Yo ho, Yo ho, `Pirates' life wears on Verbinski

LOS ANGELES -- This should be Gore Verbinski's moment. The director who helms the ``Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise has one blockbuster behind him, an almost sure-bet second about to open, and a final installment in the works. But there's nothing swashbuckle about him. Instead he's non-pirate pale and puffy. He sounds as exhausted as he looks.

Verbinski, 42, is careful not to complain, mind you. Well, maybe a little. He does miss his two sons when he's on location, even if the locations are on exotic islands. He misses his friends. He misses life, especially his own.

``My life?" Verbinski says. ``I don't have one. My children are older. They don't recognize me. Everyone says, `Wow, you're shooting in the Caribbean, that must be great.' Well, you get up before dawn, you drive to the location, you shoot all day, you get back in your van and, if you're lucky, you can have a glass of wine and then you're in bed and you get up and. . . . Look, you're talking about a three-year commitment with these last two movies. People get married, people get divorced in that time. Life happens and I've missed a lot of it."

The implication is that what he's put on the big screen in ``Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest " almost but not quite makes up for what he's missed. Clearly, though, he's proud of the result.

All of the stars are back for ``Dead Man's Chest" -- all bigger than before thanks to the first movie. In fact, everything about the second ``Pirates" is bigger, from its tub-of-popcorn length to its eye-popping special effects to its box-office expectations. Even the Disney theme park ride on which the original movie was based has been rejiggered to reflect the trilogy. That's some simulacrum.

Verbinski, however, insists ``Dead Man's Chest" is less about action than acting, with as much emphasis on storytelling as spectacle. Johnny Depp , of course, returns as Jack Sparrow , the swashbuckler whose swish is equal parts rock 'n ' roll (Keith Richards ) and cartoon cut-up (Pepe Le Pew ). Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom reprise their roles as unlucky lovers. But this time the villains steal the screen. Depp, in fact, is absent for long stretches of the movie, a decision that Verbinski says was both intentional and essential.

``You can't make the Captain Jack movie where Johnny is in every scene," Verbinski says. ``It's too much of a good thing. You have to construct a movie that could exist without him and then you put him in. Otherwise it's just too much sauce. You need these archetypes he can rub against. . . . He needs to rub against real characters with real agendas and that's where the humor plays best."

That's where the bad guys come in. Verbinski, once best known for creating the Budweiser frogs, cast serious non-Hollywood actors not exactly known for their action-adventure chops. But he says he wanted performers who weren't in it just for the Disney-size paycheck. He wanted actors who understood the wonderfulness of their roles and who would, by virtue of their craftsmanship, raise the level of everyone's acting on the set.

``These guys love what they do," Verbinski says of his villians. ``They'd be in there every day sweating with their characters. . . . Look, you're going out there every day on boats and you can't have anyone who's precious. With these guys it's the most important thing in their lives for the time they're making the movie."

Among the guys is Brit Bill Nighy (``Love Actually ," ``The Constant Gardener ") as Davy Jones , a creature of the sea that could be squid or could be octopus but that is definitely from somewhere deep in Verbinski 's and the designers' imaginations. On screen, the 56-year-old Nighy is virtually unrecognizable except for his eyes, which remain remarkably his own. The rest of him is buried under tentacles and a massive torso that were added after filming via special effects. On set, however, his costume consisted mainly of what he calls ``unsettling trousers," necessary for completing his character via computer.

``Yep, they take some wearing and not everyone can do it," Nighy jokes. ``The first couple of days you feel majorly outclassed by everyone else because they're all looking glamorous. They're all pirates. Then there's me walking around in my spotted pajamas with a little skullcap with a bubble on top. And also spots all over my face for the laser points so they can track all of my facial expressions. It's odd for the first couple days. Then it becomes just like any other job because the task is the same: You have to try to make it as authentic as you can."

For his part, Verbinski calls Nighy's character ``probably the single most important thing" to get right in the movie. ``He's completely synthetic and yet has to feel real," Verbinski adds. ``You have to get back to the energy the actor had on the set that day, that spontaneity, the nuance of the performance. That came from Bill, not a computer."

Stellan Skarsgard (``Good Will Hunting, " ``Insomnia" ) wasn't as lucky, special effects-wise. As Bootstrap Bill , way wayward father to Bloom's heroic Will Turner , his costume was a daily creation. He had to spend five hours having fake barnacles applied to his face every morning and another 90 minutes having them removed.

Fortunately, the Swedish-born Skarsgard, 55, wasn't required on set every day. In fact he managed to fly in and out to play the lead in Milos Forman's soon-to-be released ``Goya's Ghosts. " Still, Skarsgard says ``Pirates" was an intimate experience.

``When [Nighy] first started acting, I was like, `What the [expletive] is he doing ?' and then suddenly I understood he was acting for the [special effects people] to be able to get the tentacles right and everything else that would be added," Skarsgard says. ``So he had to be slower and bigger with everything. He did a brilliant job. After a while, I saw the tentacles in his dotted face."

Now both Skarsgard and Nighy have their own action figures, certain to make them popular with an audience demographic they don't typically reach, much as the first ``Pirates" did for fellow baddie Geoffrey Rush.

``The truth is you get completely overwhelmed," Verbinski says. ``Because you're being asked 100 questions that have nothing to do with each other from 8:30 in the morning until you wrap: what color shoes do you want Keira to wear on Thursday and it's Monday, and it's right in the middle of a discussion on cannons or actor availability. I don't know, it's kind of fun. I like to surround myself with talented and slightly demented people."

Verbinski, whose resume includes the much-smaller (and far less successful) ``The Weather Man " with Nicolas Cage as well as ``The Mexican " with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts , hopes to avoid crowded movie sets and post-production for a while once ``Pirates of the Caribbean 3" finishes filming in October (it's slated for a 2007 release). He says he doesn't know what's next, except that he has no intention of specializing in any one genre. He did, after all, turn down the sequel to ``The Ring. " So he's done with pirates, although the former award-winning adman in him understands the need for a trilogy. ``You've got to start thinking down the road: the three - DVD package," he says. ``That makes sense."

Lynda Gorov can be reached at lgorov@aol.com.