On the Set of Pirates with Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom: Harris said being on the set surrounded by Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and the rest of the guys was nerve-racking. “It was, especially because of my first day of shooting I actually flew from London to Los Angeles and started filming, and I caught a cold on the plane over and ended up losing my voice. I wasn’t allowed to speak during any intervals in filming. I had to use sign language because the doctor said that if I spoke too much, I could lose my voice and not be able to continue filming.”
Harris had to communicate using her own form of sign language so as not to strain her voice. “Orlando was doing most of interpretation for me of my sign language. He was very good at that.”
Harris says she was surprised by how down-to-earth both Depp and Bloom were on the set. “And how absolutely lovely and yeah, just real. There were no airs and graces. You know, it’s just basically when you get down and you start doing work together, it’s just like working with anybody else, really, any other actor, which is nice. You completely forget about who they are and their star status.”
While Harris enjoyed her experience with the Pirates cast, she’s still not sure she ever met the real Johnny Depp. “You know I don’t think I ever got to see him as Johnny, because he stays in character the whole time, and speaks with the accent the whole time. …I think he’s quite shy, really, I think he’s quite sort of shy and he’s very humorous and very witty.”
Being a Newbie Working with Returning Pirates Actors: Harris wishes there had been some sort of initiation process for Pirates rookies. “I wish there had been, actually, because I only have two scenes effectively in P2 and so it was very difficult because all the characters had been on it before, generally, and were quite bonded. It was quite difficult kind of finding my feet in amongst all of that, so I wish there had been some kind of initiation process. But what was really nice was that I’d worked with Kevin McNally [who plays Joshamee Gibbs, Jack Sparrow’s right-hand man] when I left drama school. He’s actually the first actor that I’d had worked with and I had one line in the film that he did. He remembered me from that and he kind of took me under his wing, so that was really nice.”
The Make-Up Process – Turning Into Tia Dalma: Harris confirmed she had input into the costume and make-up worn by her character, Tia Dalma. “Yeah, they were great actually. Martin Samuel did the hair and Ve Neill did the makeup and Penny Rose did the costume. They were all open to suggestion and we actually spent two days just trying on different looks and variations [with] me saying, ‘I like this.’ They would say, ‘Bring in pictures,’ and I brought in pictures. They said, ‘Yeah, that’s a really good idea. We’ll incorporate it.’ It was fantastic! And then what ended up happening was that we all ended up on a look that we loved, we brought it to Gore [Verbinski] and he said, ‘No, that’s way too much.’”
They went to Verbinski with not just a sketch, but with Harris totally made up as Tia. “We did it all, got it all ready. I got all in the costume and everything and went to see Gore and he said, ‘That’s way too much.’ He just said, ‘Wipe it all off and just bring everything down - like bedraggle her.’ That’s what we did and that’s the image we ended up with.”
Page 2: Naomie Harris on Pirates 3 and Miami Vice
