THE NEW HANDS ON DECK
Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario are newcomers in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Thwaites plays the son of Will Turner, who is on a mission to break his father’s curse. Scodelario plays Carina Smyth, a determined astronomer searchin
THE AUDITION PROCESS
“I was handed the script years ago when I was doing the rounds the first time,” Scodelario says. “I think it was two female characters then.”
She was filming the second Maze Runner movie when an invitation to audition came around again. Instead of showing up in person, the actress did a video with “all the Maze Runner boys” playing assorted Pirates parts. Months later, she met with Thwaites, who was already cast after a few auditions, to do a chemistry read. “We had a really cool connection and it went from there,” Scodelario says.
THE FAN FACTOR
Both saw their first Pirates movie as teens. “I was 14 and she was 13,” Thwaites says.
Recalls Scodelario: “I remember it being a huge part of the social scene at school before social media.”
Scodelario says she was anxious to meet Johnny Depp at the initial table read of the script “so I got that out of the way.”
It was another story much later on set in Australia when Depp showed up as Captain Jack. “I completely lost it,” she says. “I went full fan girl.”
HANGING AROUND
In the opening of the film, Scodelario’s Carina is to be hanged when her astronomy thoughts are confused with witchcraft musings.
“It was quite scary, actually,” she says of the hanging sequence. “I didn’t think it would freak me out as much as it did.”
To make matters more complicated, the actress had previously dislocated her shoulder slipping on the deck of the Black Pearl. “I had to wear a sling between takes.”
Researching witchcraft was easier. Scodelario was born on Friday the 13th.
“And my mom is Brazilian and she’s very superstitious and says that I have a witch’s freckle on my ear. I tapped into my witchy side.”
A SIXTH PIRATES PICTURE
“I think it would be really cool, especially with how Carina ends this movie with a new identity,” Scodelario says.
The end kind of feels like the start of their journey,” Thwaites says.