The Pirates of the Caribbean saga is a complete success thanks to Johnny Depp’s performance as Jack Sparrow, but Disney didn’t really his version.
Although Johnny Depp has played a variety of roles throughout his career, he will always be remembered as Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. His performance was very picturesque and quickly hooked audiences, but Disney did not entirely agree with it.
It all started in 2003 with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which featured Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, Captain Barbossa played by Geoffrey Rush, Elizabeth Swann portrayed by Keira Knightley and Will Turner characterized by Orlando Bloom.
As the films evolved, so did the characters, with most of them leaving the franchise at some point, but Jack Sparrow remained the primary and connecting link between all the movies. The intrepid pirate has become the show’s portrait, so to speak, to the point where he was added to the theme park attraction that started it all. Which is why, it’s surprising to know that Disney didn’t like what Johnny Depp was doing with the character.
When the producers were looking for the right actor to play Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp was looking to make a family movie, and so he approached the studio when he heard that Pirates of the Caribbean was in development. Johnny Depp did some research to work on his portrayal about a pirate captain and blew away the cast and crew at first reading, though it wasn’t a pleasant surprise for everyone. Johnny Depp decided to make a kind of Keith Richards version from the Rolling Stones, who played Jack’s father in the following installments.
Actor Johnny Depp has been very outspoken about how people reacted towards Disney when they saw his portrayal of Jack Sparrow, and conveyed that former Disney CEO Michael Eisner said he was “ruining the movie.” Johnny Depp also remembers that some Disney executives were looking for ways to get rid of him since they did not like his character.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Johnny Depp revealed that the former Disney executive, Nina Jacobson, was the one who asked if Jack Sparrow was gay, to which Depp replied that all his characters are gay. In that same interview, the actor shared that the problem with working with large studios like Disney is that “they may feel uncomfortable about certain creative decisions you make” and that “if the studio is not concerned, then I am not doing my job correctly”.
Johnny Depp certainly made Disney executives uncomfortable with his portrayal of Jack Sparrow, but that was what ultimately made the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie a success and he was even nominated for an Oscar (winner Sean Penn for Mystic River ). Although they did not like that version of Jack Sparrow from Johnny Depp at first, the success was evident.
