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FILM REVIEW 8/03

Shiver me timbers
Just what the hell is Johnny Depp doing in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie? John Millar hunt down the high-seas pirate and demands answers!

Just when it looked like the pirate movie had been scuppered, along swaggers Johnny Depp to prove the cynics wrong. Not only has the independently-minded star of such divers affairs as Cry-Baby and Edward Scissorhands and From Hell hoisted the Jolly Roger over the Hollywood box-office again with Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl, he's done it with great style and wit.
The way Depp (playing the swashbuckling but often silly Captain Jack Sparrow opposite Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush) tells it, such adventures were just waiting for the right time to be unleashed once again upon the high seas of cinema.
"The pirate movie got a bum rap for a number of years for some reason," says Depp who lists vintage films like Treasure Island, Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk among examples of the genre that made him excited. "Maybe the more recent ones were no good, that's why they didn't work?"
When he got the call to head a movie inspired by the Disney theme ride 'Pirates of the Caribbean' he grabbed the chance - but there was one condition. If he starred in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie, he would only do so as long as he was allowed to portray the pirate skipper in the way that appealed to him.
This meant having his teeth capped to give him a dazzling set of gold molars, wearing eye make-up and having a hairstyle that's like a combination of rasta dreads and a member of Guns 'n' Roses. He says that much of his inspiration for his pirate performance was the legendary Rolling Stone, Keith Richards.
"Pirates are like the rock 'n' roll stars of the 18th century and I thought the greatest rockstar was Keith Richards. He is the quintessential rock star who ever breathed. He is also a kind of pirate. So I took that part of Keith.
When I looked at Pirates I thought it would be very easy to do the swashbuckling type of thing and the classic kind of pirate. But it seemed to me that more than just the pillaging, plundering kind of pirate that another important element was the myth, the legend. Kind of like a rock 'n' roll star. So I thought that Jack Sparrow would be a guy who would want to propagate the myth."
When he meets Film Review in Los Angeles for the film's launch, Depp still has the dangerously charismatic look of the buccaneer. The four teeth capped in gold and platinum that were fitted for the movie remain in place, and he had tattoos on his hands and glittering jewellery wrapped around his fingers and dangling from his neck.
Relaxed and smiling, he says he's pleased with the way that the movie has worked out and he adds that now that he has reached the landmark of his 40th birthday he continues to be excited by the process of film-making.
"It's still challenging. I actually think I enjoy it more now because now I know what's important and what's not," says Depp. "I enjoy it more now because it has been quite a while since I stopped watching new movies and I don't read newspapers or magazines and watch all the television shows. I don't know who anybody is, who's popular and who's not, what movie made a billion and what made an absolute nickel. I'm ignorant with regard to the business and all I know is what I do. I know what my work, my experience and my process is and I have a great time living like that."
Interestingly, he uses nautical descriptions to explain why he decided to cut himself free from so many aspects of modern culture. "It was like a ship that had acquired a zillion barnacles, these things that slow you down in the water, and eventually rot the wood and eat away at you.
It's difficult enough moving forward every day, so why allow these obstacles to interfere with your life? The greatest thing is just to not care about any of it because then it just becomes about me and my work. I don't worry about success of failure."
Depp is famous for the preparation that he does for his film roles. To play the detective on the trail of Jack the Ripper in From Hell he read piles of books on the subject and got his Transatlantic tones around a South London accent. And this time he says that he sweated in a sauna to help get the feel of a buccaneer who had been marooned on a desert island.
"I was taking saunas every day, taking my script up there and just cranking the heat as much as I could stand, and staying in there as long as possible, which I don't recommend by the way - the script was mashed up at the end!"
The preparation process that exhilarates Depp includes that sort of action sequences that he had to act out for Pirates when he had to plunge into the ocean, caper about on various ships and show his dexterity as a swordsman.
The stars of received training from legendary sword-master Robert Anderson, who had doubled Errol Flynn on Master of Ballantrae and worked on Lord of the Rings.
Depp had, of course, started to get comfortable with a sword in his hand for the earlier movie Don Juan DeMarco, but this time there were many more moves to learns and the star described fencing as "a total body work-out".
He also coped with some extremely demanding action sequences. "Attempting to swim fully-clothed in pirate gear, with boots strapped to your legs was more difficult than I had imagined," he says. "The stunt work was infinitely more intense than other stunts I'd done - and I was dragged on the ground for blocks by a team of horses in Sleepy Hollow!"
Not only is he a student of rock 'n' roll, and a pirate movie devotee, but Depp's a fan of the park ride that inspired the movie.Shiver me timbers
Just what the hell is Johnny Depp doing in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie? John Millar hunt down the high-seas pirate and demands answers!

Just when it looked like the pirate movie had been scuppered, along swaggers Johnny Depp to prove the cynics wrong. Not only has the independently-minded star of such divers affairs as Cry-Baby and Edward Scissorhands and From Hell hoisted the Jolly Roger over the Hollywood box-office again with Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl, he's done it with great style and wit.
The way Depp (playing the swashbuckling but often silly Captain Jack Sparrow opposite Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush) tells it, such adventures were just waiting for the right time to be unleashed once again upon the high seas of cinema.
"The pirate movie got a bum rap for a number of years for some reason," says Depp who lists vintage films like Treasure Island, Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk among examples of the genre that made him excited. "Maybe the more recent ones were no good, that's why they didn't work?"
When he got the call to head a movie inspired by the Disney theme ride 'Pirates of the Caribbean' he grabbed the chance - but there was one condition. If he starred in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie, he would only do so as long as he was allowed to portray the pirate skipper in the way that appealed to him.
This meant having his teeth capped to give him a dazzling set of gold molars, wearing eye make-up and having a hairstyle that's like a combination of rasta dreads and a member of Guns 'n' Roses. He says that much of his inspiration for his pirate performance was the legendary Rolling Stone, Keith Richards.
"Pirates are like the rock 'n' roll stars of the 18th century and I thought the greatest rockstar was Keith Richards. He is the quintessential rock star who ever breathed. He is also a kind of pirate. So I took that part of Keith.
When I looked at Pirates I thought it would be very easy to do the swashbuckling type of thing and the classic kind of pirate. But it seemed to me that more than just the pillaging, plundering kind of pirate that another important element was the myth, the legend. Kind of like a rock 'n' roll star. So I thought that Jack Sparrow would be a guy who would want to propagate the myth."
When he meets Film Review in Los Angeles for the film's launch, Depp still has the dangerously charismatic look of the buccaneer. The four teeth capped in gold and platinum that were fitted for the movie remain in place, and he had tattoos on his hands and glittering jewellery wrapped around his fingers and dangling from his neck.
Relaxed and smiling, he says he's pleased with the way that the movie has worked out and he adds that now that he has reached the landmark of his 40th birthday he continues to be excited by the process of film-making.
"It's still challenging. I actually think I enjoy it more now because now I know what's important and what's not," says Depp. "I enjoy it more now because it has been quite a while since I stopped watching new movies and I don't read newspapers or magazines and watch all the television shows. I don't know who anybody is, who's popular and who's not, what movie made a billion and what made an absolute nickel. I'm ignorant with regard to the business and all I know is what I do. I know what my work, my experience and my process is and I have a great time living like that."
Interestingly, he uses nautical descriptions to explain why he decided to cut himself free from so many aspects of modern culture. "It was like a ship that had acquired a zillion barnacles, these things that slow you down in the water, and eventually rot the wood and eat away at you.
It's difficult enough moving forward every day, so why allow these obstacles to interfere with your life? The greatest thing is just to not care about any of it because then it just becomes about me and my work. I don't worry about success of failure."
Depp is famous for the preparation that he does for his film roles. To play the detective on the trail of Jack the Ripper in From Hell he read piles of books on the subject and got his Transatlantic tones around a South London accent. And this time he says that he sweated in a sauna to help get the feel of a buccaneer who had been marooned on a desert island.
"I was taking saunas every day, taking my script up there and just cranking the heat as much as I could stand, and staying in there as long as possible, which I don't recommend by the way - the script was mashed up at the end!"
The preparation process that exhilarates Depp includes that sort of action sequences that he had to act out for Pirates when he had to plunge into the ocean, caper about on various ships and show his dexterity as a swordsman.
The stars of received training from legendary sword-master Robert Anderson, who had doubled Errol Flynn on Master of Ballantrae and worked on Lord of the Rings.
Depp had, of course, started to get comfortable with a sword in his hand for the earlier movie Don Juan DeMarco, but this time there were many more moves to learns and the star described fencing as "a total body work-out".
He also coped with some extremely demanding action sequences. "Attempting to swim fully-clothed in pirate gear, with boots strapped to your legs was more difficult than I had imagined," he says. "The stunt work was infinitely more intense than other stunts I'd done - and I was dragged on the ground for blocks by a team of horses in Sleepy Hollow!"
Not only is he a student of rock 'n' roll, and a pirate movie devotee, but Depp's a fan of the park ride that inspired the movie.
"When I was a little kid I went to Disneyworld in Florida, we went on the ride and loved it. I went back with my kids just before we started the film and it was amazing, I was this little kid again, loving the explosions!"