Johnny Depp would 'assault' Barnaby Joyce if Amber Heard is sent to prison over dog controversy.

Depp can wield a sword – but the good money has to be on Joyce when it comes to hand-to-hand…

Johnny Depp has joked he would fly to Australia and “assault” Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce if his wife is sent to prison for bringing their dogs Pistol and Boo into the country.

Earlier this year, Mr Joyce said the dogs were illegally imported without meeting Australia’s import conditions, after Depp and his wife Amber Heard brought them to the Gold Coast during filming of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Mr Joyce issued an ultimatum to Depp at the time saying the dogs should “bugger off” back to the United States or be put down.

The dogs were flown back to California a few days later, but commonwealth biosecurity charges against Heard were due to be presented to the Southport Magistrate’s Court last week.

The case was adjourned until November 2 after the star did not attend.

Speaking on television talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live about his dispute with Mr Joyce, Depp said it was “by far the most interesting” legal trouble he had ever experienced.

He said if Heard was sent to prison, he would “just fly to Australia and assault that man so that I could go to prison”.

“We were under the impression that we had all the paperwork done for the dogs, we were there with the dogs in front of everybody,” Depp said.

“There’s this sort of weird sweaty-pated gut man who decided that two 5-6-inch teacup Yorkshire terriers would harm the country in some way.”

Depp joked earlier this month that he killed his dogs and ate them “under direct orders of some kind of, I don’t know, sweaty, big-gutted man from Australia”.

In July, Mr Joyce said he was overwhelmed by the reaction to his comments.

“I suppose you take from it what you can and I think everybody understands now when they come in on a plane that Australians are deadly serious about their biosecurity protocols,” he said.

This post originally appeared on ABC News.