You may recall that Johnny Depp and his wife Amber Heard got in big trouble with the Australian government last year, because they brought their dogs into the country without declaring them. Australia has strict “biosecurity” laws to keep all us Yanks and Pommies from bringing our filthy diseases down under to infect their precious wallabies and koalas and Yahoo Seriouses.
Or you may not recall that. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that the incident has given us a very precious gift: The most glamorous hostage video ever.
Courtesy of the Australian Government Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, here’s the PSA that the Hollywood power couple was forced to make in lieu of jail time for Heard:
They probably should’ve opted for the jail time. On the other hand, this is Depp’s most convincing performance since he played “Jack Kahuna Laguna” on SpongeBob SquarePants.
Is he doing an Aussie accent there? Kind of sounds like it. I know he’s a master of accents and dialects, like Wacky British Guy and Other Wacky British Guy and Yet Another Wacky British Guy. He’s like some sort of preternaturally youthful chameleon.*
If you watch carefully, you can see Depp blinking in Morse Code:
A-U-S-S-I-E-S-C-A-N-G-O-F-U-
And that was as far as he got.
*I don’t think you’re supposed to bring chameleons down there either. Presumably they let Depp off with a warning on that one.
Update: After watching this clip from last September, it’s clear that forcing Depp to do this was an act of revenge. Rarely have my loyalties been so divided…
Update: Behind the scenes.