Jack Sparrow has to be without a doubt the worst pirate that Johnny Depp has never seen. While testifying in his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, the Captain Jack Sparrow actor told the court he’s never watched Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. Depp played the swashbuckling but drunken pirate in 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, earning his first Academy Award nomination for the role he would reprise in sequels Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End, On Stranger Tides, and Dead Men Tell No Tales.
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Asked on the stand how the first Pirates of the Caribbean film “ultimately turn[ed] out,” Depp answered, “I didn’t see it. But the film did pretty well, apparently. And they wanted to keep going, making more. And I was fine to do that.”
In a 2009 appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman, Depp said he never watches his own films.
“In a way, you know, once my job is done on the film, it’s really none of my business,” Depp explained. “I stay far away. If I can, I’d try to stay in as profound a state of ignorance as possible.”
Directed by Gore Verbinski and inspired by the iconic Disneyland attraction, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl grossed $654 million globally, the fourth-biggest haul of 2003 behind only The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Finding Nemo, and The Matrix Reloaded. The swashbuckling blockbuster spawned two back-to-back sequels directed by Verbinski, 2006’s Dead Man’s Chest and 2007’s At World’s End, grossing a respective $1.06 billion and $960.9 million worldwide.
Two more Depp-led sequels, On Stranger Tides and Dead Men Tell No Tales, followed in 2011 and 2017.
Depp also told the court this week he had “quite different” ideas about the character of Jack Sparrow, bringing him to life with his own flourish “much to the chagrin of Disney, initially.”
“It’s not like you become that person, but if you know that character to the degree that I did — because he was not what the writers wrote, so they really weren’t able to write for him,” Depp said. “Once you know the character better than the writers, that’s when you have to be true to the character and add your words.”
While testifying in the trial where Depp is suing Heard over her accusations of alleged abuse published in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed, the actor said he would turn down returning as Captain Jack Sparrow in a Pirates of the Caribbean 6.
Disney is currently developing a female-led soft reboot of the Pirates franchise with Margot Robbie attached to star.
