On his 850-acre estate in Somerset, Johnny Depp gushes, "British people are cool."

Johnny Depp has said he prefers living a quiet life in the United Kingdom, where he currently resides on an 850-acre estate in Somerset.

Following the Hollywood actor’s highly publicised defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard last year, Depp has now relocated to Somerset in southwest England. In 2014, the 59-year-old actor purchased the Downton Abbey-like estate for £13m, complete with 12 bedrooms and eight bathrooms inside a 19th-century style mansion, dubbed Somerset Mansion.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star opened up about his newfound introverted lifestyle in an interview for Somerset Life magazine’s April 2023 issue, in which he posed for a photoshoot on the 850-acre property.

“I just love places with character,” Depp told the magazine, per the Somerset County Gazette. “I have various houses in various places and they all mean something special. I don’t have them just to say I own them, I have them for use and because they are a bit special.”

The Somerset property boasts a great manor house surrounded by walled gardens and a dairy farm. The Sweeney Todd star shared that “one of the many things I love about Britain” is that “everywhere you go there is history and buildings with great character.”

Depp added that now he “can go into shops without being surrounded by people wanting selfies,” which he doesn’t mind “up to a point” but it can sometimes get “a little too crowded.”

“British people are cool and will greet you as if you are a neighbour – without going over the top,” he said. “I like going to places, seeing things and meeting people – but I’m not the great extrovert that people think.”

“In truth, I’m quite a shy person,” he continued. “That’s one of the great things about Britain, and especially Somerset. I can just be me – and that’s nice.”

When Depp purchased Somerset Mansion, he was newly engaged to Heard, whom he married in 2015 before they divorced in 2017. The former couple recently settled their contentious defamation case after the months-long trial was watched by viewers around the world.

Depp sued his ex-wife for 50m over a 2018 op-ed she wrote in the Washington Post that implied she was a victim of domestic abuse. Though she did not name Depp, he claimed her allegations have made it difficult for the actor to land movie roles. In June, a jury determined Heard defamed Depp on all three counts and awarded him 10m £8.2m in compensatory damages and 5m £4.1m in punitive damages. Heard was awarded 2m £1.6m in compensatory damages.