp’s] life have said the same thing — ‘that’s not the human being we know,'” Yates said. “It’s very different [than cases] where there are multiple accusers over many years that need to be examined and we need to reflect on our industry that allows that to roll on year in and year out. Johnny isn’t in that category in any shape or form. So to me, it doesn’t bear any more analysis. It’s a dead issue.”
It’s definitely not a dead issue with fans, though, who have sworn off the prequel franchise as long as Depp is involved.
There’s very little chance of this controversy dying down, no matter what Yates says. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald opens on November 16, 2018.
