Captain Jack Sparrow was famously played by Johnny Depp for years, but before he was brought on board to play the unforgettable pirate, there were other actors who almost played the role, and they would have brought a completely different version of it. Back in 2003, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was released, introducing audiences to Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), and Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). The film is based on Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disney theme parks, and kickstarted a film franchise.
The Curse of the Black Pearl follows Jack Sparrow and Will Turner who join forces to rescue Elizabeth Swann, who was kidnapped by the cursed crew of the Black Pearl, led by Hector Barbossa. The film was a big box-office success and received positive reviews, with critics praising the action sequences, score, and Depp’s performance. The Curse of the Black Pearl was followed by four more films, and they have all counted with the presence of Captain Jack Sparrow.
The famous pirate has become the face of the franchise, and Depp’s unique performance is a big part of Jack Sparrow’s success, which is why it’s hard and weird to imagine someone else playing the role – but as it turns out with most popular characters, there were many other actors considered to play this peculiar captain.
Many well-known actors were either considered for or offered the role of Jack Sparrow, but there were a couple of obstacles that didn’t make their involvement possible. For starters, writer and co-creator Stuart Beattie wrote the part with Hugh Jackman in mind, to the point where the character’s first name is a nod to Jackman’s. Sadly, Disney didn’t think Jackman was a star big enough to play the role. The studio was then interested in Matthew McConaughey because of his resemblance to Burt Lancaster, who was the inspiration for the original script’s version of the character, but it didn’t work out. The role was then offered to none other than Jim Carrey, but he had to turn it down because the shooting schedule for Pirates of the Caribbean clashed with that of Bruce Almighty.
Other actors in consideration were Michael Keaton and Christopher Walken, and when the studio was unsure whether to release the film in theaters or direct-to-video, Walken, Rik Mayall, and Cary Elwes were considered to play Jack Sparrow. Perhaps the biggest surprise in the story around Jack Sparrow’s casting process is that Robert De Niro was offered the role, but declined as he didn’t think the film was going to do well in the box-office, as it happened to many other pirate films. When he was proven wrong, he took the role of Captain Shakespeare in Stardust, but that one didn’t do as well. Johnny Depp was looking to do a family film, and visited the Walt Disney Studios in 2001 when he heard they were developing a Pirates of the Caribbean film, and the rest is history. If any of the other actors would have made a better, more unique Jack Sparrow than Johnny Depp is something the world will never know, but the franchise owes a lot to Depp’s performance.
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