As the film hoists its sales and weighs anchor to start shooting, the cast of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is getting ever more international, with Australian model Gemma Ward signing on to play a mermaid.
While the Courier Mail (via the team at Moviehole) reports that it’s just a small role, she’ll be tasked with the difficult mission of looking good while wet and enticing men, alongside Astrid Berges-Frisbey, who is playing a fellow foxy sea-dweller.
Ward, last seen in The Strangers, joins a growing ensemble that includes Johnny Depp (assuming he doesn’t decided to take a break and make everyone wait to make the thing), Ian McShane, Penelope Cruz, Stephen Graham, The Losers’ Oscar Jaenada, British thesp Sam Clafin and, of course, Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa. Rush has been assumed as returning for a while now, but only recently put pen to paper on an official contract. Perhaps he was holding out for more pieces of eight. BECAUSE HE’S A PIRATE. DO YOU SEE? Oh, please yourself.
Talking of pieces of eight, this latest Pirates outing will be setting sail with a reduced budget, though *reduced *is a relative term considering this has Jerry Bruckheimer still on board as producer and the budget of other movies could probably just about pay for beard maintenance on this one.
Rob Marshall is the man charged with keeping it afloat, and is probably pointing his camera at scurvy dogs even as you read this.