Johnny Depp: Disney Initially Hated Pirates' Jack Sparrow, Asked If He Was Gay
Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean
Johnny Depp says that Disney initally hated his interpretation of Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, which prompted one executive to ask if the character was gay.
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"They couldn't stand him. They just couldn't stand him," Depp told Vanity Fair. "Upper-echelon Disney-ites, going, What's wrong with him? Is he, you know, like some kind of weird simpleton? Is he drunk? By the way, is he gay?... And so I actually told this woman who was the Disney-ite... 'But didn't you know that all my characters are gay?' Which really made her nervous."
Depp —who won a Screen Actors Guild award and earned Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for his flamboyant portrayal of the rum-loving pirate — explained what it was like playing such an iconic role.
"Somebody once asked [Hunter S. Thompson], 'What is the sound of one hand clapping, Hunter?,' and he smacked him. Captain Jack was kind of like that for me, an opening up of this part of yourself," Depp said. "There is a little Bugs Bunny in all of us."
The actor will return as Captain Jack in next year's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in the blockbuster franchise.
What do you think of Depp's interpretation of Captain Jack Sparrow?