The character of Jack Sparrow has been forever associated with Johnny depp. The actor was even nominated for an Oscar for his performance in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl’ and later returned to get into the skin of that cheeky pirate in four other films. However, it was by no means the first choice, to the point that it owes its own name to another actor.
The origin of its name
As revealed Stuart beattie, one of the authors of the story of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl’, we owe the name of Jack Sparrow to Hugh jackman, something that he himself explained in the following way a few years ago:
I initially wrote the character with Hugh Jackman in mind. Hence the name Captain JACK Sparrow.
In fact, Beattie stressed that he was “ten years“Trying to convince Disney to make the film, but the studio did not show interest in doing it until later. And it may be that the first ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie was released in 2003 and by then Jackman was known thanks to ‘ X-Men ‘, but at the time she practically knew about him beyond his native Australia.
Other candidates
Of course, by the time the project started with Gore verbinski In command, it seems that Jackman was not even an option for the character, but Disney did shuffle other interpreters before ending up opting for Depp.
One of the most unexpected options seen in perspective was that of Robert De Niro, but the protagonist of ‘Wild Bull’ believed that ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ was going to be a failure, so he ruled out participating in the film. Names as varied as those of Michael Keaton, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Rik Mayall, Cary Elwes, Christopher Walken -these two were the study’s favorites if they had made a cheaper tape to be released directly to the domestic market- or Matthew McConaughey, the latter because Disney believed that he looked like Burt Lancaster and they would have liked to give that touch to the character.
One that rang with special force was Jim Carrey, but a problem arose that there was no way to solve: it was impossible to square his schedule to participate in the film, since he had a previous commitment to lead ‘Como Dios’, a film for which he entered a whopping 25 million dollars. .