Pirates of the Caribbean/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Acting for Two: Reggie Lee played Hadras in Dead Man's Chest and Tai Huang in At World's End.
  • Actor Allusion: Keith Richards, an inspiration for Johnny Depp's portrayal of Jack, as Jack's father.
  • The Danza: The dwarf pirate Marty is played by Martin Klebba.
  • Deleted Scene: Scenes were left out of At World's End which establish that, if the captain of the Flying Dutchman has someone to come home to at the end of his ten years, he can vacate the post to another. Leaving this scene on the cutting-room floor strips important Character Development from Tia Dalma, who knowingly condemned Davy Jones to a Fate Worse Than Death by not waiting for him, and Jones himself, whose fury is now more sympathetic. It also downgrades The Stinger from full-on Babies Ever After to a Bittersweet Ending.
    • An alternate scene of Jack and Elizabeth on the island in Curse of the Black Pearl after Elizabeth learns that the "grand adventure of the infamous Jack Sparrow" boiled down to him spending three days "lying on a beach drinking rum" had her questioning whether there was any truth to the other stories that gave his reputation of as bad ass pirate, to which Jack responds by showing her various scars all over his arms and chest and then saying "None at all." Prior to this there was another scene where Elizabeth went for a walk around the island to dry herself off and then chastise Jack for wanting to trade Will for a ship, at which point Jack reveals that he never had any intention of doing any such thing, if only because Will was his ace in the hole.
  • Dyeing for Your Art: Many of the actors playing pirates have to wear false, rotten teeth, tanning lotion and contacts. Stellan Skarsgård's makeup took four hours to apply in Dead Man's Chest.
  • Fake Nationality: The Scottish Davy Jones is played by the English Bill Nighy (though Nighy himself claimed Jones is Welsh).
  • Enforced Method Acting:
    • The Black Pearl's crew screaming while rolling in the bone cages.
    • Will and Elizabeth's reaction to Jack's little "I've got a jar of dirt" song.
    • Will's reaction to witnessing Elizabeth's kiss of death at the end.
    • Used to some extent at the end of Dead Man's Chest. The cast was not told who would be returning, and were genuinely surprised to see Geoffrey Rush.
  • Executive Meddling: Disney execs (and fans of the theme park ride) freaked out on reports that Depp was getting his teeth capped with numerous gold teeth and piercings for what was originally intended to be a "kid friendly, spooky" companion film to the now-forgotten Haunted Mansion movie. Depp's way of handling this was to take out the offending accessories when the Disney handlers complained... and then put them right back on as soon as they walked away.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • Prop Recycling: The Queen Anne's Revenge was built atop the ship used for the Black Pearl in the previous films.
  • Reality Subtext: The real life British East India Company was The Aggressive Drug Dealer that introduced opium to China. And as we all know, drugs are bad, mmmkay?
  • Saved From Development Hell: Planning for the second film began in June 2004, but by November, the script was still not finished which forced Gore Verbinski to start planning some sequences without it. By January 2005 there was still no script, and with that on top of the rising costs for the film, Disney almost cancelled it. Around this time they started shooting...with the writers on hand, still writing the script. The same happened with the third film. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
  • Throw It In:
    • Jack's "bring me that horizon" at the end of Black Pearl was ab-libbed by Johnny Depp.
    • When Barbossa tells Jack "we named the monkey Jack", Jack the Monkey cocks his head and grins. This was pure coincidence.
    • In On Stranger Tides, while Jack runs in the jungle, he trips and falls - and Johnny Depp made sure to keep into character, by hitting the hole with a sword once he got up again!
    • Originally, Captain Hector Barbossa was just going to be "Barbossa", no first name, until Johnny Depp made a joking comment in the DVD commentary about Barbossa's first name being Hector. Cue the third movie, where Jack Sparrow explicitly calls Barbossa "Hector" specifically because the writers and producers had a Sure Why Not reaction to Depp's joke.
  • Trope Namer: For We Named the Monkey "Jack".
  • What Could Have Been: An entire game, Armada of the Damned was developed and nearly released, but for unknown reasons, was cancelled.
    • Former Batman actors Michael Keaton and Christian Bale were reportedly both considered for the roles of Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner, respectively, before Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom were cast.
  • The Wiki Rule: PotC Wiki
  • Word Of God: The creators claim that Will Turner is the best swordsman of the series while Jack Sparrow is actually the worst swordsman of the series, with Norrington and Barbosa evenly matched in terms of swordsmanship (though what Jack lacks in actual talent he makes up for with improv).
  • Word of Saint Paul: Johnny Depp has said that Jack Sparrow has syphilis.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Pirates_of_the_Caribbean/Trivia?oldid=1677957"