Philip Swift - Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides
I found a pdf of the film's press kit and it has some cool info about the character and about how Sam Claflin got the role.
"[Johnny Depp] came up with some great ideas, including the one of making Philip a missionary. He has a lot of great instincts about what works and what doesn’t.” (Said by executive producer Mike Stenson.)
To portray the two younger leads of the story—the beautiful and enigmatic mermaid Syrena and stalwart missionary Philip Swift—Bruckheimer and Marshall, along with U.S. Casting Director Francine Maisler and U.K. Casting Directors Lucy Bevan and Susie Figgis, embarked on a classic worldwide talent search. Selected from thousands of candidates were France’s Astrid Bergès-Frisbey and England’s Sam Claflin, both in their early 20s and with some experience in their respective countries (Bergès-Frisbey, of French/Spanish parentage, had appeared in films both in France and Spain), but as yet unproven on an international level.
“That was a real search because we were looking for fresh faces— new, young actors,” Marshall says. “We looked everywhere. We saw candidates in Europe and in the States too. It was a long process, involving hundreds of actors. But as it came down to the final few, it became pretty clear who stood out. Sam is a marvelous actor and handsome as well, but he’s also so fully rounded—he has humor, is as charming as can be, and is incredibly physical too; he’s actually a really good football [soccer] player. Astrid is playing a mysterious mermaid in the film, and we were looking for someone otherworldly. We saw that immediately in Astrid—she had this ethereal quality. She is incredibly grounded and very true, and so beautiful as well. And when we finally put the two of them together, we knew it was right.”
Adds Jerry Bruckheimer, who knows a thing or two about discovering new talent, “Astrid had already done some wonderful work in both French and Spanish films, and has a radiant beauty and is very soulful as well. Sam was a very recent drama-school graduate in London, classically trained, very handsome, and had already had major roles in two big television miniseries, ‘The Pillars of the Earth’ and ‘Any Human Heart.’ Astrid and Sam both did screen tests that excited us enormously. We just knew that they both had what it takes to make a major impression on the big screen and were proven more than right in that regard.”
“I play a missionary named Philip Swift who stands up for what he believes in and tries to right Blackbeard’s wrongs,” notes Claflin. “In the course of the story, Philip goes through a surprising journey, especially when he meets Syrena. He’s never really had any contact with women, so that’s quite a turn of events, to say the least.”
Bergès-Frisbey was just as gobsmacked as Sam Claflin when she learned of her selection to star in the newest “Pirates of the Caribbean” epic. “I couldn’t believe I was part of it until I arrived in Kauai for the first fitting,” she admits. “Syrena is different from the other mermaids because, in the story, she connects to the human characters, which changes her. Philip changes Syrena, and Syrena changes Philip because, from the first moment, they see in the other something similar to themselves. Syrena is different to the other mermaids as Philip is different to the other humans. He’s a really good person, and Syrena responds to him differently than to other sailors and pirates, who are at war with the mermaids.”
But shooting in paradise certainly charmed the cast. “On my first day of shooting in the jungle,” recalls Sam Claflin, “we were waiting for the camera to set up. Malcolm, one of the pirates from Hawaii, picked up a coconut which had fallen off a palm tree, took one of his prop swords, and whacked it open. Soon we were all drinking coconut milk, right there on location. Hawaii is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life, and I feel blessed for the opportunity to work there.”
The actors, who had to be together in a small wooden boat floating in the middle of the huge Falls Lake tank, forged a camaraderie based on necessity. “We were surrounded by beautiful mermaids, so that wasn’t a bad thing by any means,” says Sam Claflin, “but it definitely wasn’t the most comfortable of boats, and there were six of us in that tiny boat for four consecutive nights. It was kind of like island fever, but on a boat. But we started feeling like real pirates, singing songs, mucking about and having chats between takes. We made our own entertainment, and it was nice to get to know each other and the mermaids.”
In the end, as Bruckheimer notes, the best memories of shooting “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” are “the relationships with the cast and crew. Johnny is back, Geoffrey and Kevin are back, and now there are new friendships with Rob, John [DeLuca], Penélope, Ian, Sam and Astrid. The fun of it is making new friends and working with them.
