Johnny Depp added another iconic character to his long list of films with Pirates of the Caribbean’s Jack Sparrow. But to make sure the character would come to life the way he envisioned, he screened it for his kids first.
Johnny Depp tested his ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ character out with his kids
Depp had many inspirations that informed his peculiar Jack Sparrow character in his Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. His instincts even went against the studio’s vision for the role. Speaking to Collider, Depp revealed Disney’s original plan for Jack Sparrow clashed with his own.
“In the original screenplay Captain Jack was written as a swashbuckler, a pirate who swings in, sort of fights a little bit and then swings out, grabs a girl and that’s it. I had different ideas for him,” he said.
Depp shared that he first conceived his version Jack Sparrow when he went to a sauna.
“My sauna. I was looking at various aspects of the character and I figured this guy has been on the high seas for the majority of his life and therefore has dealt with inescapable heat to the brain,” Depp said. “So I cranked the sauna up to about 1000 degrees and sat in there as long as I could until it started to affect me mentally. It was very, very hot, as was my brain.”
In a resurfaced interview with New York Post, Depp also shared that he had other inspirations for Jack Sparrow as well. Rolling Stone member Keith Richards and cartoon character Pepe Le Pew helped inform his eccentric pirate. At the same time, his kids also provided Depp a source of inspiration, as he would run by his performance through them first.
“I started out secretly testing characters on [my kids] to see how their reactions would be,” Depp said. “With my daughter we’d be playing Barbies and I’d try out these voices on her and she’d just say ‘stop,’” he said.
Johnny Depp worried executives about his ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ performance
Depp’s kids gave the star’s Jack Sparrow their seal of approval.
“They came to see the movie and I can tell by their reaction if I did alright. I haven’t been fired from my kids,” he said.
But the studio executives behind the Pirates film didn’t share the same opinion. When they saw how much Depp changed the character from its original design, they panicked.
“The executives made some comments at film tests for hair make-up and wardrobe when I presented the character,” Depp recalled. “They were like, ‘What’s he doing?’ Then I got phone calls: ‘You’ve got to lose the dangly things and what’s that sore on your face?’ ‘What’s going on? Is he mentally just gone, left the building a long time ago, or is he just incredibly drunk or is he gay?’”
Some didn’t think Depp’s dialogue was understandable in the film, which caused even more worry on set.
“The next thing, Michal Eisner, the head of Disney at the time was screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘Depp is ruining the film! We’re going to have to subtitle it. Nobody can understand what he’s saying. What is he doing?’ I can understand where they were coming from because their previous movie was Country Bear Jamboree, which I was not part of,” he said.
But he was so confident in his interpretation of Jack Sparrow that he was prepared to leave the film for his beliefs.
“They were uncomfortable and I put it to them that they were welcome to fire me or replace me if they wanted, because I wasn’t going to change what I had built. I believed in what I’d built, I believed in the character wholeheartedly and I felt I was onto something,” Depp said.
Johnny Depp wanted to see the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise end on a high note
Since debuting Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Depp has gone on to play the character for the franchise’s five hit movies. But Depp still felt his Jack Sparrow had an adventure or two left in him. The star once would’ve liked to give the series an appropriate sendoff.
“My feeling was that these characters should be able to have their proper goodbye, as it were,” Depp said according to IndieWire. “A franchise can only last for so long, and there’s a way to end a franchise like that, and I thought that the characters deserved to have their way out, to end the franchise on a very good note. I planned on continuing until it was time to stop.”