What a Rush - Part II
Monday, May 30, 2011
So, with Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides sinking all kinds of box office records, here’s Part II of my chat with legendary Australian actor Geoffrey Rush.
In my previous chat with Rush, he eluded to the fact that there will indeed be a fifth and sixth Pirates film depending on how On Stanger Tides went at the ol’ box office. But initially Rush, who plays Captain Barbosa, says no one had any idea just how successful the franchise would be.
“No one commercially had made a popular pirates film, but Jerry’s (Bruckheimer) pretty astute,” he says.
“The first ideas that came through in the screenplay didn’t have the curse of the Black Pearl in it, it was just another swashbuckling ride.
“Then Jerry said they needed more to it and they came up with the idea of the Pirates becoming freaks under moonlight.
“It became so popular we made part two and three back-to-back.
“It was always a one-off at the beginning and it was only towards the end of the shoot when there was a week or two left that it was known as Pirates Of The Caribbean.
“We started getting memos from the Disney head office and once we saw the semi-colon on the letterhead we smelt a sequel.”
Rush says the “fantastic little cliffhanger” at the end of the third Pirates film, At World’s End, left potential for a fourth.
“I was pretty confident I had the Fountain Of Youth map at the end and that Johnny had the hole in it and it took them a while to thread that story together and freshen it up, but there are completely new storylines,” he says.
“Elizabeth and Will’s story had come to an end.
“They’re probably 120 years old now and settling down for a quiet life in Dorchester.”
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is sailing the cinema high-seas now.
With four films, two directors and a six billion dollar global box office gross under its belt, you would think the Pirates Of The Caribbean series is tired. That's not the case, says series stalwart Geoffrey Rush who has played likable villain Captain Barbossa since the first film in 2003.
Rush is renowned for championing independent film projects such as Oscar-winning The King's Speech, for which he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar and served as executive producer. But Rush says there isn't that much difference when it comes to working on a blockbuster franchise.
The latest instalment in the six billion dollar Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise makes you want to walk the plank. Four years after the last swashbuckling adventure, Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush arrrr back in Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. We first catch up with Depp's iconic character Captain Jack Sparrow in London, where the crown try to employ him to go on a voyage to find The Fountain Of Youth before their Spanish rivals do. After a daring escape, Sparrow runs into his father (Keith Richards) and a former flame Angelica (Penelope Cruz) at a nearby pirate bar before waking up onboard Queen Anne's Revenge, the ship captained by “the pirate all pirates fear'' - Blackbeard (Ian McShane).
For the first time in the series, which relies heavily on the shoulders of Depp's performance as Sparrow, the actor doesn't seem to be enjoying himself. It's only in the final 10 minutes the cheeky charm, flamboyance and liveliness that we associate with Sparrow seems to return. By then it's too late and Rush has been left to do all the work. But it's nice to see they took the minimalist approach to costume design with Sparrow. Not.
His wife has dragged him along to every speech therapist and doctor to no avail, that is, until she comes across the talents of unorthodox Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, above). Reluctantly, Bertie begins sessions with Logue which include peculiar exercises, outbursts of swearing, psychological tricks and what soon develops into an unlikely friendship between the pair. But after the death of his father the King (Michael Gambon), his older brother King Edward (Guy Pearce) is more interested in chasing American tale than fulfilling his duties as King, while across the way Hitler is gaining power and momentum. Bertie's speech improvement and newfound confidence is going to be put to the test in a time when the nation needs him more than ever.
The sets shy away from the overly-Royal sentiment that so often drowns period pieces. Instead it truly captures the grim and depressing sentiment of a nation on the brink of another war. And although the ingredients are right, The King's Speech can't help but become boring in patches. Between the fantastic montages of Bertie and Logue practising colourful speech techniques come tedious scenes, heavy in dialogue and little else. It's a shame, because director Tom Hooper has gone to such effort to make this period-piece as detailed and revealing as possible, which it is. However, in the end the stuffy British-ness tends to weigh the film down.
The God of Thunder or King George VI with a stammer? That was what it came down to for director Tom Hooper who was tossing up between comic-book movie Thor and period drama The King's Speech as his next project. But with The King's Speech headed for Oscars glory, Hooper definitely made the right decision.
Which makes sense, considering Geoffrey Rush plays an unconventional Australian speech therapist who's called in to help fix the debilitating stammer of King George VI, played by Colin Firth. Hooper himself is half-Australian and says it was his Australian mother who first introduced him to The King's Speech via an underground version on the London theatre scene. The film has come a long way from theatre origins to industry insiders touting it as a red-hot Oscars favourite, with nominations likely across several major categories
But the filmmaker is more enthusiastic about Firth and Rush's chances of winning at the awards, with Helena Bonham Carter even an outside chance for best supporting actress.