Johnny Depp: Disney bosses hated Jack Sparrow character... and asked if he was 'gay'

Angering the suits: Johnny Depp has told how Disney bosses 'couldn't stand his portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow

Captain Jack Sparrow has quickly become one of the best loved characters in cinema history.

But the actor behind the eccentric pirate has revealed how Disney bosses initially hated his take on the character.

Johnny Depp revealed: 'They couldn’t stand him. They just couldn’t stand him.

'I think it was Michael Eisner, the head of Disney at the time, who was quoted as saying, "He’s ruining the movie."'

After working on so many independent, quirky films like Sleepy Hollow and Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, Depp's performance in the first Pirates film in 2003 brought him back to the mainstream.

But it appeared the actor decided to have a bit of fun with Disney executives, who were used to releasing clean-cut, family-friendly entertainment.

The 47-year-old, currently promoting new film The Tourist, says he wasn't bothered by who he calls 'Upper-echelon Disney-ites, going, "What’s wrong with him? Is he, you know, like some kind of weird simpleton? Is he drunk? By the way, is he gay?"

'And so I actually told this woman who was the Disney-ite… "But didn’t you know that all my characters are gay?" Which really made her nervous.'

In the interview in Vanity Fair magazine, conducted by American singer Patti Smith, Depp also reveals how he was careful not to stand too close to his The Tourist co-star Angelina Jolie during filming in Venice, in case they gave the wrong impression.

In order to avoid speculation about an on-set affair, the actor says he went to great lengths, including 'having to hide, sometimes not even being able to talk to each other in public because someone will take a photograph and it will be misconstrued.'

The father-of-two says he was apprehensive about meeting Jolie before filming: 'You don’t know what she might be like - if she has any sense of humor at all,' he tells Smith.

'I was so pleased to find that she is incredibly normal, and has a wonderfully kind of dark, perverse sense of humour.'

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