A Minute With: ‘Pirates’ director Rob Marshall

Having established his directing bona fides with screen adaptations of the musicals ‘Chicago’ and ‘Nine,’ Rob Marshall steps into the action arena for the first time with Disney’s big-budget summer sequel ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.’ He said about the film prior to its Cannes premiere on Saturday.
Q: What was your first reaction when you got the call to direct the latest installment of ‘Pirates’?
A: I was thrilled, because I’d always wanted to work with Johnny. We had mutual friends in common, and people had said to me, you’d be a wonderful team together, you’d really enjoy each other. Secretively, I’ve always been interested in adventure, action, something for the family. As a director, you want to constantly change it up, you want to have variety in your career and not do the same thing over and over again. So I was excited about the idea of doing a different kind of genre.
Q: ‘Pirates’ is an established franchise. Did you have any concerns about how much creative input you’d be able to have?
A: The most important thing for me was to take a look at the script. I saw how I could have my entrance into this world, because the script was a completely new story with so many new characters that I felt it was the beginning of a whole new storyline and a whole new beginning for pirates. That gave me a great deal of relief that I could find my way into the material.
Q: Both Johnny and producer Jerry Bruckheimer are strong personalities. How did you all negotiate your roles?
A: They were incredibly welcoming, and that was another reason why I was excited to do it as well. They weren’t looking to replicate what they had done before. They were looking for new blood, a sort of new take on things. They were excited to hear what I had to say. I never ever heard the words, ‘Well, we’ve done it this way.’ Ever.
Q: You were responsible for bringing Penelope Cruz on board?
A: I did, although the moment I mentioned her name to Johnny and Jerry, they said absolutely. Johnny loved working with her on a movie called ‘Blow’ years ago. It was pretty clear this character needed to be formidable. We needed to find an actress who could not only go toe to toe with Johnny and match him, but also needed to be all the things that Jack Sparrow is in a way. She needed to be funny and clever and smart and crafty and beautiful. It was an enormous bill to fill. It was really clear that it was Penelope. She’s looking for variety in her career, too, and she’d never done anything like this before on this scale, so she was very excited to do it.
Q: How did you prepare for handling such a big production?
A: The focus for me all through pre-production was all about story and character. I really wanted to make sure that that was the center of it all, because you can get lost in a picture like this, with all the other things.
Q: Coming from a background in choreography, did that help you mount the action pieces?
A: I felt very at home doing action. Choreography and action are very similar. Through physicalisation, through something active, you’re trying to tell a story and also develop character. In addition to handling all sorts of things like movement and large numbers of people, the action sequences felt like big production numbers.
Q: Johnny himself almost dances his way through the role in the previous movies.
A: I always say, ‘Johnny, you’re a major dancer, like Fred Astaire,’ and he says ‘You’re crazy.’ But I mean it, he’s one of the greatest dancers I have ever worked with.
Q: How’d you find working in 3D?
A: I did a little class over at Sony. I needed to distill it down to something simple for myself. It’s complicated, but I grasped the basic elements and, of course, you learn as you go. I’m from the school where I don’t feel every movie should be 3D, but I think there are certain movies that lend themselves to it and this did, because you are on an adventure and with the 3D experience you are inside that adventure. We were pioneers in a sense. We were the first live-action film to bring these delicate cameras, all these rigs and things, into these remote locations. Normally, 3D films of this scale are shot on stage or shot in 2D and then converted. But we brought the 3D equipment into jungles and caves and waterfalls. I still can’t decide if we were insane or pioneers. But we did it and I’m proud of that fact, because you feel it, it feels like real 3D it’s not cheesy 3D.