Bloom saw the film as a way to further open the door to audiences that are still just getting to know him as an actor. He also was enthusiastic about working with Jerry Bruckheimer again. “I’m trying to make smart choices,” he acknowledges. “I was already familiar with the way Jerry does business—it’s very slick, very tight and he does his best to cover every detail and make sure everything is done the right way. You see the same work ethic in everyone at his company; it’s amazing and it’s a trait that gives an actor security. This project just had the right elements.”
Like Depp, the young actor also saw the role of Turner as a way to fulfill a childhood fantasy. “It’s so exciting to work on a pirate movie. It’s every boy’s dream,” he raves. “To actually be living the dream out on the open seas has been great fun.”
Although Bloom sees young Will as quite straitlaced at first, “he really does develop. He’s very earnest, very true blue—then, without warning, he finds himself thrown into the middle of an exciting yet dangerous adventure. This is a coming of age story for Will.”
“Orlando was amazing,” Depp asserts. “He probably had the most difficult role in the film because he plays the straight, earnest, uptight character who, in a lot of ways, is the eyes and the ears of the audience. I thought he pulled it off beautifully.”
The casting of Depp and Bloom in the roles of Jack and Will, respectively, helped emphasize the interesting dynamic that develops between the characters. “Jack and Will are definitely an odd couple,” Jerry Bruckheimer says. “But Will inadvertently learns a lot from spending time with a pirate. Despite Will’s best efforts to adhere to the social class structure, he realizes that some rules are meant to be broken.”
Orlando Bloom agrees. “Will has grown up without a father figure, so he has to look to the role models around him, and in Port Royal, those are naval officers. When Will and Jack are thrown together, Jack opens Will’s eyes to what it means to be a man. He teaches him that he can’t just blindly follow nonsensical rules; a man has to make his own decisions, right or wrong, and go after what he wants in life.”
Johnny Depp sees the relationship between Jack and Will plainly as “two characters that make a whole.”
Both Jack Sparrow and Will Turner change Elizabeth Swann’s notions of romance and adventure forever. The daughter of Port Royal’s governor, Elizabeth can date her aristocratic lineage back hundreds of years. She is more than a station or two above a simple blacksmith’s apprentice. But contrary to her patrician and fairly sheltered upbringing, Elizabeth is no shrinking violet. As actress Keira Knightley is fond of saying, “Elizabeth is a 21st century girl stuck in an 18th century world.
“She is amazing,” declares Knightley. “Elizabeth has a modern outlook. She is strong and very independent, and when she’s faced with some terrifying obstacles and daunting choices, she kicks ass!”
Bruckheimer and Verbinski took great care in selecting just the right actress for the role of Elizabeth Swann. They considered every imaginable female lead, from famous faces to complete unknowns. But after meeting Knightley, they saw in her that certain something, an indescribable quality that radiated from the 17-year-old, reminiscent of motion picture stars from Hollywood’s heyday.
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