Director expresses concern over unsettling remarks by Johnny Depp, feels let down by media’s distortion

French filmmaker and actress Maïwenn Aurélia Nedjma Le Besco (who is referred to mononymously as “Maïwenn”) is pumping the brakes on recent statements she made that have been circulating online.

Maïwenn fired back at the way her words were framed in an interview with the U.K. outlet The Independent.

The topic of said interview is the ever-controversial and polarizing actor Johnny Depp.

In the original Independent piece, the outlet focused on this following Maïwenn quote regarding Depp: “The crew were afraid of him.”

(Maïwenn directs and Depp stars in the 18th-century period piece “Jeanne du Barry,” which has earned mixed reviews as of this writing.)

“The French director/writer/actor Maïwenn says she has no regrets about casting the ‘cancelled’ Johnny Depp in her historical costume drama, Jeanne du Barry,” writes The Independent’s Charlotte O’Sullivan. “Yet she admits that, during the shoot, Depp wanted to be treated as an icon ‘all the time’, ‘wouldn’t do what the script demanded’, and that the crew were ‘afraid’ of him.

“She also says that when journalists like me concentrate on Depp (rather than the film’s working-class heroine, Jeanne), it irks her.”

Indeed, the way the entire interview covered Depp and Maïwenn’s association with him carried an unmistakably adversarial tone.

Here are the relevant quotes that O’Sullivan attributes to Maïwenn: “I have to be honest. It’s difficult to shoot with him … all the crew were scared because he has a different kind of humour and we didn’t know if he was going to be on time, or if he was going to be OK to say his lines … I mean, even if he was there on set, on time, the crew were afraid of him.”

Maïwenn took particular issue with that quote, and lashed out in a statement to Variety.

“When I made a remark about Johnny being ‘scary,’ I was talking about his charisma, his notoriety, his star status, etc,” Maïwenn wrote to the outlet. “[I] was shocked when I discovered that the newspaper had headlined that ‘The crew were afraid of [Johnny Depp]’ because written like that, and without its context and subtleties, it absolutely no longer means the same thing.

“The journalist did not want to grasp the subtlety of my words.”

“I would like to make things very clear: Johnny is ‘scary’ in the sense that his charisma and his status as ‘king’ is impressive,” she added. “I should have used the word ‘impressive’ if I had known [the writer] Charlotte O’Sullivan would use my words in such a malicious way.”

Maïwenn went so far as to claim that she was betrayed by The Independent.

“I want to be very clear: Johnny Depp is a huge actor. One of the greatest,” she said. “He reminded me a lot of Brando – his genius and sufferings, his generosity and paradoxes.

“Even though we argued several times on set, he’s someone I totally respect and admire, and it’s important for me to correct my own narrative because I feel really betrayed by this interview with Charlotte O’Sullivan.”

Ironically, Maïwenn did ultimately admit that Depp could, in fact, be scary.

“Johnny Depp is a celebrity and a genius and yes, that sometimes can scare some people.”

“Jeanne du Barry,” a story about a French woman and social climber whom King Louis XV (Depp) falls in love with, will be in theaters May 2, 2024.