Helena Bonham Carter expressed her views on her contentious co-stars Johnny Depp and J.K. Rowling.
Helena Bonham Carter has appeared in five films alongside Amber Heard’s ex-husband Johnny Depp. Following his victory in his defamation case, she voiced her disgust of the “Aquaman” actress.
In a recent interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, the actress, aged (56), stated that she believes Johnny Depp was broken and has been “completely vindicated” as a result of his six-week defamation trial against Amber Heard earlier this year.
“My view is that she got on that pendulum,” Bonham Carter told The Times UK of Heard’s statements amid the #MeToo movement. “That’s the problem with these things — that people will jump on the bandwagon because it’s the trend and to be the poster girl for it.”
Bonham Carter, who was chosen the first female president of the London Library, told the publication: “I think he’s fine now. Totally fine,” she said, noting that the actor “certainly went through it.”
Bonham Carter’s remarks come months after a Virginia jury decided Heard, 36, defamed Depp, 59, in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed on domestic abuse. On June 1st, Heard was ordered by the Virginia Jury to pay Depp a total of $10.35 million in damages.
Heard referred to the judgment made by the jury as a “setback” for women worldwide, stating that “It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated.” For the Defamation verdict, Heard didn’t blame the jury but called Johnny a ‘Fantastic Actor.’
Depp made his own statement at that time, which went as follows: “False, very serious and criminal allegations were levied at me via the media, which triggered an endless barrage of hateful content, although no charges were ever brought against me. It had already traveled around the world twice within a nanosecond and it had a seismic impact on my life and my career. And six years later, the jury gave me my life back. I am truly humbled… Truth never perishes.”
Furthermore, to The Times UK, Bonham Carter criticized the notion of “cancel culture” as a whole.
“Do you ban a genius for their sexual practices? There would be millions of people who if you looked closely enough at their personal life you would disqualify them,” Bonham Carter said. “You can’t ban people. I hate “cancel culture”. It has become quite hysterical and there’s a kind of witch hunt and a lack of understanding.”
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In another part of her talk, Bonham Carter spoke on the criticism that Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has received in recent years.
The author came under criticism for the first time in June of 2020, when a series of tweets of hers gave the impression that she supported anti-transgender attitudes. In a long post that was published on her website a few days later, Rowling backpedaled on her contentious standpoints despite the fact that she disputed that her views on feminism were transphobic.
“It’s horrendous, a load of bollocks. I think she has been hounded. It’s been taken to the extreme, the judgmentalism of people. She’s allowed her opinion, particularly if she’s suffered abuse,” Bonham Carter said of Rowling, seemingly referring to Rowling’s 2020 revelation that she’s a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor.
“Everybody carries their own history of trauma and forms their opinions from that trauma and you have to respect where people come from and their pain,” she said. “You don’t all have to agree on everything — that would be insane and boring. She’s not meaning it aggressively, she’s just saying something out of her own experience.”
Other Harry Potter actors, including Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, and Rupert Grint, have spoken out against Rowling’s controversial views towards the transgender community.
“Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are,” Watson, 32, wrote on Twitter in June 2020. “I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are.”
Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are.
— Emma Watson (@EmmaWatson) June 10, 2020
When asked if she felt her cast mates were “ungrateful,” Bonham Carter disagreed. “I won’t say that. Personally, I feel they should let her have her opinions, but I think they’re very aware of protecting their own fan base and their generation,” she said. “It’s hard. One thing with the fame game is that there’s an etiquette that comes with it; I don’t agree with talking about other famous people.”
