Stellan Skarsgard Refused to Use Motion Capture For ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’
During the press tour for Dune: Part 2, Stellan Skarsgard revealed tha the had to spend hours in the makeup chair in order play the villainainous Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Interestingly, according to Skarsgard, it was not the first time that he had undergone a physical transformation for a blockbuster role.
When working in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise as Bootstrap Bill, the barnacled-covered father of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Skarsgard opted to spend hours in the makeup chair as opposed to simply doing his scenes using motion capture. While his otherworldy co-stars would simply place the motion-capture dots on their faces and get to work, Skarsgaard chose to wear prosthetics.
“I was the only one on set with real prosthetics on,” Skarsgåard said. “Everyone else on that ship showed up five minutes before we started shooting and had dots put on their face, and away they went. I had been there for six hours. But the thing is, I like it. I like to see the artists paint, if that makes sense.”
Creating a Lasting Image
In the end, Skarsgard believed the extra effort was worth it. In regards to his Dune performance, he says it is all about leaving a lasting image.
“It was painful, but it was worth it,” Skarsgård said. “We wanted him to be so well defined as an image that he made an imprint on people just by showing up on the screen. And that imprint should last throughout the film without having him show up all the time.”
The State of the Box Office
With roles in Star Wars, the MCU, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Dune, Skarsgard is no stranger to blockbuster films. When asked about the current state of the box office, and what hits like Dune and Oppenheimer meant for theaters, Skarsgard had an interesting response.
“Those films you named made a lot of money, so it makes the studio heads courageous,” Skarsgåard said. “But it only takes one flop to make them scared again. The thing is, it takes a lot of talent to make an ‘Oppenheimer’ or a ‘Dune,’ and we can’t produce that much talent enough to have 100 releases like that each year. But I think the cinema will survive.”
“They will go back to how the multiplex was intended to be,” he added. “The biggest screens show the biggest blockbusters, and the smaller screens show other films. What has been happening is they show the same [stuff] on all the screens. I think that will change. I’m positive.”
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