And in resurrecting his Sparrow character, Depp found himself in strange territory: acceptance. “On Pirates 2 and 3, we didn’t get the calls – ‘My God, you’re ruining the movie!’ By Anthony Breznican for USA Today.
…”In a lot of instances they [Disney executives] kind of were beyond supportive to the degree where it’s, ‘Keep doing it! Make some more stuff up! Add some more weirdness!’ But we did hit a couple of places that made them nervous. . . .”
Depp pauses for a long time. That devil’s smile returns. ”And it does feel good. It does,” he says. ”If you don’t sort of tread in the arena of fear, you won’t move forward somehow.”
Gore Verbinski, director of the Pirates movies, says he and Depp were trying to find a way to ”one-up each other” to avoid playing it safe the second time around. At one point in the sequel, when Sparrow is captured by cannibals, Verbinski had the savages drape a necklace of severed toes around his neck.
Sparrow then does something outrageous. ”People were like, ‘You can’t put that in the movie,’ ” Verbinski says. ”Well, who’s going to stop us?” Not the suits. Not this time…
