Paul Bettany on Johnny Depp: ‘I Haven’t Spoken to Him Since’ the Texts Trial

Paul Bettany has finally answered the question that has followed him for six years: no, he and Johnny Depp are not close, and they were not close even when their private text messages were read aloud in court. “I hadn’t spoken to Johnny in years when that happened and I haven’t spoken to him since,” the “VisionQuest” star told The Times in a new interview, addressing the Paul Bettany-Johnny Depp texts that became tabloid fodder during Depp’s 2020 libel trial. “I was being painted as this close friend of a guy I hadn’t spoken to in years.”

What Paul Bettany said about Johnny Depp

Bettany, 55, is on the press circuit for Marvel’s “VisionQuest,” and The Times asked about the 2013 message exchange that resurfaced in a London courtroom. His answer was blunt about the distance, and philosophical about the frenzy: “Amid all the s*** two celebrities threw at each other, that bit was the most odd. So I decided to say nothing because, I think, people know me. I’ve been married 23 years and, for what I do, I live an incredibly quiet life. Everybody kind of thought this is probably a nothing burger – and left it alone.” He has been married to actor Jennifer Connelly since 2003.

It is not the first time he has touched the subject. Back in 2021, he told The Independent that having lawyers “pouring through your texts for the last 10 years” was “an unpleasant feeling.”

The texts at the center of it

The exchange, sent in 2013 and read during a February 2020 hearing in Depp’s libel case against The Sun’s publisher, included violent jokes about Amber Heard – Depp’s “Let’s burn Amber” message and Bettany’s riff on a “drowning test” among them. The messages became one of the trial’s most shared exhibits. Bettany and Depp had co-starred in three films: “The Tourist” (2010), “Transcendence” (2014) and “Mortdecai” (2015). The pair have not worked together since, and per Bettany’s account, had already drifted apart years before the texts went public.

The fallout, in brief

Depp lost the UK case in November 2020, with the judge finding The Sun’s “wife beater” claim “substantially true.” In 2022, a Virginia jury sided largely with Depp in his defamation suit against Heard, while also awarding Heard on one count of her countersuit. Depp, who was dropped from the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise, now headlines the Christmas film “Ebenezer,” due Nov. 13, per The Independent. Bettany, meanwhile, has had one of TV’s biggest years: he leads “VisionQuest,” Marvel’s new series that picks up the Vision’s story, which premiered this past week.

Timeline

• 2013: Depp and Bettany exchange the texts that will later be read in court.
• 2015: “Mortdecai,” their third and final film together.
• Feb. 2020: The texts are read at a hearing in Depp’s libel case against The Sun.
• Nov. 2020: Depp loses the UK case; Bettany stays publicly silent.
• Dec. 2021: Bettany first addresses the texts, calling the experience “an unpleasant feeling.”
• Oct. 2026: Promoting “VisionQuest,” Bettany tells The Times he “hadn’t spoken” to Depp in years then – and hasn’t since.

What this means for fans

For Marvel viewers, the interview is a sideshow to the main event: “VisionQuest” is Bettany’s biggest showcase yet as the synthezoid, and our premiere coverage, including James Spader’s return as Ultron, has the full cast and critic reaction. For Depp watchers, the next date is Nov. 13, when “Ebenezer” tests his big-budget comeback. And for anyone who assumed the two were tight because the internet said so, Bettany’s point stands on its own: a decade-old phone thread is not a friendship. Related: how the Katie Zacharia-Kimmel feud played out, timeline style.