Johnny Depp: Made Disney Nervous With His Flamboyant Portrayal of Capt. Jack Sparrow

Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Capt. Jack Sparrow in Disney’s blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean and its two sequels was good enough to earn the actor an Oscar no nomination for best actor.

But Depp, the cover story in the new Vanity Fair, that some Disney executives were initially skittish over his over-the-top flamboyant portrayal.

“They couldn’t stand him,” he tells rocker Patti Smith who did the interview. “They just couldn’t stand him. I think it was Michael Eisner, the head of Disney at the time, who was quoted as saying, ‘He’s ruining the movie.’ Upper-echelon Disney-ites, going, What’s wrong with him? Is he, you know, like some kind of weird simpleton? Is he drunk? By the way, is he gay?… And so I actually told this woman who was the Disney-ite… ‘But didn’t you know that all my characters are gay?’ Which really made her nervous.”

As we all know, it turned out well for everybody!