Johnny Depp talks: You'll get to see new layers of Captain Jack

There are still moments when Johnny Depp finds it hard to fully comprehend the phenomenal success of Pirates of the Caribbean.

He knows, too, that his character, the lovable rogue Captain Jack Sparrow, is held in great affection by a massive audience eager to see more of his adventures. But sometimes, he can't quite believe that, either.

“It's beyond me how such a character has sort of taken root in some people's hearts,” he says. “It's still shocking for me because I was handed this opportunity to make something of this character and I had pretty solid ideas about who he was and what he should be like. But there were a number of people who thought that I was nuts…”

The cynics may have scoffed but they were proved spectacularly wrong when Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was both a critical and box office success in 2003.

Depp's winning portrayal of Captain Jack, the pirate who desperately wants to regain control of his beloved ship from the ghostly crew who have captured it, earned him an Oscar nomination and was one of the highlights of a hugely enjoyable movie which managed to skilfully blend humour, adventure and a love story - Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom as star crossed lovers Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner.

And now director Gore Verbinski and Depp, Knightley and Bloom have reunited to make Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest - and a third movie, virtually back to back. A commitment which has meant Depp has been playing Sparrow for more than a year now. He's clearly happy to do so.

“I wanted to play Captain Jack again because he's so much fun to play and there's so much more to explore,” he says. “I'd keep going and if they want to do Pirates 4 and Pirates 5, I'm there. Why not?

“In Pirates 2 and Pirates 3 you'll get to see new layers of Captain Jack. You get to see him in different situations, situations that he can't talk his way out of. There's a lot of fun stuff.”

Depp hopes Captain Jack will become - if he isn't already - one of the all time classic Disney characters, loved by fans of all ages, young and old.

“Having watched Disney animated classics for years and years, old cartoons that I grew up watching, one of the things that was really important to me was the idea of a cartoon character that a three year old can sit down on the couch next to a 20 year old and a 50 year old and a 75 year old. And they all react and that they all get the same thing out of this character. So that was one of the challenges for me.

“I wanted to try and make this guy appeal to little kids as well as hardened intellectuals - that was what I was going for. And I hope it works.”

Depp was born in Kentucky and grew up in Florida where he developed an early interest in music which is still with him today - some of his closest friends are musicians and he is a talented guitarist. His band, Kids, enjoyed some success and led to Depp moving to Los Angeles. After the band broke up, Depp decided to try his hand at acting.

His early film work includes Nightmare on Elm Street and later Platoon. He enjoyed huge popular success as undercover detective Ted Hanson on the TV show 21 Jump Street. He starred in four series before leaving to pursue film work, notably with director John Walters on Cry Baby.

Depp has proved himself to be one of the most versatile and mesmerising actors of his generation. He has often worked with Tim Burton - Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow and, more recently, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

He played an undercover FBI agent, opposite Al Pacino, in the critically acclaimed Donnie Brasco, played opposite another legendary Hollywood star, Marlon Brando, in Don Juan DeMarco. He played author J.M Barrie in the highly acclaimed Finding Neverland and the 17th century poet and rake The Earl of Rochester in The Libertine.

Depp and his partner, actress Vanessa Paradis, have two children, Lily Rose, 7, and four year old Jack, and divide their time between homes in Provence, France and California.

In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Jack Sparrow is facing a race against time to retrieve his very soul from the terrifying Davy Jones - played by an unrecognisable Bill Nighy - which he pledged in return for The Black Pearl ten years earlier. Now Davy Jones is coming to collect and that means Jack could end up one as one of his underworld phantoms.

Q: What does The Black Pearl mean to Captain Jack?

A: The Black Pearl represents freedom. It's his one true love.

Q: Jack's a pirate. But does he live by any rules?

A: I think Jack definitely has his own set of rules, his own code that he lives by and the proper, real pirates did in those days. They were very strict about the code. I think Jack has set parameters for himself.

Q: What kind of scrapes will Jack get into in Dead Man's Chest?

A: Well, he certainly has something very specific on his mind which is outside financial gain. It's more to do with a spiritual journey, in a weird way, He's looking for something extremely unique.

Q: How do the key, the chest and the heart feature in the story?

A: Well, early in the film Jack receives the `black spot' which is the end for all pirates once they receive that. If you're a pirate, a sea faring man, and someone delivers the black spot to you that's the end of you, it means you belong to Davy Jones. And that ups the stakes considerably for Jack, as you can imagine. And it puts him on a spiritual path and maybe in slightly more panic mode.

Q: It's time to pay the piper and the piper is Davy Jones..

A: Yes, Jack had an arrangement with Davy Jones some years prior and the jig is up, it's time for Jack to pay his debt. Of course Jack is going to try and avoid that at all costs. But Davy Jones is the end of it all, he's life and death and most assuredly death.

Q: Does he have any more earthly adversaries?

A: Yes, there's (Lord Cutler) Beckett (played by Tom Hollander) who represents the East India Trading Company, which is big business and finance, and they are a huge threat to the age of piracy. So both Davy Jones and Beckett are extremely dangerous for Jack in their own ways.

Q: It's obviously a big budget film. How do you keep hold of the character with all distractions of film making at this level?

A: This is how naïve I am. On the first film it seemed to me we were making quite an intimate little film because as far as I'm concerned you go in there, you get in the trenches, you're with your director and you're slugging it out and you're making things happen. And you're doing what you are meant to do within the context, within the structure of the scene. It didn't dawn on me how epic things were. In fact it didn't dawn on me until we were probably half way through shooting when I saw the first rough cut of the first trailer and I was suddenly completely shocked, like `wow, this is enormous!' Now coming on to Dead Man's Chest and having a pretty good handle on the character, knowing him as well as I do, it's obviously so much larger than the first. The structure, the story, it's a lot more complicated to shoot. They've upped the stakes quite heavily during the second movie.

Q: You've been filming in some exotic locations. Has the weather played a big part on this shoot?

A: We've been through every possible circumstance in terms of the weather. We started out down in St Vincent and Dominique in sweltering heat and humidity and then later in the Bahamas having dealt with the threat of every hurricane swiping through there.

Q: It's such a massive undertaking for the director - two films virtually back to back, exotic locations, shooting on water. How does he cope with it?

A: I have a profound respect for Gore and I always have from the first instant we worked together on the first film. And watching him on this one, watching what he's had to experience and deal with, it's incredible. I've learned so much from just being around him and watching him. Even under incredible pressure I've never seen him step outside or lose his composure or lose his vision. He just deals with it and fights his way out of that corner.

Q: Does it feel different, being on a Jerry Bruckheimer set?

A: Well as I told you, on the first one, innocently it just felt very intimate to me and it got more and more grand as time went on. This one is totally utterly Jerry Bruckheimer - everything's in, the kitchen sink, everything. And it's done with incredible taste and he uses the best guys to do it and it's impressive. So yeah, working on a Jerry Bruckheimer production is a different animal altogether.

Q: Captain Jack's costume is impressively exotic. Where does it come from?

A: I spent some time with Keith Richards who was a huge part of the inspiration for the character - he was definitely one of the main ingredients to the soup that is Captain Jack. I spent a little time with Keith and each time I'd see him he'd have a new thing tied in his hair and it was like `what's that hanging down?' and he'd be `ah yeah, I got that in Bermuda..' or wherever. So I kept thinking about that. So it seemed to me that Jack on his travels and adventures would see something and go `oh, I'll keep that..' and you know, tie it in. So each little trinket would have a story.

Q: What's it been like to get the main cast back together for the sequels?

A: Oh it's been great, amazing on every level, to have the same cast back. And you know equally, to have the majority of the same crew from One back has been fantastic. And we were on that film for a very long time and you get very close, you become like a sort of weird gypsy family, a travelling circus. So having everybody back for Pirates 2 and 3 has been a real blessing. Some of the guys on the crew know my character probably as well as I do. They could play Captain Jack just as well as I can at this point.

Q: Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom's careers have taken off since the first Pirates. They are both big stars now. Has that changed anything?

A: No, I think it's the same people as far as I can tell. They still come in, work hard and properly committed. Keira's as sweet as can be, Orlando's as sweet as can be. I'm really happy that we got everybody back and everybody's in relatively the same condition as when we started this thing.

Q: With some interesting new cast members too, like Bill Nighy and Stellan Skarsgard…

A: They've been great fun. You get in there and start bouncing the ball around with Bill and Stellan, now what more could you ask? And Naomie (Harris) is terrific. She's bringing a lot to an interesting character. There's a lot to look forward to in terms of what this could be as a film. I'm actually very excited to see it myself - I'll just close my eyes when I come on the screen and then somebody can poke me when I'm gone!

Q: I understand Jack gets chased by cannibals in Pirates 2. What was that like to film?

A: Utterly exhausting. From my perspective it was `OK, here's 200 of these guys dressed up as cannibals and they're gonna chase you down the beach..' You're in full regalia and there's a giant piece of rope tied around my ankle and I'm running through water. It was just exhausting. And it was days and days of that. For me it wasn't particularly fun to film but the end result was worth it.

source: madeinatlantis.com