Captain
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| Captain Jack Sparrow |
Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow
Gender Male
Profession Pirate Captain
Pirate Lord of the Caribbean Sea
"Governor" of Rumrunner's Isle
Formerly:
East India Trading Company
Ship(s) served on
Barnacle La Fleur De La Mort Troubadour Fair Wind Wicked Wench/Black Pearl HMS Interceptor Queen Anne's Revenge
Bounty 10001 Guineas
(Wanted dead)
Family Edward Teague (father)
Appearance(s) Film series
Books
Video games
Ride
Portrayed by Johnny Depp
Captain Jack Sparrow is a fictional character and a protagonist in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. The character was created by screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and is portrayed by Johnny Depp, who based his characterization on Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and cartoon character Pepé Le Pew. He first appears in the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. He later appears in the sequels Dead Man's Chest (2006), At World's End (2007), On Stranger Tides (2011), and Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017).
In the films, Sparrow is one of the nine pirate lords in the Brethren Court, the Pirate Lords of the Seven Seas. He can be treacherous and survives mostly by using wit and negotiation rather than by force, opting to flee most dangerous situations and to fight only when necessary. Sparrow is introduced seeking to regain his ship, the Black Pearl, from his mutinous first mate, Hector Barbossa. Later he attempts to escape his blood debt to the legendary Davy Jones while battling the East India Trading Company. The character's role expanded as the films progressed.
The Pirates of the Caribbean series was inspired by the Disney theme park ride of the same name, and when the ride was revamped in 2006, the character of Jack Sparrow was added to it. He headlines the Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios, and is the subject of spin-off novels, including a children's book series Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow, which chronicles his teenage years.
Films
The Curse of the Black Pearl The Curse of the Black Pearl
Captain Jack Sparrow first appears in The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) when he arrives in Port Royal in Jamaica to commandeer a ship. Despite rescuing Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), the daughter of Governor Weatherby Swann (Jonathan Pryce), from drowning, he is jailed for piracy. That night, a cursed pirate ship called the Black Pearl attacks Port Royal and Elizabeth is kidnapped. The Black Pearl's captain, Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), desperately seeks one last gold coin to break an ancient Aztec curse that he and his crew are under. A blacksmith named Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) frees Sparrow to aid him in rescuing Elizabeth. They commandeer the HMS Interceptor and recruit a motley crew in Tortuga in Haiti before heading to Isla de Muerta, where Elizabeth is held captive. Along the way, Will learns that Sparrow was the Black Pearl's captain until Barbossa led a mutiny ten years earlier and took over the ship, marooning Sparrow on an island. Sparrow tells Turner that his father was a pirate known as "Bootstrap" Bill Turner.
The rescue attempt goes awry and Barbossa maroons Jack and Elizabeth on the same island he had stranded Sparrow before. Elizabeth creates a signal fire and they are rescued by the British Royal Navy. Sparrow cuts a deal with Commodore James Norrington (Jack Davenport) to lead Norrington to the Black Pearl. Norrington refuses until Elizabeth, desperate to save Will, spontaneously accepts Norrington's earlier marriage proposal. During the film's climactic battle with the pirates at Isla de Muerta, Sparrow swipes a cursed coin from the treasure chest, making himself immortal and capable of dueling Barbossa. He shoots his rival with the pistol he has carried for ten years just as Will breaks the curse, killing Barbossa. Despite having assisted the Navy, Sparrow is sentenced to hang.
At Sparrow's execution in Port Royal, Will saves Sparrow, but they are quickly captured. Elizabeth intervenes, declaring her love for Will who is pardoned, while Sparrow escapes by tumbling off a sea wall. The Black Pearl and her new crew arrive in time to retrieve him, and he becomes captain once more. Impressed by the wily pirate, Norrington allows him one day's head start before giving chase.
Dead Man's Chest
A year following the events of the first film, Sparrow searches for the Dead Man's Chest, which contains the heart of Captain Davy Jones (Bill Nighy). Sparrow made a bargain with Jones to raise the sunken Black Pearl and make Sparrow captain for thirteen years. Now the debt is due, and Sparrow must either serve one hundred years aboard the Flying Dutchman, or be dragged to Davy Jones's Locker by the Kraken. If he can find the Dead Man's Chest Sparrow can free his soul and control Jones and the seas.
Adding to Sparrow's woes, Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) of the East India Trading Company has a personal score to settle with Sparrow. Beckett wants the chest and forces Will Turner to search for Sparrow and his magic compass. Turner locates Sparrow and his crew on Pelegosto, held captive by cannibals. They escape, Jones captures them and demands Sparrow settle his debt.
Sparrow strikes a new deal with Jones to deliver one hundred souls in exchange for his own. Jones agrees but keeps Turner as a "good faith payment". Sparrow is recruiting sailors in Tortuga when he encounters Elizabeth Swann and James Norrington, the latter having succumbed to alcohol. Sparrow convinces Elizabeth that Turner can be freed by using the magic compass to find the chest. The duo head for Isla Cruces and find Will, who escaped Jones's ship and has stolen the key to the Chest. Turner wants to stab Jones's heart and free his father from Jones's servitude, while Norrington plots to restore his career by delivering the heart to Beckett. Sparrow wants it to convince Jones to call off the Kraken.
Norrington escapes with the heart amid a battle with Jones's crew, and Jones summons the Kraken. Realizing Sparrow is the target, Elizabeth traps him aboard the Black Pearl as the crew abandons the ship, and the monster drags Sparrow and the ship to Davy Jones's Locker. The surviving crew seeks refuge with Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris), a magic woman, who produces a captain she says can rescue Sparrow: it was her doing that brought Barbossa back to life.
Johnny Depp
Depp with a 'goatee' similar to the one seen in the films
Looking to do a family film, Johnny Depp visited the Walt Disney Studios in 2001 when he heard of plans to adapt the Pirates of the Caribbean ride into a film. Depp was excited by the possibility of reviving an old Hollywood genre,and found the script met his quirky sensibilities: the crew of the Black Pearl were not in search of treasure but trying to return it to lift a curse on them, and the traditional mutiny had already occurred.Depp was cast on June 10, 2002.Producer Jerry Bruckheimer felt Depp would give the film an edge that could draw teenage and adult audiences despite Disney's reputation for soft children's fare.
At the first read-through, Depp surprised the cast and crew by portraying the character in an off-kilter manner. He researched 18th-century pirates and, seeing parallels with modern rock stars, modeled his performance on Keith Richards. Richards later appeared in two cameos as Jack's father, Captain Teague, in At World's End and On Stranger Tides. Verbinski and Bruckheimer had confidence in Depp, partly because Orlando Bloom would play the traditional Errol Flynn-type character.Depp improvised the film's final line, "Now, bring me that horizon", which the writer called his favorite line.Disney executives were initially confused by Depp's performance, questioning whether the character was drunk or gay. While watching the rushes, Disney CEO Michael Eisner proclaimed Depp was ruining the film.Depp's response to Disney executives was they could trust him with his choices or let him go.Many industry insiders questioned Depp's casting, as he was an unconventional actor not known for working within the traditional studio system.
Depp's performance won acclaim from film critics. Alan Morrison found it "Gloriously over-the-top ... In terms of physical precision and verbal delivery, it's a master-class in comedy acting."Roger Ebert praised Depp for drawing away from the character as written and found Depp's performance "original in its every atom. There has never been a pirate, or for that matter a human being, like this in any other movie ... his behavior shows a lifetime of rehearsal".Depp won a Screen Actor's Guild award for his performance, and was nominated for a Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Actor, the first in his career.Film School Rejects argued the film made Depp as much a movie star as he was a character actor.
Depp's return in Dead Man's Chest was the first time he had ever made a sequel.Drew McWeeny wrote, "Remember how cool Han Solo was in Star Wars the first time you saw it? And then remember how much cooler he seemed when Empire came out? This is that big a jump."Depp received an MTV Movie Award and a Teen Choice Award for Dead Man's Chest, and was nominated for an Empire Award and another Golden Globe. For his performance in At World's End, Depp won an MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance, as well as a People's Choice Award, a Kids' Choice Award, and another Teen Choice Award. He has signed on to reprise the role for future sequels.
Make-up and costumes
An initial costume concept for Jack Sparrow before Depp's ideas took hold
Depp wears a dreadlock wig in a rock-and-roll approach to a pirate aesthetic.He wears a red bandanna and numerous objects in his hair, influenced by Keith Richards' habit of collecting souvenirs from his travels;Sparrow's decorations include his "piece of eight".Sparrow wears kohl around his eyes, which was inspired by Depp's study of nomads, whom he compared to pirates,and he wore contacts that acted as sunglasses.Sparrow has several gold teeth, two of which belong to Depp,although they were applied during filming. Depp initially forgot to have them removed after shooting The Curse of the Black Pearl,and wore them throughout the shooting of the sequels.Like all aspects of Depp's performance, Disney initially expressed great concern over Depp's teeth.Sparrow wears his goatee in two braids. Initially wire was used in them, but the wires were abandoned because they made the braids stick up when Depp lay down.Sparrow has numerous tattoos,and has been branded a pirate on his right arm by Cutler Beckett,underneath a tattoo of a sparrow.
Depp collaborated with costume designer Penny Rose on his character's appearance, handpicking a tricorne as Sparrow's signature leather hat; to make Sparrow's unique, the other characters did not wear leather hats. A rubber version was used for the scene in Dead Man's Chest when the hat floats on water.Depp liked to stick to one costume, wearing one lightweight silk tweed frock coat throughout the series,and he had to be coaxed out of wearing his boots for a version without a sole or heel in beach scenes.The official line is that none of the costumes from The Curse of the Black Pearl survived, which allowed the opportunity to create tougher linen shirts for stunts.However, one remains which has been displayed in an exhibition of screen costumes in Worcester, England.It was a nightmare for Rose to track down the same makers of Sparrow's sash in Turkey. Rose did not want to silkscreen it, as the homewoven piece had the correct worn feel.Sparrow wears an additional belt in the sequels, because Depp liked a new buckle which did not fit with the original piece.
Sparrow's weapons are genuine 18th century pieces: his sword dates to the 1740s and his pistol is from the 1760s. Both were made in London.Depp used two pistols on set, one of rubber. Both survived production of the first film.Sparrow's magic compass also survived into the sequels, though director Gore Verbinski had a red arrow added to the dial as it became a more prominent prop. As it does not act like a normal compass, a magnet was used to make it spin.Sparrow wears four rings, two of which belong to Depp. Depp bought the green ring in 1989 and the gold ring is a replica of a 2400-year-old ring Depp gave to the crew, though the original was later stolen. The other two are props to which Depp gave backstories: the gold-and-black ring is stolen from a Spanish widow Sparrow seduced and the green dragon ring recalls his adventures in the Far East.Among Depp's additional ideas was the necklace made of human toes that Sparrow wears as the Pelegosto prepare to eat him,and the sceptre was based on one a friend of Depp's owned.
During the course of the trilogy, Sparrow undergoes physical transformations. In The Curse of the Black Pearl, Sparrow curses himself to battle the undead Barbossa. Like all the actors playing the Black Pearl crew, Depp had to shoot scenes in costume as a reference for the animators, and his shots as a skeleton were shot again without him. Depp reprised the scene again on a motion capture stage.In At World's End, Sparrow hallucinates a version of himself as a member of Davy Jones's crew, adhered to a wall and encrusted with barnacles. Verbinski oversaw that the design retained Sparrow's distinctive look,and rejected initial designs which portrayed him as over 100 years old.
Characterization
According to screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, Sparrow is a trickster who uses wit and deceit to attain his goals, preferring to end disputes verbally instead of by force.He walks with a slightly drunken swagger and has slurred speech and flailing hand gestures. Sparrow is shrewd, calculating, and eccentric. He fools Norrington and his crew to set sail on the royal ship Interceptor, which compels the admiration of Lieutenant Groves as he concedes: "That's got to be the best pirate I have ever seen". Norrington himself acquiesces to this praise: "So it would seem", in sharp contrast to what he had previously proclaimed: "You are without doubt the worst pirate I have ever heard of". In the third film, while he leaves Beckett's ship stranded and makes off, Lieutenant Groves asks him: "Do you think he plans it all out, or just makes it up as he goes along?"
Though a skilled swordsman, Sparrow prefers to use his superior intelligence during combat, exploiting his environment to turn the tables on his foes, reasoning "Why fight when you can negotiate?" He uses strategies of non-violent negotiation and turning his enemies against each other.He invokes parleys and tempts his enemies away from their murderous intentions, encouraging them to see the bigger picture, as he does when he persuades Barbossa to delay returning to mortal form so he can battle the Royal Navy.He often uses complex wordplay and vocabulary to confound his enemies,and it is suggested that his pacifism may be one reason Barbossa and the crew of the Black Pearl mutinied.
"Gentlemen, m'lady, you will always remember this as the day that you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow."
Impact on pop culture
Jack Sparrow Sand Sculpture
When Dead Man's Chest grossed over $1 billion worldwide, Ian Nathan attributed this to Sparrow's popularity: "Pirates, the franchise, only had to turn up. There was a powerful holdover from the cheeky delights of its debut, something we hadn't felt since the Clone Wars called it a day."Empire in 2006 declared Depp's performance the seventy-fourth "thing that rocked our world" and later named him the eighth greatest movie character of all time.In 2015, a new poll of the 100 greatest film characters of all time placed him as the fourteenth greatest.A survey of more than 3,000 people showed Jack Sparrow was the most popular Halloween costume of 2006, and a 2007 poll held by the Internet Movie Database showed Sparrow to be the second most popular live action hero after Indiana Jones.In a 2007 Pearl & Dean poll, Jack Sparrow was listed as Depp's most popular performance.
Todd Gilchrist feels Sparrow is the only element of the films that will remain timeless.According to Sharon Eberson, the character's popularity can be attributed to his being a "scoundrel whose occasional bouts of conscience allow viewers to go with the flaws because, as played to the larger-than-life hilt by Depp, he owns every scene he is in".Film history professor Jonathan Kuntz attributed Sparrow's popularity to the increased questioning of masculinity in the 21st century, and Sparrow's personality contrasts with action-adventure heroes in cinema. Leonard Maltin concurs that Sparrow has a carefree attitude and does not take himself seriously.Mark Fox noted Sparrow is an escapist fantasy figure for women, free from much of the responsibility of most heroes.Sparrow is listed by IGN as one of their ten favorite film outlaws, as he "lives for himself and the freedom to do whatever it is that he damn well pleases. Precious few film characters have epitomized what makes the outlaw such a romantic figure for audiences as Captain Jack Sparrow has."Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Part Keith Richards rift, part sozzled lounge lizard, Johnny Depp's swizzleshtick pirate was definitely one of the most dazzling characters of the decade."In June 2010, Sparrow was named one of Entertainment Weekly? 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years.
In other media
Jack Sparrow also appears in video games and books spun off the Pirates of the Caribbean media franchise, among them Kingdom Hearts II, where he is voiced by James Arnold Taylor. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Complete Visual Guide gives a backstory to Sparrow in which he was born on a pirate ship during a typhoon in the Indian Ocean and was trained to fence by an Italian.Books following Sparrow's adventures before the events of the film include a twelve-book series focusing on his teenage years entitled Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow,and a five-books Pirates of the Caribbean: Legends of the Brethren Court series.In 2011, Ann C. Crispin wrote a novel titled Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom, which follows Jack's adventures as a merchant captain for the East India Trading Company.
In 2011, comedy group the Lonely Island, in collaboration with ballad singer Michael Bolton, released a song named for Jack.
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