Pirates 4: Director Rob Marshall Interviewed

What follows are some SPOILER-FILLED excerpts from the interview conducted by Geoff Boucher:

GB: The trailer has a great spirit of fun to it and some new wrinkles — mermaids, zombies and Blackbeard, “the pirate that pirates fear most” – but it was also interesting to see the action moved into an urban environment with Jack Sparrow on the move in old London instead of tropical climes.

RM: I was excited when Terry Rossio, who wrote the script, presented the script to me and answered that question, “Where do you go next?” It doesn’t start on a ship, it doesn’t start in the Caribbean. The first act is in London and Jack has all his adventures escaping the king and being captured, so forth and so on. There’s a big carriage chase — you saw some of that in the trailer, he jumps from carriage to carriage — and then he gets kidnapped. Prior to that he meets Penelope Cruz’s character and they have a love-hate thing and, we find out, that it goes back years. The second act is on the ships. We go on to Blackbeard’s ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, and it’s a new ship and a pretty brutal ship. He’s incredibly evil and the scariest villain in the movies so far. Then we’re on Barbossa’s ship, and he’s changed sides now, he’s working for the crown, so it’s a British navy ship. The third act is in the jungles because it’s the search for the Fountain of Youth. We shot in Hawaii but it’s meant to be in the Caribbean off of Florida. It’s not in Florida where people think it is. What’s fun is it’s a real adventure in the end and you go through jungles, cliffs, caves to find this Fountain of Youth. It’s nice to have that variety of imagery, it’s not all the same.

GB: This project wasn’t necessarily the most obvious choice for you. It’s an intriguing path. What do you see as the career challenges and the creative opportunities for you as you step into the director’s job vacated by Gore Verbinski?

RM: The reason I did this movie was to work with Johnny. That’s the real reason and there’s all these wonderful rewards along the way. But that was the main reason. I think he’s a brilliant actor and I came to find what an extraordinary person he is — a genuine, kind, elegant gentlemen; he’s funny and just fantastic. Also, for me, I always wanted to make an adventure. I was a fan of the “Pirates” series as well. I was always in line for them. Maybe because I come from choreography, I’ve always felt that there’s something about action films that made it very natural for me to go that way. It’s story through movement. I felt very at home doing action. So it was thrilling to step into that world. And also it was great to learn how to work in 3-D. We’re pioneers in a way, I have to say, we brought these camera into real places. They’re big rigs and we took them to really remote places — we were shooting on high cliffs and in caves. We brought these cameras in there and they are sensitive equipment. When you make a movie like this, you feel like an adventurer yourself.

For the full interview, follow the link.