Amber Heard has not quit Hollywood, despite reports to the contrary.
That’s according to an inside source, who told People that although Heard, 37, hasn’t booked a role since a seven-person jury ruled overwhelmingly in Johnny Depp’s favour in June 2022 in a six-week defamation trial, Heard is “hopeful she will get projects.”
“She is doing much better now,” the source said more than one year on from the verdict’s delivery.
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Heard has recently stepped back into the spotlight as press for her new film In the Fire, which premiered at the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily in June, has amped up.
It’s the first time the actress will be seen in film since the trial, which saw Heard receive death threats and become the target of cruel vitriol and memes on the Internet.
Heard has since reached a settlement with Depp, 60, and both Heard and her ex-husband have called off their appeals of the civil trial’s verdict, delivered by seven jurors on June 1, 2022.
Heard was ordered to pay Depp a total of $US15 million ($20.8 million) in damages, but as a result of her counterclaims, the jury said Depp must pay Heard $US2 million ($2.78 million).
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In June 2023, it was confirmed that Heard had paid her settlement of $US1 million (approx. $1.5 million) to Depp, who reportedly plans to donate it to five charities.
Following the trial, Heard sold her California home and moved to Spain with her two-year-old daughter Oonah Paige, prompting reports she had quit Hollywood for good.
”She just had to get out of the United States,” a source told People. “It felt like too much chaos.”
Heard will also return to the big screen in December when Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is released, though both her roles as Mera in the superhero sequel and as Grace Burnham in In the Fire were filmed before the trial began.
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The Zombieland star made her first official public appearance in a year last week at In the Fire‘s premiere, where director Conor Allyn gushed, “Amber has an incredibly bright future ahead.”
Depp, meanwhile, has also made a controversial comeback of his own, receiving a seven-minute standing ovation at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in May.
An insider told People that Depp has “closed the chapter” of his life regarding Heard, saying: “He feels incredibly lucky to do what he loves.”
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