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Amber's agent, meanwhile, says she was dropped from a film with Gael Garcia Bernal -- and should have made more for "Aquaman 2."
Agents for Johnny Depp and Amber Heard both testified in court on Thursday about the trajectory of their careers -- and while Heard's argued she lost out on work due to backlash from being branded a liar by her ex's team, Johnny's former agent insinuated work he lost was his own fault.
Both Tracey Jacobs -- Depp's longtime agent of 30 years who was fired by 2016 -- and Jessica Kovacevic -- Heard's current agent at WME -- had video depositions shown in support of the actress' defamation counterclaims about Depp.
Jacobs said that while working with him, Depp "became the biggest star in the world" -- but he became "far more complicated" to represent in more recent years because of "his unprofessional behavior" on film sets.
"Showing up late to set consistently on virtually every movie. I would get yelled at. I never said to him, 'You're a difficult client.' I never used those words. But I was very honest with him and said, 'You've got to stop doing this. This is hurting you.' And it did," she testified.
She added that, "Initially, crews loved him because he was always so great with the crew. But crews don't love sitting around for hours and hours and hours waiting for the star of the movie to show up."
Jacobs said talk about his behavior "got around town" and "made people reluctant to use him toward the end" of their working relationship. "His star had dimmed due to it getting harder to get him jobs," she added. "People were talking. The question was out there about his behavior."
She also claimed that in 2016, he came to the agency and demanded $20 million.
"It was, 'I want you to give me 20 million.' The question was not asked as a loan," she claimed. Jacobs said the actor was told, "We are not in a position to give our clients that kind of money. We are not a bank."
When Kovacevic appeared later in the day, she said that Heard's career should have skyrocketed after the success of the first "Aquaman" film -- but it instead stalled due to online backlash she faced amid her split from Depp and claims his lawyer made branding her allegations a "hoax."
"No one is going to say to me, 'Oh, we can't hire her because of these tweets.' They just don't want to hire someone that has bad press around them from these accusations," she said. "No one wants someone who's being accused of being a liar, and making something up and abusing somebody — no one wants that association with their project."
When asked to name any specific roles Heard lost because of the situation, Kovacevic said she was set to appear in a movie at Amazon with Gael Garcia Bernal, but was dropped from it.
"No one can say out loud, 'We're taking this away from her because of this bad press,'" she reiterated, "because it's nothing she did. It's all hearsay, and it's all whatever. But there's no other reason."
Kovacevic believed she also should have been able to renegotiate a better salary for "Aquaman 2" following the first film's success, but couldn't get it up from the $2 million she was offered in her original 3-picture contract to play Mera in the DC films. She claimed Warner Bros. was hesitant to rehire Heard and considered recasting her due to "lack of chemistry" with Jason Momoa, but eventually kept her on. Both Kovacevic and Heard testified that the actress' role in the film was considerably reduced in the final script.
Depp is seeking $50 million in damages after Heard claimed she was a survivor of domestic abuse in an op-ed in the Washington Post in 2018. While she didn't name Depp in the piece, his lawyers argue it was implied to be about him and negatively affected his career. She countersued Depp for $100 million.
The actor has already lost an earlier lawsuit he took in the UK over the same article that appeared in The Sun.
