This Friday, Johnny Depp returns as Jack Sparrow — the iconic and irreverent pirate he’s made his own — in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Here he talks about the making of Jack Sparrow, the journey of the franchise and having Paul McCartney play his uncle!
Tell us how you came about creating Jack Sparrow…
When I was first approached to do Pirates of the Caribbean, there was no script at all. It didn’t exist! I was in a meeting with Dick Cook at Disney — the perfect gentleman, amazing guy — and he just asked if I would be interested in doing a movie based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and one thing led to another.
They had something else in mind, but I had this idea that I got from watching animation films and cartoons with my daughter (Lily Rose), who was three at the time. When I was watching Bugs Bunny, or Roadrunner or Wile E. Coyote, I was obsessed with how come in one scene a boulder drops and smashes Wile E. Coyote, and then the next he’s just got a crisscross Band-Aid on his head! So it’s above and beyond the suspension of disbelief, and I wondered if there was a way to broaden that, and to widen the spectrum and the parameters of that concept with acting in a film.
How did you approach bringing that concept to life in a character?
I get these images in my head... some sparks fly and some synapses fire and an idea arises. And I remember what two of my favourite writers said: Jack Kerouac, who said the first thought is the best thought, and Ernest Hemingway, who when asked about writing a book said, write one true sentence. So, I took those things into consideration when I was thinking of Captain Jack. I first thought of the parameters, the cartoons, and how I could make that happen. How do I approach that? How can I be as irreverent as possible and get away with it?
I wanted to find out who Jack was, so I started thinking about pirates as rockstars of that era. There are many pirate types in rock ’n’ roll, but the one that I thought would fit the bill was Keith Richards (founder member of The Rolling Stones), as a kind of basis for the character. Then I started getting into the abstract of Keith Richards and Pepe Le Pew (a character from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons) and sort of amalgamated these two guys and went from there.
What have you done with Jack over the five stories?
One of the key decisions that I had made for Captain Jack was that there would be no arc. I don’t know that he learns from anything he does, and I don’t want him to. I think he just moves, and he just goes. He just keeps going, so there’s no need for redemption. He is at full arc. He is what he is, and he couldn’t be anything else. He’s absolutely like the very deep centre of the reptilian part of our brain.
Do you have a finger on why people adore him?
I think because of his irreverence, which is more sort of innocence than irreverence, there’s a purity to Jack. There’s something to him that just says whatever comes out of his mouth, and then deals with it. Maybe he realises it about five-and-a-half seconds later because he’s a little scrambled up top!
I think initially what audiences reacted to was that this guy was getting away with things that we’d all love to get away with. He was saying things to people that we’d all love to say to people. So, Jack’s kind of just innocent and like a child, especially like a child who has had to scrape around for dough, so he’s learned a few tricks over the years.
What was it like getting the cast back together?
It was just magnificent. Suddenly, I find myself surrounded by this sort of ragtag group of actors, who I don’t really know as actors. For instance, Kevin McNally is just Master Gibbs to me and Stephen Graham is just Scrum. So, instantly you pick right up from where you left off, and try to make each other laugh in scenes. It’s nice to have Orlando Bloom back to bookend the story of his father. And guys back like Murtogg (Giles New) and Mullroy (Angus Barnett) too… such a stellar cast.
What about Geoffrey Rush?
Geoffrey Rush (Captain Hector Barbossa) has always amazed me as an actor, of course, then as a human being too because he’s fascinating and brilliant. Geoffrey, on this one, really dug into some very interesting choices and played this beautifully. He’s a virtuoso. At the same time, what really surprised me more than anything about Geoffrey was his ability to allow his character’s monkey to jump on his shoulder and vomit. The monkey got a little seasick. Constantly. I was crying laughing! Geoffrey’s like going on with the scene, but after about the seventh time the monkey threw up, Geoffrey would ask if they wanted that in the scene. He’d start just talking about the scene while everyone is running around trying to clean up.
Can you tell us about the new cast members?
Kaya (Scodelario) and Brenton (Thwaites) came in as sort of representative of the first Pirates (The Curse of the Black Pearl) and bookending the story, which was nice. I liked the way it was approached. Kaya plays a tough, smart young woman, Carina, who stands her ground. And Brenton plays Will Turner’s kid, Henry, and does a great job.
And then my old friend, Javier Bardem, plays Captain Salazar. When Jerry (Bruckheimer, producer) told me that Javier Bardem was in, I was ecstatic because I worked with Javier before, and Javier definitely gives you something to work with, to chew on and to think about. You basically get into the ring together, and you’re throwing things at each other to sort of play. It was a great experience working with Javier in this way, seeing him as this broken-hearted hero. There was a lot of dignity in his performance, and a lot of honour. As much as he wants to kill Jack, there is still some kind of honour involved. He came in like a bat out of hell and just killed it.
There’s a connection to him in the Pirates world because he’s married to Penelope Cruz, correct?
When we were doing On Stranger Tides (2011) with Penelope, Javier would come around and stay quite a while. I can remember telling him that he should be in one of these. When that kind of thing suddenly comes true, it’s rare. Penelope and Javier are some of my best friends, and their children are like my own.
And you have Beatles legend Paul McCartney playing Jack Sparrow’s uncle!
A funny idea came into my head about Jack running into his Uncle Jack in jail and I thought Paul McCartney would be perfect to play him. I didn’t know if it would be possible for me to drum up enough courage to ask him, even though he’s the sweetest man in the world, and certainly the most talented. But, I just did it. I just called him and told him that I have this idea for a gag in the film that might be fun, and asked if he would be interested.
He thought it sounded cool, so we started talking about character. He told me a story about his Uncle Jack, who was always telling jokes and giving the kiddies a silver half a crown. So then, he became Uncle Jack, who my character Jack was named after by his brother, Jack’s father, who was played by Keith Richards in At World’s End (2007). But the beauty is that you’re expecting a Rolling Stone, and it turns out to be a Beatle! To pull that off was insane. And Paul’s a great actor. Clearly the guy is not lacking in the talent department. If I changed something up in the scene, he’d change something up in the scene. He’d make stuff up. He was amazing.
For Paul to have come and done that for me was enormous. He’s never been in a film unless he was Paul McCartney. With the Beatles, Paul changed the world. He changed culture. And he’s still having a ball singing.
Tell us about Jack’s look in this film…
Jack has a couple of new tattoos, and one says J-A-K-C, so obviously the tattoo artist made a mistake and misspelled his name, or maybe Jack told him and doesn’t know how to spell his own name! We were going for the more Buster Keaton-esque quality to Jack in the beginning of this one. Jack is down and out and looks it. Having been without a ship for a number of years, he’s had to become a highwayman, robbing people on the country roads. It takes him down a couple of notches.
What are you most excited about for audiences to get to experience in this film?
We’ve come up with new angles and surprises; things are a bit more bizarre, bit darker even. And there’s some really funny stuff in there as well. So, I think it will have that element of surprise that the first one had.
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