I was re-watching Ellen Barkin‘s testimony during the 2022 Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial, and really loving it.
Barkin is balls-up here. Her words and delivery are so real and plain and unaffected, but I was telling myself it was almost a kind of “performance” because she really knows how to sell. I believed all of it.
I was asking myself what the vibe might be if Angelina Jolie were to take another, similar-type stand and answer questions about her years-long relationship with Brad Pitt.
And you know what? Jolie couldn’t do what Barkin did three years ago. She doesn’t have the character to just tell it straight without posturing or performing. She’s so wrapped up in her turbulent emotional past that she can’t see the forest for the trees.
Jolie is beautiful and personable (I once chatted with her on a film set, and again during a brief junket interview) but off-balance, or so I came to believe.
The bottom line is that Jolie lacks conviction and steady hands while Barkin is made of sterner stuff.
Originally posted on 5.19.22:In her Thursday (5.19) testimony in the Depp–Heard defamation lawsuit trial, Ellen Barkin was persuasive in recollections about her “sexual” relationship with Depp (she said she preferred that term to “romantic”), which began sometime in ‘94 and lasted for maybe “five or six months”, give or take.
But they had a friendly relationship, both pre- and post-sexual, for roughly ten years, she said. Things were platonic at first, Barkin said, but then Depp “switched the buttons.”
Things were largely defined by Depp almost always being drunk (i.e., “red wine”) or ripped or high in some way, Barkin said. In addition Depp was a “controlling, jealous man,” she testified.
Depp was nine years younger than Barkin (31 to her 40) when their relationship first became carnal during the second year of the Clinton administration. They later costarred in ‘98’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Barkin’s snow-white hair, cut short as if she was playing an anti-Nazi freedom fighter in a Sidney Lumet or Michael Mann film, is striking. Ditto her “I have nothing to prove one way or the other” no-bullshit street vibe, and that wonderfully raspy New York accent.
Barkin was married to Gabriel Byrne between ‘88 and ‘99: she subsequently married billionaire Ron Pearlman, who divorced her in ‘06. Barkin reportedly emerged from that union with a $20 million settlement plus $20.3 million in a Christie-supervised jewelry auction.
I don’t have the time now to write anything about my talk earlier this afternoon with Another Happy Day star-producer Ellen Barkin and director-screenwriter Sam Levinson, or even to post an mp3…later. But the time just flew. The conversation was mostly on-point but digressions happened from time to time. Barkin and I reminisced about early ’80s Manhattan, sharing anecdotes in particular about the Hellfire Club and the old Edlich Pharmacy on 1st Avenue. Don’t ask.
Another Happy Day star-producer Ellen Barkin, director-writer Sam Levinson — Thursday, 11.10, 2:55 pm, Sunset Tower hotel.