Amber Heard said she 'fought really hard' to appear in 'Aquaman 2' and was ultimately given a pared-down role

• Amber Heard said she had to fight to stay in Warner Bros.' coming "Aquaman" sequel.
• Heard made the comments Monday during her defamation trial against her former husband, Johnny Depp.

Amber Heard says she has a heavily reduced role in the "Aquaman" sequel after fighting to stay in the coming Warner Bros.' movie.

"I fought really hard to stay in the movie — they didn't want to include me in the film," Heard said Monday while on the stand during her defamation trial with her former husband, Johnny Depp.

Heard was first introduced as Mera, Aquaman's love interest, in the 2017 film "Justice League" before becoming a protagonist in 2018's "Aquaman" alongside Jason Momoa.

The film shattered box-office expectations by grossing over $1.1 billion. It's one of Warner Bros.' most successful DC films.

Asked whether she was able to film her role for the coming sequel, "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," Heard said she performed "a very pared-down version of that role."

"I was given a script and then given new versions of the script that had taken away scenes that had action in it that depicted my character and another character — without giving any spoilers away — two characters fighting with one another," she added. 'They basically took a bunch out of my role. They just removed a bunch out."

A representative for Warner Bros. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The entertainment journalist Grace Randolph tweeted in late April that Heard was said to have under 10 minutes of screen time in the sequel.

A long-running Change.org petition to remove Heard from the "Aquaman" sequel has reached over 4.1 million signatures during the trial. In July 2021, producer Peter Safran told Deadline that "fan pressure" wouldn't affect a decision whether to fire Heard.

During the trial, Heard said her pay for the first "Aquaman" was $1 million and her pay for the sequel was $2 million under her contract. That doesn't include any box-office bonuses Heard might receive if the film makes a certain amount of money theatrically, she added on the stand.

On Monday, Heard said she had since worked on one independent film, "Into the Fire," for which she was paid $65,000.

Warner Bros. recently pushed back "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" from this December to March 17.

James Wan returns to direct the sequel, which is based on a story Momoa helped conceive. Wan has described the film as "a little bit more relevant to the world we're living in today."