Pirates of the Caribbean 5 shock: Bill Nighy didn’t even KNOW he was in the movie

The franchise’s fifth instalment, Salazar’s Revenge (or Dead Men Tell No Tales, as it was dubbed overseas) came out earlier this summer.

Nighy’s character Captain Davy Jones appeared only in a very brief post-credits appearance – but the actor was none the wiser.

The reason is probably because he had no dialogue in the very short sequence – so film-makers could have slotted in his CGI-heavy character without his direct involvement.

“I didn’t know anything about it until about a week ago,” he told Empire.

“[A] cab driver said, ‘Are you doing the next one?’”, he recalled. 

“I said, ‘No. I didn’t know there was a next one.’ He said, ‘Well, you were in the last one’. 

“I said, ‘No I wasn’t’. He said, ‘Yes, you were’. 

“So that’s all I know. You probably know more than I do.”

Nighy’s Davy Jones was seen in a much more official capacity in Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End; at the end of which he seemingly died.

His return was teased at the end of the newest film, but Nighy has insisted he has not entered discussions about reprising the part.

Two people who did make comebacks they were fully aware of were Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, although neither character took up a particularly prominent amount of screen-time.

Pirates 5 received lacklustre reviews, but its ailing US box office was arguably salvaged by a strong performance internationally.