3Home pirates of the caribbean: the curse of the black pearl production notes
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 Chapter 3: Collecting a Dream Cast |
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 Casting was the next step for the production. “We always try to populate our movies with great talent,” says Jerry Bruckheimer. “And in this one we were lucky enough to combine respected, well-known veterans with several up-and-coming actors. Excellence begets excellence, and with every additional actor we signed, the bar just moved higher and higher.”“We have a dream cast,” says Verbinski. “It's not often that a director has an opportunity like this. To work with a cast of this caliber on a pirate movie is a chance of a lifetime.”
“The way you get an audience to really embrace a movie is to cast against the grain,” explains Bruckheimer. “You find someone the audience would never expect to see in a Disney movie.
“I went after Johnny Depp,” he says with a knowing grin. “Johnny is an artist who's known to take on quirkier projects. He's a brilliant actor. He's not out to create a fan base for himself, or to simply select work based on salary; it's clear he needs to find a role that gives back to him artistically. I think he also wanted to do something specifically for his kids.”
Ironically, Depp's character isn't exactly the kind of guy you'd want your kids to emulate. “Jack Sparrow's the type of character that you enjoy watching steal money from a little old lady,” says Verbinski. “He is basically a con man-he's lazy, he's a great pirate, but he is not going to fight if he doesn't have to. He's always going to take a shortcut. I think the big thing for Captain Jack Sparrow is his myth. He's kind of his own best agent-he markets himself very well.”
“Jack Sparrow's a rogue, but he doesn't have a dark heart,” adds Orlando Bloom, who plays the role of Will Turner. “He's a man trying to live with integrity.”
Depp was attracted by the opportunity to create a totally new character from scratch. “It was a different kind of role for me. It was a great opportunity to invent this pirate from the ground up, to create a different kind of pirate than you have seen before.”
The filmmakers gave the actor free reign to be creative with the character. “Johnny's known for creating his own characters,” says Bruckheimer. “He had a definite vision for Jack Sparrow which is completely unique. We just let him go and he came up with this off-center, yet very shrewd pirate. He can't quite hold his balance, his speech is a bit slurred, so you assume he's either drunk, seasick or he's been on a ship too long. But it's all an act perpetrated for effect. And strange as it seems, it's also part of Captain Jack's charm.”
Depp also appreciated the mischievous nature and never-say-die attitude of his character. “In Jack, I saw a guy who was able to run between the raindrops. He can walk across the DMZ, entertain a troop and then sashay back to the other side and tell the enemy another story. He tries to stay on everyone's good side because he's wise enough to know he might need them in the future.
“No matter how bad things got, there was always this sort of bizarre optimism about him,” continues the actor. “I also thought there was something beautiful and poignant about the idea of his objective. All he wants is to get his ship back, which represents nothing more than pure freedom to him. Of course he'll thieve and do whatever it takes, especially when the opportunity arises, but his main focus is just to get the Black Pearl back at whatever cost.”
“Jack's one mission is to get back his ship,” echoes Verbinski. “Again, it's about the simplicity of the character: his great love and his great freedom are his ship. He's not the villain and he's not the love interest, although he does think he's got a chance with Elizabeth. Jack Sparrow is a bit of an oddball. Johnny's character is not unlike Lee Marvin's in `Cat Ballou.' He really just floats through the story affecting all around him while pursuing his goal.”
Depp, who developed his ideas for the character of Jack while reading the script in his sauna, had strong ideas about Jack's attitude and appearance. His inspirations for the character were diverse: Depp says he modeled a large part of the character after legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, added a bit of the cartoon character Pepe Le Pew and tossed in some modern day Rastafarian. “Pirates were the rock stars of their day,” says the actor.
“Jack's got little trinkets hanging in his hair, so that was one of the inspirations. I like the idea that each one of these little pieces is a very vivid and extremely important memory for Jack,” says Depp.
Still in his thirties, Depp also found himself in the unusual role of elder statesman to his younger costars, who grew up watching the actor in such films as “Cry-Baby,” “Edward Scissorhands” and “What's Eating Gilbert Grape.”
“I can't say enough good things about Johnny,” says Keira Knightley, who plays Elizabeth. “It was a dream, it was a pleasure. I mean, he was wicked. Really cool.”
“Johnny is a wonderful human being,” says Orlando Bloom. “I would go to him for advice on all sorts of things. I felt really privileged to work so closely with somebody who I've admired from afar throughout his career.”
Geoffrey Rush stars opposite Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow's nemesis, the dastardly Captain Barbossa. An Academy Award® winner heralded for tackling profound characters in momentous projects, Rush enhanced the entire project by taking on the mantle of Barbossa, a scheming brigand with a pompous air, forced to live in a netherworld between human life and skeletal demise.
“We needed an equally accomplished actor to play Johnny's adversary,” explains Bruckheimer. “Geoffrey Rush is enormously talented and is known for playing a vast array of characters. We were lucky that he had a break in his schedule and wanted to be part of this project. Geoffrey's Barbossa is the quintessential villain; it's a treat to watch him become the character.”
In an effort to find out what makes the wicked Barbossa tick, Rush created a rich backstory for the character as he prepared for the role. “He achieved the position of captain by being a mutinous first mate, and taking over the Black Pearl and claiming it as his own,” he says. “I thought, this guy has got to be a crack swordsman, and a very nasty, dirty fighter. He didn't go to finishing school with an épée; he probably had a sword on his belt from the time he was about 13, and he just knew how to hack off heads.
“I think Barbossa is actually quite smart,” Rush continues. “That's probably why he's survived, because he used preemptive logic to map out his plans and deceive people. He pretends to be a gentleman of the sea, but he is a dirty old cunning rogue.”
Rush speculates that Barbossa may have, at one time early in his life, had “very earnest desires to be a man of the sea. But he realized pretty quickly that you could actually get a lot more if you broke the rules, lied to people, killed a few people and took over. Maybe that's the innate fantasy people have about being a pirate.”
Rush and Johnny Depp had similar styles in their approach to the material, and both actors took full advantage of the screenwriters' availability on set. The two actors, unrecognizable to passersby in their pirate garb, spent most of their time between camera set-ups outside the stage door, hashing through scenes with Elliott and Rossio.
Although Depp and Rush had only a handful of scenes with one another during the six-month shoot, it is immediately clear from their interaction that there is a long and sordid history between Jack Sparrow and Barbossa-and a mutual admiration between the actors. “Geoffrey's a very interesting actor, a renegade,” says Depp. “I love his work. He never sticks his neck out in quite the same way. He likes to throw ideas out there and try new things, and so do I. This was just as important as any other truly serious, heavy film for Geoffrey; he didn't hold anything back. He's deeply committed, which is one of the reasons I was excited to work with him.”
“Jack is probably the pirate that everyone wants to be; he is freewheeling, he is absolutely his own man, he's hilarious-he's like Johnny,” comments Rush. “It was extraordinary to watch Johnny create this character. It was such a cool performance, very masterfully done. He is a brilliant actor.”
Bruckheimer cast Orlando Bloom in the role of handsome blacksmith Will Turner after meeting him on his film “Black Hawk Down.” As “Pirates of the Caribbean” opens, 10-year-old Will is pulled from the Caribbean Sea drifting amidst the murdered crew and burning wreckage of a British ship attacked by pirates. That day, aboard the H.M.S. Dauntless, Elizabeth takes from the unconscious Will a souvenir-a medallion bearing the skull of a pirate's Jolly Roger- hoping to save his life. This event sets the whole story in motion.
“When we first cast him in `Black Hawk Down,' I knew his time would come,” says Bruckheimer. “I just didn't know how lucky we'd be to grab him before all the frenzy started with the two `Lord of the Rings' films. I actually talked to him about this role while we were on `Black Hawk' and he thought it sounded like a wonderful character.”
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