Pirates of the Caribbean Made Johnny Depp Go Through Really Dark Times…the First Time Around
One of his most famous characters, Captain Jack Sparrow became loved by Johnny Depp, and after shooting the first Pirates movies, the actor was in a dark place.
Johnny Depp ’s career is phenomenal: even among Hollywood A-listers, it’s hard to find many actors with such an impressive and immaculate resume as his. Depp is known for his ability to completely transform and perform a new, more often than not freaky character — and make that character universally loved by the audience.
Of course, some roles stand out more than others, and you can’t “Johnny Depp” without saying “Pirates of the Caribbean ” just like you can’t say “Jack Sparrow” without saying “Captain” first. Both the Pirates movies and the iconic actor helped each other achieve new heights…and earn a scary amount of money in the process.
Everybody and their family dog loves Captain Jack Sparrow, and all of us have a great ally at that: Johnny Depp himself. The actor enjoyed playing the witty pirate so much that after the first movie, when it wasn’t yet known that Pirates would become a massive franchise, he felt hollow and depressed after taking off the pirate hat.
"I really loved being the character so much so that at the end of the film, when they wrapped the end of the film – and this has happened to me before – you go through a sort of decompression, and a depression where you feel like, 'God, I've just been this other guy for six months or seven months. I'll never see him again,'” shared Johnny in his interview with IGN.
Understanding how scary it may sound for someone who’d never been an actor, Depp went on to explain that it wasn’t about “turning into the character” but rather about his personal feeling of sadness — like losing a dear friend you’d grown to love.
“It's very strange. I'm not real spooky about that whole, 'You become the character,' that's not it at all. Just, knowing someone so well and having played them, having them be second nature, it just happens naturally. It's very foreign to the body to stop doing it," explained the actor.
Well, life definitely had quite a pleasant surprise in store for Johnny later down the line. As the first movie became an incredible success, Pirates of the Caribbean became an enormous franchise, and he got to keep playing everyone’s favorite Captain Jack Sparrow for years to come, until…well, that’s a different and sad story.
Source: IGN