With Capt. Jack Sparrow setting sail in cinemas around the world for possibly the last time in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Johnny Depp is in a contemplative mood.
Although he has moved on to other projects – he is currently finishing filming the musical drama Sweeney Todd in London – he finds it impossible to put the effete and decidedly eccentric Capt. Sparrow behind him for good.
After all, the swaggering pirate has been responsible for resuscitating Depp's flagging career and elevating him to superstar status, something of which Depp is very aware.
"I was the guy who had been bouncing around the film industry for years and years and I'd been lucky if five or 10 people would see my movies, so Capt. Jack did a big flip for my career," he said.
"When I decided to take the role it was pure instinct. I didn't know it was going to be such a huge hit."
One of the few actors in Hollywood who genuinely did not crave stardom, Depp has, despite himself, become one of its most bankable stars.
Whenever a star-making role beckoned, he turned it down: Lestat in Interview With the Vampire (it went to Tom Cruise), Jack in Speed (Keanu Reeves) and the Brad Pitt role in Legends of the Fall. His explanation: "I'm not Blockbuster Boy."
But now, aged 43 and after a 23-year career, that's exactly what he is.
His performance in the first Pirates movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl, won him an Oscar nomination for his off-kilter Capt. Sparrow; and because of the film's tremendous success Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer wasted no time in rushing two sequels into production.
"When there was talk about doing a sequel I was happy because I didn't feel I'd explored all the possibilities of Capt. Jack," he said. "I didn't want to say goodbye to him. I wanted to spend time with him again. It was very simple just strapping back into the costume, stepping on the set and seeing all the familiar faces, the same crew; it felt like we'd only had a week's break."
He based the character, he says, on a combination of Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards and the cartoon character Pepe Le Pew. So it is particularly fitting that Richards himself appears in At World's End as Capt. Teague, the Keeper of the Code, who is also Capt. Jack's father.
According to Depp, Richards' arrival on the set caused quite a stir.
"Most of the crew who had been working behind the scenes and whom we hadn't seen for two years suddenly turned up for his arrival," he said. "He came into town like a gunslinger and mesmerized the crew and then split. He was beautiful. He brought so much to the film and so much to the character."
As for Depp, he will rejoin his girlfriend, the French actress-singer Vanessa Paradis, and their two children at their home in France later this month when he finishes work on Sweeney Todd, a musical drama which tells the grisly story of Benjamin Barker, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It is his sixth collaboration with director Tim Burton, and the film also stars Burton's girlfriend Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.
"Tim took a risk when he asked me to play Sweeney Todd because neither he nor I knew if I could sing when I accepted it," said Depp.
"I went into the recording studio with a friend of mine to see if I could do it. My singing's not unlike the mating call of a rutting stag.
"It's a strange sound, but I haven't been fired yet."
Depp was talking in a satellite link-up between Los Angeles and London's Dorchester Hotel, where he is staying. He speaks quietly and intelligently and exudes an air of calm tranquility.
It's hard to believe that this is a man who, in his younger days, gained a reputation for wrecking hotel rooms and attacking paparazzi.
He credits his nine-year relationship with Paradis and their two children, Lily-Rose, 7, and 5-year-old Jack, with providing him with a domesticity he had never previously known.
Gore Verbinksi, who directed him in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, says: "Johnny has a love of the awkward and of the flawed design of human beings. In life he's burdened with being too good-looking and he's always had to play against it. He always goes against the grain."
He next plans to film The Rum Diary and he has other projects lined up too, but he has not ruled out the possibility of Sparrow returning for yet another adventure.
"Doing the Pirates movies has been an absolute blast," he said. "I'm the luckiest guy in the world to have had such a great experience. If I walk away from Jack now, I'll walk away with some amazing memories.
"But At World's End leaves open the possibility of a fourth or fifth movie which I wouldn't be opposed to on an actor level because I feel there is a lot more territory to explore with Capt. Jack.
"I've never really felt I'm done with playing the character, so why shouldn't we try a fourth and a fifth?"
News / Gossips by mj3377a
