Pirates Of the Caribbean star Geoffrey Rush never thought he’d make a living from acting
GETTING killed in the first Pirates move was no barrier for Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa — and filming with the world’s best keeps him coming back.
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WHEN Geoffrey Rush started work on the first Pirates Of the Caribbean movie in 2002, it seemed very long odds indeed that he’d still be flying the Jolly Roger 15 years later.
For starters, the early word on the big-budget Disney production was not good. A successful pirate-themed film had not been made in decades — and the fact that this one was based on a Disneyland tourist attraction meant the cynics’ cutlasses were sharpened before anyone had seen a single frame.
“The first film was just called Pirates Of the Caribbean and we just thought it was a one-off,” recalls Rush. “There was a lot of questioning press about a film based on a theme park ride and hitting rock bottom.”
But as the production went on — and after the Disney executives had recovered from their initial alarm at their leading man Johnny Depp’s wildly off kilter Captain Jack Sparrow — it became clear that something special was emerging.
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Soon enough, the film’s title expanded to The Pirates Of the Caribbean: The Curse Of the Black Pearl, indicating that there were potentially more movies in the offing. As it turned out, Pirates was a smash hit, making more than US$650 million at the box office, earning Depp a Best Actor Oscar nomination and making sequels an inevitability. Small problem for Rush though — his thoroughly villainous and hugely entertaining Captain Hector Barbossa, the main antagonist, didn’t make it to the final credits still drawing breath.
“I thought ‘well that’s fine, because I’m dead, but it’s been a fun ride and I have had a really nice time’,” he says. “It was quite a different experience on many levels to work on something on that massive kind of industrial scale.”
But characters need never stay dead long in Hollywood — not when there’s money to be made — and thanks to the fantastical elements of the supernatural, seafaring franchise, Rush’s Barbossa was resurrected at the end of the second film and has remained in integral part of the films ever since, right up to the fifth chapter, Dead Men Tell No Tales, which opens on May 26.
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For Rush, whose career exploded after winning the Best Actor Oscar for Shine in 1996, it’s been a veritable treasure trove of acting experiences. For all their unashamed populist popcorn appeal, the Pirates’ films have attracted an astonishing array of acting talent, from fellow Oscar-winners such as Penélope Cruz and now her husband Javier Bardem, in major parts, right through to well regarded thespians and foreign language superstars in smaller roles. Even rock royalty has been shanghaied to work on the films, with Keith Richards (Depp’s inspiration for Sparrow) making an appearance as Jack’s father, and Beatle Paul McCartney bobbing up in Dead Men Tell No Tales. And Barbossa’s transformation from out-and-out, old-school, pirate villain to oily politician, profiteer and frenemy to Jack has been more than enough to keep Rush interested in coming back.
“There are all those things that made me feel like I was not treading water and just pushing out the same kind of cipher of the level of the first film,” he says.” And of course in this one, it starts with Barbossa having now become extremely wealthy and is running a consortium of 12 or 15 ships — he’s become a corporate pirate.”
But for the Queensland-born, Melbourne-based Rush this time, there was an added bonus — filming in his state of origin. Not only did it cut down the travel time but the Gold Coast shoot brought back vivid memories of the holidays he had spent there as child, long before the days of high-rise buildings and gaudy nightclubs, performing in talent competitions on the beach at Coolangatta, hoping to win a snow cone or a Dagwood Dog as a prize.
“That was the bonus of all time,” he said. “On the first film it was a commute to St Vincent. That involved a very long day flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles. It would always land at a time where the connecting flight to Miami was a five-hour layover, then it was an overnight stay in Miami to connect to a flight to Barbados and then you’d get into a plane the size of a mosquito, with some Rastafarian guy with the window open, probably blowing a big cone, to get me over to St Vincent. So 35 hours’ later I would turn up for work. That was all part of the adventure but being on the Gold Coast in closer proximity was great. And it’s also my old childhood stamping ground.”
Although Rush has been one of Australia’s most successful film actors on the world stage in recent decades, with four Oscar nominations, such a journey of working with the world’s best actors and directors was beyond his wildest dreams when he was a young actor starting out on the Queensland stage. Even after being encouraged and involved in theatre at high school and during his Arts degree at the University of Queensland, a life on stage or in front of the camera didn’t seem like a viable option long term in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
“I hadn’t really thought it was a career,” he says. “I thought I was going to end up as a journalist or an ABC newsreader or a teacher possibly — I had no idea. But I landed a job at the newly formed Queensland Theatre Company when I was 20 and had a three-year contract and I thought ‘my God, I’m actually working as a professional actor — this is amazing and I hope it continues’. But I had no ambitions because at that stage our film industry was just on the beginnings of emerging from 40 or 50 years in the wilderness. You didn’t set your sights on professional acting.
“Two generations later, younger people in their early 20s now can look to a whole multitude of people who are working internationally on all sorts of levels whether they are costume designers, cinematographers, actors. It’s changed — somehow in the Australian spirit something got unleashed in the early ‘70s.”
One of Rush’s co-stars in Dead Men Tell No Tales is compatriot and rising star Brenton Thwaites, who like so many current big Australian names in Hollywood — from Guy Pearce to Chris Hemsworth to Isla Fisher — came up through the prolific Aussie soapie system. And although that path is so markedly different from his own, which encompassed stints in theatre companies in Brisbane and Sydney and studying mime in Paris, Rush says there’s no sure-fire way to an enduring career, let alone global success.
Shine was only his second major film role — but when it swept the awards season more than 20 years ago and made him one of the most in-demand character actors on the planet, his years of experience ensured he was ready to capitalise.
“I am at the stage where younger people who aren’t in the industry but are keen to get a foot in the door and they say ‘can you give me any advice?’,” he says. “I always say ‘go and study or work — do either’. Just working and jobbing might make the process a lot longer because the frequency of employment can be haphazard. The thing a lot of those earlier soaps like Sons and Daughters gave people was longevity and the chance to work stuff out. But the advice I mostly give is that there’s no rule book.
“I have suddenly ended up doing a mixture of Australian and international films and that started for me when I was 43. So if you want to be on your toes and be ready to go for it if and when a whole mess of influences are going to inform every given decision you make. Sometimes it’s being in the right place at the right time.”
Pirates Of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales opens on May 26
Originally published as Pirates Of the Caribbean star Geoffrey Rush never thought he’d make a living from acting
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