It is well-documented that Johnny Depp based Captain Jack Sparrow, in part, on Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones.
So it is delicious to see them together on set in this week's splendid two-disc DVD set, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: Limited Edition. There are single-disc editions available -- but why bother?
"Pirates," Depp says on the featurette Keith & the Captain, "were rock-'n'-roll stars of the 18th century. The myth or the legend would arrive months before they would even make port, which is very similar to rock-'n'-roll stars. And it was about freedom."
Richards, playing a cameo and looking like a re-animated Egyptian mummy, happily mumbles, "Open the cage, let the tigers out."
Lots of tigers are out on the DVD, metaphorically speaking. The bonuses take fans on an epic journey from the technical side -- the making of the maelstrom sequence or the creation of everything from the pirate code book to Davy Jones' "cursed crew" -- to the personal side, such as shooting the mad multi-Jack scenes.
"This is one of the weirder days," director Gore Verbinski says on set.
Depp describes the process of playing many versions of himself as a pie with slices of the same character, each of them isolating a quality which is then taken to extremes.
Just as interesting is a peek into the rarified world of Chinese co-star Chow Yun-Fat, who has his own stunt double and an unusual way of learning swordplay.
Chow is also impish.
"I will never forget the long kiss I had with her," he says in subtitled Mandarin about puckering up on Keira Knightley. "Just don't tell my wife!"
Just don't miss this DVD ... unless you are Mrs. Chow.
