Johnny Depp didn’t feel fantastic about having to give up a major role.

More than four years after his abrupt exit from the Fantastic Beasts franchise, the actor revealed what was really going through his mind when Warner Bros. asked him to step aside from the series’ third installment.

“F--k you,” he recalled thinking in an interview with The Telegraph published July 5. “There’s far too many of me to kill. If you think you can hurt me more than I’ve already been hurt, you’re gravely mistaken.”

The studio made the decision days after the 62-year-old lost his libel case against The Sun in November 2020, a case that centered upon an article labeling him as a “wife beater” in reference to his marriage to ex Amber Heard. While Depp denied the claim, a judge ultimately ruled that the tabloid’s portrayal of the actor was “substantially true.”

While Depp triumphed in a separate defamation lawsuit against Heard in 2022, his loss in the U.K.’s High Court brought his involvement in the Harry Potter spinoff franchise to a screeching halt.

“It literally stopped in a millisecond, while I was doing the movie,” he told The Telegraph. “They said, ‘We’d like you to resign.’ But what was really in my head was they wanted me to retire.”

At the time, Depp—who was replaced by Mads Mikkelsen as Gellert Grindelwald in 2022’s Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore—issued a statement saying he had “respected and agreed” to Warner Bros.’ request to resign from the role while also thanking his fans for standing by him.

“I'd like to thank everybody who has gifted me with their support and loyalty,” he wrote in post on Instagram following his departure. “I have been humbled and moved by your many messages of love and concern, particularly over the last few days.”

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