Bloom recently addressed the possibility of reuniting with Depp for another ‘Pirates’ installment

NEED TO KNOW

• Johnny Depp said that neither he nor his Pirates of the Caribbean costar Orlando Bloom can grow a beard while speaking with PEOPLE at a New York City screening of his new movie Ebenezer
• “I think we should have a contest of who can grow the fastest,” Depp said
• Bloom recently addressed the possibility of reuniting with Depp for another Pirates installment

A Pirates of the Caribbean reunion may hinge upon facial hair.

At a Sunday, Nov. 1, screening of his new movie Ebenezer in New York City, Johnny Depp said that neither he nor Orlando Bloom can grow a beard when asked if he would be open to another installment of the franchise.

“Well, I think we should have a … contest of who can grow the fastest non-beard,” he said. “‘Cause neither of us can grow a beard, I don’t think. I can’t for sure, but maybe he can. I don’t know.”

Bloom, 49, most recently addressed the possibility of reuniting with Depp for another Pirates movie while speaking with Entertainment Weekly at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The actor suggested he’d be open to a nostalgia-fueled return to the franchise.

The actor told EW that he connects “with [Depp] every now and again, because he’s amazing,” when asked if he knows of any updates on the Pirates films. “But I think, it’s like, that was so fun and it was such a zeitgeist-y thing. I mean, I don’t know how they do it or when they do it, but I haven’t heard,” he said at the time. “I don’t know. I think nostalgia is such a big thing in the world today. So we keep harking back to these things, because of the nostalgia and what the feeling you had watching whatever your favorite thing was. There’s that kind of thing that I think we’re seeing in movies as well. So we’ll see.”

Bloom and Depp starred alongside Keira Knightley and Geoffrey Rush in the first three Pirates movies, which became worldwide box office hits. Depp went on to lead two additional installments, 2011’s On Stranger Tides and 2017’s Dead Men Tell No Tales, neither of which featured Bloom or Knightley in major roles.

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Ebenezer marks Depp’s first movie with a major U.S. distributor since 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. The Oscar nominee stepped back from major Hollywood productions amid his highly publicized legal battles with ex-wife Amber Heard. Their televised six-week defamation trial concluded in June 2022, when a jury found Heard liable on all three counts of defamation related to a 2018 op-ed she wrote. The jury also found Depp liable on one count of defamation in Heard’s countersuit. After initially appealing the verdict, the former couple reached a settlement in December 2022.

Following the conclusion of that trial, a representative for Depp told PEOPLE that a report claiming the actor would return to the Pirates franchise was “false.” However, in July 2023, a source close to Depp said he could potentially return to the series. Franchise producer Jerry Bruckheimer has also repeatedly expressed interest in bringing Depp back for a sixth installment.

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