Johnny Depp: Disney Hated My Jack Sparrow

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) Johnny Depp's flamboyant portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean" was good enough for an Oscar nomination, but the actor says Disney was less than thrilled.

Depp talked about it in an interview with rocker Patti Smith for the January edition of Vanity Fair magazine.

"They couldn't stand him. They just couldn't stand him," Depp says of Disney's reaction to his interpretation of Sparrow.

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One person there, he recalled, even asked if Sparrow was gay. Depp told the Disney executive "all my characters are gay," and he said that "really made her nervous."

Depp's next role is in the film "The Tourist" with Angelina Jolie.

"Meeting her and getting to know her was a real pleasant surprise," Depp said of working with Jolie. "You don't know what she might be like - if she has any sense of humor at all. I was so pleased to find that she is incredibly normal, and has a wonderfully kind of dark, perverse sense of humor."

He also told Smith he felt sorry for the way the paparazzi hunted Jolie, and had to be careful that photographers didn't catch them too close together so rumors wouldn't start.

"Poor thing, dogged by paparazzi, her and her husband, Brad...all their kids," he said. "There are times when you see how ridiculous is this life, how ludicrous it is, you know, leaving your house every morning and being followed by paparazzi."

He also compared his costar to another famous leading lady.

"I've had the honor and the pleasure and gift of having known Elizabeth Taylor for a number of years," he said. "You know, you sit down with her, she slings hash, she sits there and cusses like a sailor, and she's hilarious. Angie's got the same kind of thing, you know, the same approach."

"The Tourist" opens on Dec. 10.