Jack Sparrow
by Johnny Depp
Captain Jack kind of came to me from here and there. I was just interested in exploring - I didn’t know at first how far I would explore. I was thinking of pirates as rock & roll stars, so Keith Richards was already in mind. Then came Pepe Le Pew. And then Lee Marvin’s performance in Cat Ballou - it doesn’t get any better than that. I knew somebody somewhere along the line was going to panic and have a problem. I expected it. When I had the fake gold and silver teeth put in, I put in extra so I’d have leverage, some room to negotiate.
Then we started shooting, and the Disney executives got really scared. They kept calling (director) Gore (Verbinski), saying, “You’ve got to do something about Depp. You’ve got to talk to him.” Gore, bless his heart, said, “Look, I happen to like it. If you want to talk to him, you talk to him. I ain’t doing it.” He stood his ground. My agent, poor thing was getting calls from Disney saying, “He’s ruining the movie!”. Finally, I just made the call to them and said, “What’s the problem?” They said, “We can’t understand a thing he’s saying. He walks funny. Is he gay? Is he drunk?” I was just like, “Wow, this is really mental.”
In the end, I just had to present it to them the way I see it: “Look, it may seem strange to you now, but you’ve got to trust me. I have a real strong feeling about it. And if you can’t trust me, you have to replace me.” It felt like it was our duty to see how much we could get away with, to push the boundaries. Because audiences like to see new stuff. They like to be surprised.
NIGHTNIGHT by DEDDY
