Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Returning as Pintel and Ragetti—who endeared themselves to audiences as a sublime comedic pairing in “The Curse of the Black Pearl”—are, respectively, Lee Arenberg and Mackenzie Crook. “Pintel and Ragetti are marvelous characters to begin with,” says Jerry Bruckheimer, “but Lee and Mackenzie did a brilliant job of taking something that was on the page and amping it to the nth degree.”

True to their roles, the U.S.-born Arenberg and British native Crook genuinely hit it off during the filming of the first “Pirates” film, inseparable off as well as on screen. “We sort of stick together like some sort of 18th-century piratical Laurel and Hardy,” notes Arenberg. “I always say that the luckiest thing that happened to me is that they couldn’t find short, bald and crazy in London who was the right match for Mackenzie. So they had an audition for short, bald and crazy guys in Hollywood, and that was a little bit of Kismet for me.”

Adds Crook, “Pintel and Ragetti are pirates who, like most pirates, can swing either good or bad depending on who’s paying the best fee. They’re the classic double act—one thinks he’s intelligent, and the other one appears stupid—plus Pintel and Ragetti had the foresight to stick their hands up and surrender at the end of the first movie.”

Jokes Crook, “We were smiling then because we knew we were making the sequel, and all the other guys fooling around on deck didn’t!”

“I don’t know what the expectations were for the first film,” admits Kevin R. McNally, whose Joshamee Gibbs has an encyclopedic knowledge of the lore of the seven seas and an epicurean taste for rum. “Working on it, I had no idea what I was in, really, until I watched it with a group of friends in the cinema. It came as a pleasant surprise to see just how good it was, adventurous, funny and character-rich. I thought my pirate days were over, but when I was shooting ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ I met Mike Stenson from Jerry Bruckheimer Films, who said ‘Pack your bags, Kevin, we’re going pirating again.’”

“I went into a state of bliss when I heard they wanted me back for the second and third movies,” says David Bailie, who portrays the speechless pirate Cotton. “I’m in my mid-60s, and not many actors can round off their career doing three major movies and all that it implies.”

When the filming of “The Curse of the Black Pearl” finished, actor Martin Klebba—who plays his namesake, Marty, a Black Pearl crew member of short stature but tall spirit—recalls that when he heard a second (and third) “Pirates” movie was to be made, “I thought, if they bring me back, cool. If they don’t, you know, I had a great time and enjoyed the opportunity. When I got a call asking me to come in for a costume fitting for DEAD MAN’S CHEST and ‘Pirates III,’ I thought, ‘Wow! How often does this happen to an actor?!’”

If the filming of “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” was an epic, then the shooting of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST could only be described, in the ancient sense, as an odyssey. Journeying from location to location, island to island, production was, in every sense, bigger than life, fraught with fantastic adventures, Promethean ambitions, Sisyphean challenges, Herculean triumphs. More than a year of filming (albeit with occasional breaks, and with much time devoted to the concurrent shooting of “Pirates of the Caribbean III”), a good part of it in the Caribbean, inspired the cast and crew—many of them grizzled veterans of dozens of productions—to redefine the parameters of their own experiences.

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