Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge releases on May 26, 2017…
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge sees the debut of Academy Award®-winning actor Javier Bardem into the world of Pirates as dead man, Captain Salazar. Javier Bardem was no stranger to Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ Pirates of the Caribbean franchise when he signed on to play Captain Salazar in the fifth installment. He says, “My wife, Penelope Cruz, was in ‘On Stranger Tides’ and I was very happy to be part of the group because I saw them working on the movie and I thought they did a great job, so I knew it was going to be a great experience. I felt honored to be part of it.” Film releases on May 26, 2017 in India.
Here are the excerpts from the interview:
Q: How did you feel when you learned you would be playing the role of Captain Salazar and were you familiar with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise?
A: Yes, I was familiar with the franchise. I was on the set of“On Stranger Tides,”and I also watched all the movies in the cinema. I felt honored to be part of it. My wife, Penelope Cruz, was in “On Stranger Tides” and I was very happy to be part of the group because I saw them working on the movie and I thought they did a great job, so, I knew it was going to be a great experience.
Q: Tell us about Captain Salazar. What was your first reaction to him after you read the script? Did you immediately have some idea in your mind of how you wanted to play him?
A: Not really. I think we—Jerry Bruckheimer and JoachimRønning and Espen Sandberg, the directors, and also Jeff Nathanson, the screenwriter—talked about it and had different ideas, but at the end we made it happen on set. I had some ideas and some images based on what they were saying about the character in the script, like when Barbossa speaks about him, and Carina, too, and based on that I had some images of a wounded bull, full of rage and with a strong need of revenge. But we also had to find the humor in it.
Q: How did Captain Salazar become a ghost and who is he searching for in the film?
A: The back story of Captain Salazar is that he was a Spanish captain, commanding a big flotilla of Spanish ships. He had a personal back story with his father and his mother that made him very opposed to pirates. He met Jack Sparrow when he was twelve years old, and was defeated by him, so his anger and his rage against pirates built even bigger. Salazar dies but wants to come back, and he needs to come back to life through revenge, through finding Jack Sparrow and breaking the curse that he created in him. It’s a story about personal revenge in the sense that it is not something ethereal; it’s more about a person who wants to really have revenge on one other person, which makes him more human.
Q: Are you speaking with a specific regional Spanish accent as Salazar?
A: Yes, because of the way they referred to him in the story as El Matador—the way we imagined he could sometimes execute his victims—and also because at the time the best sailors were from Andalusia, from the south of Spain. So we decided to bring the Andalusian, south-of-Spain flavor into it, which makes sense because those were the sailors at the time. So yes, I try to bring that in, which is not easy because it’s in English. But there’s something in the way that he moves, talks, and interacts with other people that may impart that flavor.
Q: What do you think fans and audiences should look forward to in this particular installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean”?
A: I think they know what they’re looking for and it’s going to be given to them, which is joy and fun and entertainment of the highest quality. It’s not only in the sense of visual and special effects, but also the fun of seeing Jack Sparrow doing his thing again. But there are also very interesting characters in the plot. There are new characters that are going to bring new flavor to it, new meaning, a different dimension to what it’s been so far, which has been one of the best, most powerful franchises of all time. It’s alive and it has its own beat, and I think people are going to really enjoy it.
Q: Has playing Salazar been a challenge for you?
A: It is a new challenge and that was, for sure, one of the things that attracted me as an actor to play the part. There is a point in the story where I can relate to him. I can understand his mentality. I like to escape as much as I can from a black and white characterization. Of course, he’s a villain, but also we can find empathy for him. We can find a way of being in character that people can relate to in one way or the other. And that’s the challenge.
And that was the fun part and that’s where Jerry Bruckheimer, Disney, the directors, the screenwriter and I all became part of the same challenge. We wanted that to happen and we all worked together to make it happen. It’s rewarding as an actor that in a movie this big you have room to bring your ideas and your proposals.
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