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She could shiver me timbers. Walk me plank. Take a look at Davey's locker. Okay, now I'm just silly. She is a fine actress and not bad on the eyes at all. She is a PILP. Pirate I'd like to plunder.
Oscar-winning actress Penélope Cruz prefers smaller movies with less action because she feels the characters are more well-rounded and have more depth.
However, Cruz, 37, made an exception with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in Disney’s blockbuster action-adventure movie franchise starring Johnny Depp in his Oscar-nominated role as Capt. Jack Sparrow (whom he based on singer Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones). To date, the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies have grossed more than $2.6 billion worldwide from just being released in movie theaters alone.
In Stranger Tides – which open Friday and is the first movie in the series to be filmed in 3D – Cruz portrays Angelica, the first female pirate in the franchise. She’s also a romantic interest and rival to Jack, as well as the daughter of the legendary pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane). On their quest to find the Fountain of Youth, Angelica and Jack battle Blackbeard and zombies, as well as encounter mermaids.
“Angelica is a pirate and she has the pirate mind: tricky, manipulative, dangerous when she has to be. She loves games, but she has a good heart and her motivation is always a good one. But she has a religious background and very strong values. So she’s full of contradictions and I think that’s what makes the character so interesting,” she explained.
Cruz, whose film credits include 2001’s Magnolia with Tom Cruise and 2005’s Sahara with Matthew McConaughey, is the first Spanish actress in history to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She is also the first Spanish actress to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for 2008’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, as well as receive a nomination for Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for 2009’s musical adaptation of Nine.
“Angelica knows that to get what she wants, she has to be tricky and she has to manipulate, for example, Jack Sparrow. And she knows that to be his equal, she has to be a very good liar, a very good actress, a very good manipulator. So to get what she wants she’s capable of tricking anybody, but at the end, what she wants is something good,” Cruz said. “Angelica wants revenge (on) Jack. But at the same time, she needs Jack because they are both on a mission where they need each other. So the whole time they are tricking each other – but at the same time, they are helping each other.”
Stranger Tides is also a reunion for Cruz as she re-teamed with Depp, her co-star from 2001’s Blow, and Nine director Rob Marshall (who is working with Depp on a remake of The Thin Man per an article in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly).
The actress enjoyed working with both men again.
“Johnny’s so kind to everyone and so sweet and he has a really brilliant mind,” praised Cruz. “He’s one of the funniest people I know and he has a very big heart. When you work with somebody like that, it’s special. He’s a very unique human being.”
She explained that having worked with Depp on Blow informed her performance in Stranger Tides.
“(Jack and Angelica) have this dance with dialogue that is very clever, very well- written. I think we had a great script to work with. It was great to create that type of relationship with Johnny, but he and I are always fighting in the movies we do,” she pointed out. “In Blow, where we were married, we fought in every single scene. And in (Stranger Tides), we fight a lot, too, so we have to find one someday where we are not enemies. But it’s always enemies that love each other, you know.”
Many old faces are gone from the fourth film, most notably Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Swann and Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner (the majority of fans believe that their story came to a satisfying conclusion in 2007’s third Pirates installment, At World’s End). Also gone is Gore Verbinski, the man who directed the first three films, which launched the franchise in 2003.
The returning faces – besides Depp – include Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush, reprising his role from the first three films as Captain Hector Barbossa, Jack Sparrow’s rival, foil, and “frenemy.” The above-mentioned Richards reprises his role as Captain Teague, Jack’s father.
Among the new faces – besides Cruz and helmer Marshall – the most notable is the above-mentioned McShane as Blackbeard and French actress Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey as Syrena, one of the mermaids.
Cruz has nothing but high praise for McShane, her on-screen father.
“I think it’s very clever to cast Ian McShane because he’s such a great actor and he brings something to the character that is completely anti-cliché. He brings truth to everything he does. And there is something in the eye of that character that really makes you feel real fear,” explained Cruz. “He created a very complex personality and I love that, and it’s very, very clever on Rob’s part to cast him for this. I couldn’t imagine anybody better to play (Blackbeard) because he’s really an amazing actor, and what a great voice he has.”
To prepare for her role as Angelica, Cruz trained for two months to learn how to wield a sword properly. She stated that Marshall approached each fight scene as if it were a dance number, which wasn’t too much of a stretch for the actress, given that she danced in Nine, given that she worked with Marshall on Nine, and given that she studied dance for 17 years (classical ballet for nearly 10 of them).
“(Rob) comes from the dance world. He’s a dancer and a choreographer… that affects the whole tone of the movie, affects the whole crew,” she explained. “He creates this beautiful family of people working in the same direction, and everybody wants to make him happy because of the way he is.”
However, Cruz’s participation in many action scenes was limited and her young sister, Mónica Cruz, served as her body double since she was pregnant with her first child during filming. By the time Stranger Tides was done filming, Cruz was seven months pregnant. In January of this year, she gave birth to her son, Leo Encinas Bardem.
A challenge she faced when filming Stranger Tides when she was pregnant was being on an island that had no bathrooms to do a scene with Depp. According to Cruz in various interviews, given her pregnancy, she had to keep going in the water every 15 or so minutes.
One of her fondest memories of making Stranger Tides was filming in London, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. She called being a part of a big budget tent-pole movie for the summer season a “big privilege.”
“I found a very interesting character in a movie that is really big and it gave me the opportunity to see how those movies are made,” Cruz fondly recalled. “I laughed out loud watching (the three Pirates movies). I was amazed by the character that Johnny created. I remember when I saw the first one, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s so brave and so brilliant.’ And I was very happy when Rob told me about (Stranger Tides). We were in London finishing Nine and he asked me, ‘Would you like to be part of Pirates 4 with me and Johnny?’ And I said, ‘Of course.’”
She continued, “I have never done a movie like that and to go back to work with them again was something that made very happy… And I love the pirate world because it’s so attractive and so interesting. So, for many reasons, it was great. I feel so lucky that I can be part of this movie.”
She could shiver me timbers. Walk me plank. Take a look at Davey's locker. Okay, now I'm just silly. She is a fine actress and not bad on the eyes at all. She is a PILP. Pirate I'd like to plunder.
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I think she will have large breasts in this movie