Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow may get all of the hoopla, but the secret joy of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise has always been Geoffrey Rush’s equally devious pirate with an actual character arc, Barbosa.
First an adversary and then an ally for Sparrow against a greater evil, Barbosa is back once again for the fourth go around, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.”  This time he’s got his own separate agenda against the film’s villain, Blackbeard (played by Ian McShane). Bringing the character back was one of the smart things producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Walt Disney Studios did for the flick (discarding Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly surprisingly was a wrong one). Rush has described Barbosa and Sparrow as a bickering couple both with love for the same ship, the Black Pearl. The few scenes where Depp and Rush get to verbally spar with each other are clearly the best moments of the film.
Rush sat down with HitFix last week to talk about Barbosa’s evolution, the audience’s reaction to his character and his decision to go digital for Barbosa’s new wooden leg (and yes, there’s a story behind that).
You can watch the interview with Rush embedded in this post.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” opens everywhere on Friday.