By Tim Byrnes and Gill Pringle
It’s been a wild ride for Brenton Thwaites. The actor became a name when he starred in Australian television drama SLiDE, then winning the role of Summer Bay bad boy Stu in Home And Away. Thwaites has not-so-much dipped his toes as splashed into Hollywood, featuring in big-budget films Maleficent and Gods Of Egypt. Now he’s taken a bigger leap with a leading role in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Thwaites has been a film fan from a young age; the first film he thinks of when asked about his favourite is the action/adventure film The Phantom, shot in Queensland no less. The answer proved revealing, with Thwaites detailing his acting career being spurred on by his love of adventure. “I grew up in far north Queensland in Cairns,” tells Thwaites. “Lots of tourists come out to see the mountains, the tropics, and the reef. From an early age I was exposed to people from all over the world – different parts, different accents, different cultures – and I was intrigued by this. I had this love of travel right from a young age before I wanted to act. When I was sixteen I started to play around with plays, and I joined a theatre company. After that, I joined an acting school and developed a love for acting. They really merged, and it made sense that I’d travel for the rest of my life and be an actor.”
The adventurous side of Thwaites is present in his Dead Men Tell No Tales character, Henry. “At the beginning of the film we see him as a soldier in the Royal Navy. He’s searching for a treasure belonging to a mythological thing, and none of his superiors believe what he says. So, he’s thrown in jail, and eventually released by Carina (Kaya Scodelario) who shares an understanding of that culture and those beliefs. And so, together they decide to partner up and go on a journey.”
It was hard for Thwaites to contain his excitement at joining the cast of Pirates Of The Caribbean, a series he’s been following since its beginning. “It was wonderful!” he exclaimed. “I followed the first three movies throughout my teenage years, and it had been something that really inspired me as a kid in terms of opening up my imagination and accessing that magical child, that playful, creative kid that society sometimes tells us to close up.”
Just as exciting for Thwaites was his joining a cast of big names, like Javier Bardem and Captain Jack Sparrow himself, Johnny Depp. Acting alongside Depp was a huge thrill for Thwaites, but he does admit to being distracted by Depp’s flamboyant costume. “I was wondering if there was anything new to his costume. Everything that he has on his body means something to him, personally or as a character choice for the films. So I was looking at him going, ‘Is there any little piece or clue he was bringing that’s an introduction to something fresh?’”
Less distracting was Javier Bardem, who wore frightening make-up for his role as villain Captain Salazar. “In real life he’s not very scary – he’s the sweetest man in the world. But, as Captain Salazar he’s very scary. All credit to his make-up artist, he looked great; he looked the part which, for an actor, is quite rare in my experience, having done Maleficent and Gods Of Egypt. There’s a CGI element that doesn’t really allow you to work with your fellow actor; I was always frustrated by this. But in Pirates and with Javier they spent the time and the money to create make-up for what he’d really look like. That allowed me to react off the real thing.”
And did the virtual local boy take the rest of the cast anywhere exotic during their Queensland shoot? “There’s Byron Bay right down the road,” he says, “but I feel like Javier, Johnny and Geoffrey [Rush] knew more about Byron Bay than I, like what restaurants to eat at, and where to go. I backpacked around there as a kid, and slept in my car at that car park, and stayed in that crappy backpackers, so I wasn’t really going to recommend – ‘hey, Javier, you know, if you have a car and want to sleep in your car in some kind of weird car park, this is a good one. You don’t get in trouble, you can sleep the whole night without getting disturbed’.”
Next for Thwaites is Ghosts Of Way, a supernatural thriller set during World War Two from writer/director Eric Bress. The adventure continues!
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is in theatres now.
