Johnny Depp Says Disney Originally Hated His Jack Sparrow Performance

Jack Sparrow is one of Johnny Depp‘s most iconic roles. He has played the character in five films and even earned an Oscar nomination for the part, but Disney was not a fan of his performance at first!

The 55-year-old actor revealed in a new interview that Disney execs tried to fire him during production and they “hated” him.

“Disney hated me. [They were] thinking of every way they could to get rid of me, to fire me. ‘Oh, we’re going to have to subtitle him.’ ‘We don’t understand Captain Jack Sparrow. What’s wrong with him?’ ‘What’s wrong with his arms?’ ‘Is he drunk?’ ‘Is he mentally fucking stupefied?’ ‘Is he gay?’” Johnny told British GQ.

He added, “They asked me, ‘Is he gay?’ and I answered the question over the phone. It was a lady called Nina Jacobson from Disney at the time and she asked me a couple of questions and then said, ‘What is it, Johnny? Is he gay?’ My tendency, of course, is to be irreverent so I said, ‘Nina, didn’t you know all my characters are gay?’ That was a pretty abrupt end to the conversation. And I just continued shaping Jack the way I believed was best.”

Nina went on to produce The Hunger Games franchise, Crazy Rich Asians, and the TV shows American Crime Story and Pose.

Pictured inside: Johnny attending the premiere of his upcoming movie Richard Says Goodbye during the 2018 Zurich Film Festival on Friday night (October 5) at Festival Centre in Zurich, Switzerland.