They were saying, 'Keep this under your hat, but Jack Sparrow's going to die in the second movie.' I went, 'You're kidding me. The fans are going to go berserk.'

I did not want to put myself on the line, as an Australian playing Britain's greatest comic actor. The fans of Sellers are obsessive, possessive - and aggressive. I did not want to risk their anger - or my own reputation.

Sometimes you do feel a script that glows in your hand the moment you start reading it. By page four of Shakespeare in Love, I said, 'I have to be in this movie.'

I go into a movie sort of saying what it's not going to be.

I asked, 'What is this guy?' They said, he's part-fish, part-bird, maybe a bit of lizard, and you don't have to go through five hours of makeup to play him. That was good enough for me.

It's their story, and I got to be the guy in the back while they were in the foreground.