
Johnny Depp has shared his scathing response to being axed from the Harry Potter prequel series, Fantastic Beasts.
The actor, 62, appeared as Gellert Grindelwald at the very end of 2016’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and reprised the role in 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star was dropped from the fantasy films in 2020 after he lost his UK lawsuit against The Sun.
Depp had sued the newspaper for a 2018 story that described him as a “wife-beater” during his marriage to Amber Heard, who had accused him of abuse.
“It literally stopped in a millisecond, like, while I was doing the movie,” Depp told The Telegraph. “[Warner Bros] said we’d like you to resign. But what was really in my head was they wanted me to retire.”
Recalling that moment he was asked to resign, he remembered saying, “F**k you. There’s far too many of me to kill. If you think you can hurt me more than I’ve already been hurt you’re gravely mistaken.”

Depp was replaced by Mads Mikkelsen for 2022’s Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, which was the final film in the series.
Warner Bros said in a statement in November 2020: “Johnny Depp will depart the Fantastic Beasts franchise. We thank Johnny for his work on the films to date. Fantastic Beasts 3 is currently in production, and the role of Gellert Grindelwald will be recast.”
Depp later said in his own statement: “I wish to let you know that I have been asked to resign by Warner Bros. from my role as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts and I have respected and agreed to that request.”

The Edward Scissorhands actor successfully sued ex-wife Heard in the US over a 2018 article she wrote for The Washington Post about her experiences as a survivor of domestic abuse, which his lawyers said falsely accused him of being an abuser.
At the time, Heard said the jury’s verdict “sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated”.
The Aquaman star later made the “very difficult decision” to reach a settlement in the case, which PA understands to be in the amount of one million dollars.