Amber Heard On Love, Hollywood & Life On The Run

With a burgeoning film career and a penchant for life on the road, it’s safe to say that the elusive Amber Heard rarely stays sitting down for long. And now she’s starring in the much-lauded new movie The Danish Girl, the super-cool Texan’s life is set to get even busier.

- Gaby Wood, photos by Boe Marion

AMBER HEARD’S MOTHER LIKES TO SAY THAT EVER since her daughter was a little girl, she’s been trying to see how far she can get, and how fast. ‘A horse became a bike, a bike became a car, a car became a plane,’ explains Heard. And now, when I ask her if she likes flying, she looks puzzled. ‘It’s like walking, I guess,’ she says. ‘It’s just how I get around.’

She’s certainly picked up speed since she left Texas for Hollywood 13 years ago, landing, among other things, the perfectly descriptive title role in All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006), the part of Demi Moore’s daughter in The Joneses (2009), and a life-altering co-star in Johnny Depp, with whom she lit up The Rum Diary (2011). Much was made of this union in the tabloids, as they remarked on the age gap (Depp is 52; Heard is 29) and the timing (the end of Depp’s 14-year relationship with French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis was announced in June 2012).

Heard and Depp were married last February, sparking more or less instant rumours of divorce. When, in September, they engaged in ostentatious public displays of affection on a series of red carpets during a film-festival tour, that was deemed suspect, too. In other words, Heard has been thrust early into what her actress friend Olivia Wilde distinctly describes as ‘someone else’s spotlight’. However, as soon as you meet her, you realise it’s only a matter of time before the limelight becomes her own.