"That's the general approach," he says, possibly blushing a little under the shadow of his awful hat. "And so, yeah, I just immediately looked for duct tape. I know, it's pathetic. And then I continue to wear them."

The pants remain the same, but there have been, as of late, many changes in the life of Depp. In his corner office at his production company, an elegant cave where crimson curtains are closed against the late-afternoon sun, he's sipping on a conspicuously nonalcoholic beer. He hasn't had a drink in a year and a half, though he won't use the word "quit." "I just decided that I pretty much got everything I could get out of it," he says. "I investigated wine and spirits thoroughly, and they certainly investigated me as well, and we found out that we got along beautifully, but maybe too well."

He's never considered himself an alcoholic. "No," he says. "I don't have the physical need for the drug alcohol. No, it's more my medication, my self-medication over the years just to calm the circus. Once the circus kicks in, the festivities in the brain, it can be ruthless." He would make rules for himself – for a while, he'd drink wine, but no hard liquor. He was really good at drinking, had no trouble keeping up with, say, Thompson. "Maybe that's why Hunter and I got along so well," he says. "I'm able to continue for great periods of time, weirdly. For weeks. There's no great point to it, ultimately. You realize that you wouldn't treat your car that way."

As Richards notes, Depp can be shy, in his way – there's a reason that he always wanted to be the sideman, never the singer, in his old bands. "I'm kind of socially inept," Depp says, laughing in a way that says This is embarrassing, rather than I know this is almost impossible to believe, given my otherworldly beauty and the fact that I'm, like, Johnny Depp. "And it was always a great crutch. Mingling at parties and stuff like that has always been not a nice experience for me. It's just not comfortable. Or, like, talk shows used to be in the beginning. So I found I needed to drink in those situations. Just slam a couple down and go, 'OK, I can muster up enough small talk to meander my way through this thing and get out the other side unscathed.'?"

He also had quit smoking for two and a half years, until Rum Diary director Bruce Robinson gave him a drag of a cigarillo as they finished the film. "Literally, the nicotine hits you and you're back. If you're a cigarette smoker, a serious smoker, then you're a junkie. You're a junkie to that drug." He smokes less than he used to, going through maybe six cigarettes over the course of three and a half hours today, but it's obviously a fraught issue: With every one of his tobacco packets, he takes the trouble to grab a Sharpie and X out the grotesque you'll-get-cancer picture and warning box.

"They show some guy with three and a half teeth and some sort of red, dangly bit in his mouth," he says. "So that's for the smoker to look at. OK, fine. He sets it down on the fucking table and eight kids see it. That's cool? Jesus. There's worse shit out there. I mean, what's wrong with these people? We all know it's not fucking good for you. Life's not good for you! It kills ya! Do you know what I mean? God damn! These are the same people who are so adamant about not smoking and being around smokers. No, you can't smoke on the Sunset Strip when you're eating outside – however, you are welcome to all the diesel fumes and every bit of dirt and filth and dust and disease and everything that gets rifled up in the streets."

The biggest recent change is a delicate matter: Depp's split from Vanessa Paradis, his partner of 14 years and the mother of his two children. "The last couple years have been a bit bumpy," he says, slowly. "At times, certainly unpleasant, but that's the nature of breakups, I guess, especially when there are kiddies involved."

"Relationships are very difficult," he says at another point. "Especially in the racket that I'm in because you're constantly away or they're away and so it's hard. It wasn't easy on her. It wasn't easy on me. It wasn't easy on the kids. So, yeah. The trajectory of that relationship – you play it out until it goes, one thing leads to another. So for whatever reason that ­ceases, it doesn't stop the fact that you care for that person, and they're the mother of your kids, and you'll always know each other, and you're always gonna be in each other's lives because of those kids. You might as well make the best of it."

Tabloids and the likes of TMZ (or TLC, as he thinks it's called) made much of Depp's spending time with pal and fellow whiteface aficionado Marilyn Manson in the wake of the breakup – as if he'd gone from the bosom of his family to the embrace of Satan. "Johnny and I were never drinking buddies," says Manson. "Though he was the one who turned me on to absinthe, I will blame him for that.?.?.?.?I guess it was some sort of fate that drew us together again recently. We were both going through some troubles in weird areas in our minds and in our lives, and being with him made me happier, and it seemed like it made him happier. You could call it a bromance." The singer says no one was more disturbed at their renewed closeness than his own girlfriend. "It just terrified the girl I was with. Like, 'Yeah, you're hanging out with Johnny Depp, he's single,' and that just meant the worst thing to any girl to ever hear. But he's surprised that girls want to talk to him. That's how childlike he still is, in a good way. I swear to God, he doesn't realize."

Depp (who's been dating 27-year-old actress Amber Heard) has also been spending time with a friend he only recently got to meet in person: Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three, who had been imprisoned for 18 years for murders that evidence suggests he didn't commit. Identifying with a fellow small-town outcast, Depp had been funding and supporting Echols' case for years. The movie star's house was one of his first stops. "Come here, fucker," Depp told Echols, and brought him inside, where he had a meal waiting for him. (Says Depp, "I thought if I had just got out of the pokey after 18 years, I'd want some fucking Tater Tots, man. I'd want some tacos. Give me some deeply trashy food.") They've since gotten five or six matching tattoos together, including one of the crow that's on Depp's head in The Lone Ranger. "Whenever we're together," says Echols, "it's not like you're with a movie star. It's like you're home. He smells like home to me."

Though a younger Depp was known for bouts of debauchery and hotel-room-smashing in the wake of past splits (Kate Moss, Winona Ryder), he insists that wasn't the case this time. "In terms of the breakup, I definitely wasn't going to rely on the drink to ease things or cushion the blow or cushion the situation," says Depp. "?'Cause that could have been fatal. I felt it was my duty to be real clear throughout that. I had something pretty serious to focus on, really, which was making sure that my kids were gonna be cool."

Depp's own parents divorced when he was 15, and he took it hard. So when he discusses his own breakup, he returns again and again to his kids. "They've been incredibly understanding, incredibly strong throughout the whole ordeal," he says. "And it's hard on every side. You know, Vanessa's side, certainly not easy. My side, not easy. The kids are the most complicated. The thing is, kiddies come first. You can't shield them, because then you'd be lying. So you can at least be honest with your kids, and you say the absolute truth to your child – that was very important to not pussyfoot around." Not drinking helped him with that, he says, allowing him to "bite the bullet and deal with real life, deal with clarity."

Except for his own office, the headquarters of Depp's production company, Infinitum Nihil (it means "infinite nothing," a reference to a Tolstoy line), are bright, airy and Internet-startup modern, with a big, open kitchen in the front. A meeting room is temporarily overflowing with Lone Ranger posters and theater displays, sent over by Disney – and that's the least of the memorabilia here. In the hallway leading to his own office is the huge oil painting of Depp as a vampire that hung over the fireplace in Dark Shadows. Depp's own artwork is on display elsewhere, including Lucian Freud-style portraits of Dylan and Brando that achieve impressive likenesses with gestural brushwork.

In Depp's office, his brown, computer-free wood desk is framed on the left by a Pirates of the Caribbean poster, and on the right, another of his paintings, a surreal and faintly creepy portrait of a faceless man in a featureless white uniform (hilariously, I later learn he titled it "Phil Collins"). There's a hundred-year-old acoustic guitar in the corner, and vintage-y art-deco chandeliers hang from the ceiling. On the bookshelves are various awards, baby pictures of his kids, volumes by authors from William Blake and Nathanael West to Neil Gaiman and Anne Rice. There's even a rare copy of Bare-Faced Messiah, an Eighties L. Ron Hubbard expos? that would make for interesting conversation if Tom Cruise stopped by.

We're facing double doors open to the adjoining room, which serves as a sort of museum: There's a Pirates of the Caribbean pinball machine with Depp's face on it, and for no particular reason, a life-size replica of the Elephant Man's skeleton, behind glass. Between the skeleton and the pinball machine is a headless mannequin, clad in the original black-leather-and-metal outfit Depp wore as the tragic, mechanical man-boy title character in 1990's Edward Scissorhands. It's a recent acquisition. "I saw it there the other day for the first time," Depp says. "I didn't know they were doing that, and I walked in here the other day and thought, 'Jesus. I hadn't seen it since I put it on all those years ago.' That was a thing, boy. You know, being covered in that. It was like Tampa, Florida. It was, like, 105, 110 degrees. A million percent humidity. My hair was sculpted into this horrific tree, care of Aqua Net. And then my face was covered in rubber-mask grease paint. I lost a lot of water weight on that film. That was a biggie."

The film, made the same year Depp left 21 Jump Street, also set the template for the biggest, and arguably the best, roles of his career. As bracing as he can be in more conventional parts – as a mentally fragmenting undercover cop in Donnie Brasco or a foolish but swaggering drug smuggler in Blow – he often seems most engaged, most alive, most unique when he's wearing a funny hat and face paint (or even, in the case of Alice in Wonderland, CGI-enlarged eyes). Scissorhands director Tim Burton, who would go on to work with Depp seven more times and counting, once wrote a verse about Depp: "There was a young man/Everyone thought was quite handsome/So he tied up his face/And he held it for ransom."

"I think he captured me pretty good," says Depp. "I mean, not in terms of handsome or whatever, but I still am exactly as I was when I was 16, 17 years old, playing in bars. I was infinitely more prone to be standing outside of the lights and in the darkness, playing my guitar and letting all the attention be up front with the lead singer. I was really happy with that."

The veering path of Depp's career – his refusal to "carry the gun and fuck the girl" – led to plenty of great performances in the Nineties, from Ed Wood to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but failed to make him a commercial superstar. "I could have been out a long time ago, man. I was well on my way to thermos-and-lunchbox antiquity for – I don't know, a good 18 years. I had a string of – in the eyes of the business – semifailure movies. These weren't great big blockbuster things. So I was amazed that I was able to just keep getting gigs."

For his performance as fey, kohl-eyed Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates, he embraced the broader performance possibilities he saw in the cartoons he watched with his daughter (not to mention the films of Buster Keaton and the daily life of Keith Richards). Then, as he puts it, "things got crazy" – and his career now looks like one of the best-played long games in Hollywood history. He's one of the few stars with two billion-dollar-worldwide-grossing films to his name (the second Pirates movie and Alice in Wonderland), and there's a case to be made that he's both a crazily quirky character actor and the biggest movie star in the world. "Twenty years ago," says Pirates director Gore Verbinski, "I don't think Johnny Depp greenlights a $100 million movie, with giant robots in it or whatever. Now you can't seem to get a movie made without him!"

"Covering myself up in makeup, it's easier to look at someone else," Depp says. "It's easier to look at someone else's face than your own. I think for everyone. Jesus, you wake up in the morning, and you brush your teeth, and you're like, 'Ugh, that fucker again? You're still here? What do you want?' Hiding: I think it's important. It's important for your – for whatever's left of your sanity, I guess."

Another sanity-preserving measure: For years now, Depp hasn't watched any of his movies (except for his 2004 turn as the Earl of Rochester in The Libertine, which the director personally asked him to see – "That's one I'd really recommend"). "I prefer to walk away with the experience. My job, as an actor, is to give the director options. You can only hope that the takes that you thought were the best were chosen. But, then again, if I don't watch it, I'll never know. So, better off."

The late-model, Disney-approved Depp doesn't have as much time for the smaller films he pursued in the Nineties – but big movies have their own advantages. Verbinski's The Lone Ranger is impressively subversive, painting the United States Cavalry as the bad guys and the Comanche as the doomed heroes, with Armie Hammer's Lone Ranger essentially a sidekick to Tonto. "I wanted him to be no joke," says Depp, who put on substantial muscle for the role. "First of all, I wouldn't fuck with someone with a dead bird on their head. Second of all, he's got the fucking paint on his face, which scares me." Depp has Native American blood – the only film he ever directed, The Brave, is set on a grimly depicted reservation. The Lone Ranger will reach a somewhat larger audience. "You can do a lot more damage," says Verbin­ski, "from the inside."

When Verbinski first told execs about Depp's interest in the project, they were thrilled. "Everybody, for a minute, thought, 'Johnny Depp as the Lone Ranger? Great! Let's do that movie.' Then you could see the faces sour as they said, 'What? He wants to play Tonto? He's the sidekick!'?"

The star had his reasons. "I wanted to maybe give some hope to kids on the reservations," says Depp, who's wearing an ancient Comanche symbol on the end of his rope necklace. "They're living without running water and seeing problems with drugs and booze. But I wanted to be able to show these kids, 'Fuck that! You're still warriors, man.'?"

Depp was able to deliver that message in person to some young members of the Comanche tribe after he was adopted as a son by Comanche activist LaDonna Harris last year, in a traditional ceremony. They gave him the name "Shape Shifter." "It seemed very descriptive," says Harris, who is untroubled by Depp's face paint and head bird as Tonto, deemed disrespectfully unrealistic by some Native American groups. "The Comanche are very individualistic," she says.

A couple of months after his adoption, Depp made an unpublicized appearance at the Comanche Nation fair in Oklahoma, riding in a parade, plunging into crowds of children, visiting an old burial ground, where he wept. They gave him moccasins, and the otter-skin headdress of a tribal leader; he gave them one of his paintings. At the end of the day, Depp told Harris that he had never felt so accepted anywhere in his life.

Depp looks like a rock musician, but he talks like a writer, backpedaling on his sentences as if he's searching for the delete key, revising as he goes. He's a dedicated autodidact whose life was changed by On the Road; he always carries around a copy of Finnegans Wake, which he's been puzzling through for years. He's been keeping a journal since his twenties, which is how he sorts through his own puzzles; his attempts at therapy never worked out.

For a while, his fame was interfering even with that private exercise. "You try to be as honest as possible in your journals, but then there's a part of you that's even guarded with yourself, strangely, because you know someone's gonna read the fuckers once you become smoke," he says. "And so I've made a very conscious effort now over the last few years to write honestly. It might end up being eight, nine pages straight. It could be a sentence. It could be two sentences. But I put it down now as honest."

He didn't need his journals to give him fresh insight into his childhood. Raising his own kids shed new light on his early years as the youngest kid in a lower-middle-class family with an odd habit of moving from house to house on a practically monthly basis – first in Kentucky, then in Florida. That feeling of living as a fugitive has been with him since well before his fame.

"I wouldn't say my youth was the perfect model in terms of raising a kid," he says. "It was a relatively violent upbringing. If you did something wrong, you got hit. If you didn't do something wrong, you got hit. But my parents, they did the best they could with what they knew, and so I figured I'd do the best with what I knew, which was do pretty much the opposite from what you guys did – and I think I'll be all right. Not to say they were bad parents, because they weren't. They just didn't know any different, and it was a very different time."

His father was a civil engineer; his mother worked as a waitress, "counting nickels and pennies and dimes at the end of the night." Money was tight. "They went into, like, a quadruple bankruptcy every Christmas," says Depp. "My mother was raised in a shack, in the wilds of Appalachia, where the toilet was an outhouse. She used to say she did the same things that her mom did – and her mom certainly didn't know any better. With my kids, they're told 75 times a day that they're loved. One thing I know is they feel loved and secure and happy and needed and necessary and a part of something."

The house-moving thing still affects him. "When it's time to pack, even to go on vacation, I'm a wreck, man," he says. "Because I can't. It reminds me so much of having to move all the time. And I've had to live nothing but a vagabond existence, really, for so many years. There are films that I still haven't unpacked from. Somewhere in a storage locker are suitcases. I know that I've still got a suitcase from Scissorhands somewhere that I didn't unpack and Cry-Baby and God knows what else. These little time capsules just laying there somewhere just because I couldn't deal with it."

He can envision publishing some of his journals in some form. He's not sure about other writing, or even directing another movie besides the Richards documentary. He was so bruised by the reaction to The Brave that he pulled the movie from circulation; it's impossible to obtain to this day. "I was insulted by the way the U.S. press was [saying] 'How dare you, Actor Boy, think that you have a brain?' But Terry Gilliam told me, 'The thing is, The Brave is like you.' It doesn't know what it wants to be. And I thought that was pretty accurate. It didn't know what it wanted to be, because I didn't know what I wanted to be – and I still don't know what I want to be."

And that brings him to that idea of running away for a while, doing something else. "There's a great part of me that thinks it wouldn't be so bad to split for a few years," he says. "It's not necessarily to say that I want to go out and have a new career, 'cause I've always thought that a little strange when people do that."

But the truth is, he already got a lot of the answers he was seeking when his daughter, Lily-Rose, was born, 14 years and one day ago. "I went around for years thinking, 'Well, what's it all for?' All this stuff that I gotta do, interviews and movies and success or not success or this or that. It really was as if a veil was lifted, and things became clearer, and I went, 'Oh, I fucking get it now! That's what it's for! That's what it's for, this beautiful little creature that I took part in creating, making.' I didn't have a real handle on what life was supposed to mean or be or anything like that. And I still don't. And I'm not sure that life is supposed to mean anything or be anything at all. But as long as you have the opportunity to breathe, breathe. As long as you have the opportunity to make your kid smile and laugh, and move it forward."

He doesn't believe in God, or ghosts, either, for that matter – he used to go looking for them. "I think we're here and that's kind of it," he says. "Then it's dirt and worms."

For a while, he thought it would be cool to have his body hurled off a cliff when he goes. "Just tossed over a mountain so that people could watch it bounce," he says. "Might as well entertain people. Or maybe just save the tattoos. 'Cause it might revolutionize what happens after death. Take a guy's tattoos off, make formaldehyde frames where it's preserved and stretched out and stuff – that doesn't sound gruesome at all, does it? No. That's not at all serial-killer. That's totally cool. Can you imagine? 'What are those?' 'Oh, that's my dad's tattoos all over that wall. That's my dad splattered against the wall.'?"

As for the career, and the prospect of retiring or winding down or disappearing, consider this: Manson tells the tale of a drunken night in Hollywood when the two men wandered over to Depp's star on the Walk of Fame – right between Wesley Snipes' and Sonny and Cher's. "We wanted to pee on it," says Manson. "We thought about it. I can't confirm or deny that we did it."

And then there's the voice Depp hears in his head sometimes – all the time, really. It's Marlon Brando's growl, and this is what it says: "Fuck it. Fuck it. You don't need this shit. Fuck it." Depp laughs hard relating this, as if Brando is yelling it in his ear. "Marlon got to a point in his life where he just said, 'I don't care,'?" says Depp, smiling like a fugitive with road's end in sight at last. "And that must be some species of nirvana. It has to be. It's freedom."

This story is from the July 4, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone.

rollingstone.com

Hide

SHAPING THE STORY

As with many ambitious projects, there was a long and winding road to bring the new version of “The Lone Ranger” to fruition. But neither producer Jerry Bruckheimer nor director Gore Verbinski are men to be easily dissuaded once their hearts and minds are focused. “We knew that it was time for ‘The Lone Ranger’ and westerns to be reborn,” says Bruckheimer, “just as Gore and I knew that it was time for pirate movies to be resurrected when we first developed ‘Pirates of the Caribbean for the screen a decade ago. There’s a reason why people have relished these characters and genres for decades, and we knew that if we re-introduced them in a fresh and exciting way, they would fall in love with them all over again.”

Verbinski was interested in directing “The Lone Ranger” only if they could take the classic story and stand it on its ear. “I think if you’re a fan of the original TV series,” Verbinski says, “you’re going to be surprised by the movie, because everybody knows that story, and that’s not the story we’re telling. We’re telling the story from Tonto’s perspective, kind of like ‘Don Quixote,’ told from Sancho Panza’s point of view. I would say that at its core, our version is a buddy story and an action-adventure film with a lot of irony and humor and enough odd singularity to make it distinct.”

To write the fresh take on the legendary tale, the filmmakers hired the brilliant screenwriting team of Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who had also scribed all four of the hugely successful “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, the first three of which were collaborations between Jerry Bruckheimer and Gore Verbinski, and Justin Haythe, who wrote “Revolutionary Road” for Sam Mendes.

Commenting on the story, producer Jerry Bruckheimer says, “This is the story of how John Reid becomes the Lone Ranger,” adds Bruckheimer, “but in the framework of a ‘dramedy’ between two characters from totally different backgrounds, who are really at odds at the beginning of the story and through the course of their relationship come to a kind of uneasy bonding. Our version has a lot of excitement, adventure, drama, comedy, spectacle and emotion. And because of Gore’s vision, it’s also huge.”

Bruckheimer was thrilled that his “Pirates” partner Gore Verbinski was onboard the “The Lone Ranger.” “Gore is an amazingly talented director, someone who encompasses it all. Sometimes you find a director who does comedy well but can’t do action, or those who can only do action,” says Bruckheimer. “Gore is one of the very few directors who can do everything—action, drama, comedy, animation—with equal brilliance. He’s highly visual and lets nothing stand in his way to create sequences that have never been seen before, and then he somehow finds a way to shoot them to maximum effect.”

CASTING & CHARACTERS

Johnny Depp’s interest in playing Tonto in “The Lone Ranger” developed early on when it was just germinating as an idea with Jerry Bruckheimer. Depp, in typical fashion, figured that the best way to get the ball rolling would be to get into character as Tonto. He enlisted the help of two close friends—makeup artist Joel Harlow and photographer Peter Mountain—and set about creating his distinctive version of how Tonto would look in the hope that it would convince Bruckheimer and the studio, Disney, to give it the green light.

Depp is, of course, a master of disguise and a brilliant character actor as well as one of Hollywood’s best-loved leading men. He based his ‘look’ for Tonto on a painting he’d seen of a Native American warrior and added his own, unique, flourishes.

The result was spectacular and it convinced Bruckheimer—and indeed Disney Studios— that it was time for “The Lone Ranger” and Tonto to ride back onto the screen.

As producer Jerry Bruckheimer relates, “Johnny Depp creates amazing characters, no matter what movie he’s in. His Tonto will be different than any Tonto you’ve ever seen before. He has a whole different look, a whole different feel. We don’t even know until the cameras roll what he’s going to do, but we know it’s going to be entertaining and very interesting.”

Depp had definite thoughts how he wanted the character of Tonto to be portrayed. He remembers watching repeats of the TV show when he was a boy and promises that his Tonto will be an equal partner—and certainly not a sidekick—to the Lone Ranger and honor the noble, warrior tradition of his Native American heritage.

“‘The Lone Ranger’ was just one of those sort of regular things that you would see on television as a kid. I watched it and I always identified with Tonto,” he says. “And even as a kid I wondered why the Indian was the sidekick.

“And it wasn’t that ‘The Lone Ranger’ was overtly disrespectful in the way he treated Tonto but I just thought, ‘why is he the guy that has to go and do this and that? Why isn’t he the hero?’ So that was something that was always on my mind. And I was told at a very young age that we have some Indian blood in our family…who knows how much—maybe very little, I don’t know.

“So what I wanted to do was play this character not as the sidekick to the Lone Ranger. I wanted to play him as a warrior and as a man with great integrity and dignity. It’s my small sliver of a contribution to try and right the wrongs that have been committed in the past.”

With Johnny Depp already cast as Tonto, the filmmakers searched for the perfect John Reid aka The Lone Ranger. It soon became apparent to Jerry Bruckheimer and Gore Verbinski that the much sought-after role of the Lone Ranger was custom built for a young, impossibly talented and equally good-looking actor named Armie Hammer. Having already made a notable mark in Hollywood with his performance as the Winklevoss twins in David Fincher’s “The Social Network” and starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar,” Bruckheimer and Verbinski snagged him for “The Lone Ranger” at just the right moment.

Describing Armie Hammer, director Verbinski says, “When you meet Armie, you soon realize that he doesn’t have a cynical or jaded bone in his body. Armie has a great optimism in the way he looks at the world. We really needed someone you could believe would have old-fashioned ideas.”

Johnny Depp, talking about his experience working with Hammer, says, “First and foremost, Armie is a great guy. He’s very smart, very quick and clever with a great wit and he’s super talented. He committed to playing the Lone Ranger as an earnest, na?ve, ‘white man’—and that’s exactly right.

“Armie is a young actor coming up the ranks and he looks like a classic movie star and what’s more, he has the chops to back it up,” continues Depp. “So he fully committed to this role—he played it perfectly, he got the humor, and he didn’t want to play it as the ‘cool guy’ as it were. I found him a dream to work with and I feel like I’ve made a really good friend in Armie.”

The other “Lone Ranger” cast members embody excellence. Tom Wilkinson, who portrays railroad and nation builder Latham Cole, is acknowledged as one of Britain’s finest and most versatile actors, and is a two-time Academy Award® nominee (for “In the Bedroom” and “Michael Clayton”) and four-time Golden Globe® nominee, winning for his performance as Benjamin Franklin in the HBO miniseries “John Adams.” “Latham Cole is, in a certain sense, one of the fathers of America as it is today,” explains Wilkinson about his character. “Today he would be called a venture capitalist. For Cole, building the Transcontinental Railroad isn’t just an opportunity to make money, but also his vision for unified greatness. But Cole is not always over fastidious in how he achieves what he needs to achieve, but I guess that’s always been the case. The people who have the big vision are not reluctant to tread on the legal rights of other people.”

William Fichtner took on the role of outlaw Butch Cavendish, the Lone Ranger’s archenemy and a character known to all fans of the legend. Through the years, Fichtner has developed a mighty reputation for his versatility and range. Unrecognizable in his makeup as Cavendish, Fichtner nonetheless found a core to the character that makes him more than just a monster. “Sometimes I play people rougher in nature, but I always try to find something to make them real. Cavendish is pretty simple in his thought process about what he wants, but he’s smart and focused. I think it’s safe to say that out of all the amazing characters that you’ll see in this film, the last person you would want to find in a dark alley is Cavendish. I don’t even think Cavendish would want to run into himself, let’s put it that way.”

Emmy Award®–winner Barry Pepper set his targets on the role of Captain Fuller. In researching the role, Pepper studied such famous “Indian fighters” of the late nineteenth century as George Armstrong Custer, Ranald Mackenzie and Phillip Sheridan. “They were very ebullient, egocentric men, who spoke in vainglorious flourishes, with grander purposes in mind. You can almost hear the campaign speeches and slogans stirring in Fuller’s mind. I saw him as this preening peacock swept up in the grotesque task of ridding the Indians from the plains, a Cavalier in the masquerade of progress.”

The filmmakers’ determination to marry the best possible talent to their specific roles paid off again with the selection of New York City–born James Badge Dale to play Dan Reid, a Texas Ranger whose rough frontier nature is a striking contrast to that of his refined and highly educated brother, John. “Dan Reid is John’s dirtier, more world-weary older brother,” notes Dale of his character. “There are lots of shades of gray in Dan’s worldview, and perhaps in another world and another time, he might have ended up on the outlaw side of things. Right and wrong don’t seem to be that clear to him anymore.”

British actress Ruth Wilson makes her American film debut in “The Lone Ranger.” “When Ruth came in and read for the part, she just blew us away,” says Verbinski. “She can act circles around most people, and she’s really got it going in those eyes. She’s going to be a huge movie star.”

Comments Wilson, “Working on ‘The Lone Ranger’ has been epic in every sense of the word—the scale of the production, the landscape, the quality of talent involved across the board. You’ll see it’s a Western that swings from absurd humor to deadly serious emotion and all set against a fascinating moment in American history. For me it was an opportunity I couldn’t resist and an experience I shall never forget.”

Helena Bonham Carter joined the cast as Red Harrington for a good reason: “The reason I wanted to do the film is because I’ve never actually been offered to play a peg-legged Southern madam in a Western,” says the two-time Academy Award® nominee. Another lure to the role might have been the opportunity to work once again with her friend Johnny Depp, with whom she’s previously acted in five films. Bonham Carter describes the flamboyant, dramatically coiffed, and scrimshaw-legged Red as “the proprietor of an exotic establishment that is also mobile. Red follows the railroad as it’s being built, because all her business is from the workers. She’s a powerful, straight-talking pragmatist.”

The huge supporting cast of “The Lone Ranger” were meticulously selected from several sectors of the American and international acting communities. Two distinguished actors were selected to portray Comanche warriors facing an uncertain future: Saginaw Grant, a greatly respected actor/educator/activist from the Sac and Fox, Iowa, Nation and Otoe-Missouria Nation, portrays Chief Big Bear, still a great leader despite the advance of both his older years and the railroad into Comanche territory; and Gil Birmingham, himself a Comanche, plays Big Bear’s war chief Red Knee.

BACK TO SCHOOL…COWBOY SCHOOL

The cast and background players of “The Lone Ranger” discovered that if you want to be a cowboy, gunslinger, or railroad builder on screen, you’ve got to go back to school and be properly taught. “Cowboy Boot Camp” began three weeks before Gore Verbinski called “Action” for the first time and was attended by the vast majority of the primary cast at the Horses Unlimited ranch in Albuquerque. Their teachers included stunt men, horse wranglers, prop master, and armorers, and nobody was cut an easy break—not even the guy playing the film’s eponymous character.

“Cowboy Boot Camp is basically all the actors running around like six-year-old boys,” says Armie Hammer. “Riding horses for two hours a day, throwing lassos for an hour, shooting guns, riding in a wagon, putting on a saddle and taking it off. It was like an immersion project. After just a few days of boot camp, I did more riding than I cumulatively had in my entire life.”

“What Gore wanted,” explains stunt coordinator Tommy Harper, “was to have a Cowboy Boot Camp where we basically teach each actor how to shoot a gun, how to saddle and ride a horse, along with other training. This way we get to know the actors, what their abilities are, and how to keep them safe. The main thing for me is to make sure that at the end of the movie they’ve done as much as they can do safely, and end the movie being completely healthy.” Although boot camp started before filming actually began, Harper points out that the actors’ training went “all the way to the end. Just when you think you know everything, something backfires on you, so we never let them get too comfortable.”

Clearly, it was crucial for the actors to learn the correct handling of firearms, and for that they were under the expert tutelage of armorer Harry Lu. “Even though they’re shooting blanks,” notes Harper, “it’s still a dangerous piece of equipment that they’re working with, and we have to make sure that they know every bit of handling and how to look correct doing it.”

William Fichtner, who as ultimate badass outlaw Butch Cavendish had to feel absolutely secure with his weaponry, was glad to put himself in the safe hands of the experts. “With Mr. Harry Lu around, I’m comfortable with anything when it comes to firearms,” says the actor. “It’s hard . . . the first time you hold that heavy gun in your hand. But every time I would arrive on set and see Harry, I would ask him if I could handle the gun for a little bit, and he would always show me something new to practice, then show me a little more.” After a time, Fichtner was doing dangerously cool flips and twirls with the gun, which were captured on film during shooting in Creede, Colorado. “You know why you try so hard with things like that?” asks Fichtner. “Because as an actor, you want little moments to equal everything else that’s happening on this film. I wanted that gun move to be as good as the amazing backdrop and set we were shooting on in Creede.”

Schooling the talent on horsemanship was the film’s crack wrangling team under the supervision of head horse wrangler Clay Lilley and wrangler gang boss Norman Mull. “A horseman can look at an actor and know that person can’t ride a horse,” says Harper. “You can just tell by how they walk up to it, or how they mount and dismount. So teaching them how to look correct was really important.” Says Norman Mull, “What we’re trying to do in boot camp is to get the actors comfortable with horses, pick horses for them, and teach them whatever we need to make sure they can ride. Some of the actors had some previous experience, including Armie Hammer and Ruth Wilson. “I’ve fallen off a few horses before,” says Wilson with a laugh, “so I thought this was a good place to start learning properly.” Wilson enjoyed being the only woman at boot camp. “Yeah, I loved it, surrounded by cowboys, it was quite fun. It was a really nice way of understanding the world of the movie.”

The normally fearless Hammer, however, was actually a little nervous. “I’d been on horses before, but I thought, “This animal thinks for itself, and that makes me a little nervous. What is it going to do if it sees a bunny?” But they don’t give you a choice; they just stick you on a horse and say, ‘Go ride.’ It was nonstop fun for three weeks.”

The other principal actors also had a blast at boot camp, although they acknowledged the rigors involved. James Badge Dale, the New Yorker who plays tough Texas Ranger Dan Reid in the film, had to come clean about his riding skills when he first met with Jerry Bruckheimer and Gore Verbinski. “I didn’t have the job yet, and I met with the two of them. Jerry was just sitting quietly, as he often does, observing and listening carefully. Gore asked me if I knew how to ride a horse. I went back and forth with some story, and finally said, ‘Gore, I’m sorry, I have no idea how to ride a horse. I’m from New York City!’ Then Jerry suddenly starts laughing, and said, ‘You’re the first person who’s come in here and told us the truth!’ Then Gore added, ‘Well, you’re going to learn.’ And I did. I learned things about horses that I never thought I would. These wranglers are very good at what they do. They love their horses and they teach you to respect them.”

Also making an important contribution to boot camp was Kris Peck’s prop department, since it was responsible for providing the period-correct tack for the actors’ horses. They custom made upwards of eighty Western saddles, twenty-five U.S. Cavalry saddles, and thirty Native American saddles. “We have to teach the actors how to take off all their props and look as if they know what they’re doing,” explains assistant prop master Curtis Akin. “They have all kinds of stuff that they’re going to use for the camp scenes, so when they ride up they’re going to get off their horses, pull all this stuff out, lay their saddles around the campfire, and lay their bedrolls out to make camp for the night.

THE MAKING OF “THE LONE RANGER”

With the goal to make a movie that would defy conventions and expectations, but satisfy audiences in ways they could never have expected, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Academy Award®–winning director Gore Verbinski began filming Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ “The Lone Ranger” on February 28, 2012, in Albuquerque, N.M.

The talented cast—Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale, Ruth Wilson and Helena Bonham Carter—embarked on a seven-month filmmaking journey that would take them across the varied terrains and weather of four states in the American Southwest, making the filming of “The Lone Ranger” a great adventure in itself.

Capturing the sweeping canvas of “The Lone Ranger” was director of photography Bojan Bazelli (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”), with whom Verbinski had previously worked. Says Verbinski of Bazelli, “Nobody understands the photochemical process better than Bojan. He understands what happens to your eye when you light a room, he understands what’s happening at the back of the lens when it hits the emulsion, and now, digitally, when it hits the chip. I think he has a better understanding of that than anybody I’ve ever worked with.”

Speaking to the visual approach that he and Bazelli brought to “The Lone Ranger,” Verbinski states, “It was essential to keep it based in reality. We didn’t want to make it so pretty that it felt theatrical in any way. The narrative is epic and operatic by design, but if you adorn that overtly I think you lose any sense of integrity. It had to feel honest…and a bit raw.”

Before the cameras turned for the first time on “The Lone Ranger,” the film’s Comanche adviser, Wahathuweeka-William Voelker and his associate Troy performed a traditional blessing ceremony on the grounds of Albuquerque Studios. Inside, on three soundstages, the sequences involving railroad cars, a Wild West Exhibition tent and the lavish interior of Red’s Traveling Entertainments were set to be filmed.

Thirty-six miles west of Albuquerque sits Rio Puerco, where the production built the from-ground-up town sets of Colby and Promontory Summit. With the exception of sojourns to Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly in the Navajo Nation, Rio Puerco would provide the base of operations for the company for the next three months.

On the morning of April 12, the production headed to Monument Valley to begin shooting before sunrise. The sun rose on cue above the ridge known as John Ford Point for a shot of the Lone Ranger and Tonto on horseback, right at the edge of the rim. At the stunning section of Monument Valley known as North Window, the company was honored with a visit of Navajo Nation leaders, who welcomed the first major feature film to shoot in Monument Valley in more than a decade.

From there, the crew headed off for a winding 65-mile drive through the Navajo Nation to Canyon de Chelly. Canyon de Chelly is another deeply historic and spiritual Navajo site, which comes under the supervision of the National Park Service. For six days there, Verbinski filmed the crucial Bryant’s Gap ambush sequence deep in the recesses of the locale.

After returning to Rio Puerco for some more filming, the crew followed a dramatic change of scenery as production moved 270 miles north from Albuquerque to the tiny mountain town of Creede, Colorado, for three weeks of filming. The historic and picturesque town of Creede was the last silver-mining boomtown of late 19th-century Colorado. The village has a fascinating rough-and-tumble history, attracting such unsavory characters during its mining heyday as Soapy Smith and Robert Ford. “The Lone Ranger” took advantage of Creede’s storied past by building its own Sleeping Man Mine just north of downtown, amid the ruins of the real-life Amethyst Mine.

“It’s really authentic,” notes Jerry Bruckheimer, “just a beautiful part of Colorado. But to get all our equipment here wasn’t easy, including an entire train. It’s never easy in small towns to move around and find housing for this big of a company. But when you see the picture, you’ll see the authenticity, and that’s what’s wonderful about this movie. We’re in the real locations, not using a lot of CGI. In a lot of films these days, the environments are artificially created. This is the real deal.”

The Colorado River in Moab, Utah, would provide the next location, with Johnny Depp, long familiar with water work from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, getting drenched again (along with the crew). Then back up to the heights, with shooting at two of Moab’s most stunning locations, Fossil Point and Dead Horse Point. And while Fossil Point is also known as Thelma & Louise Point, where the two outlaws drove off a cliff at the finale of the famed Ridley Scott film, the addition of a full-size train, workers’ camp, and 154 costumed extras made it virtually unrecognizable. Dead Horse Point was the site of the tall, edge-of-the-cliff spirit platform on which John Reid awakens after being saved by Tonto. “It was a rickety structure about eighteen feet tall,” recalls Armie Hammer, “and while I was standing on top of that thing, the platform would sway about three feet. Then, looking down, I realized that it would be a two-thousand-foot drop to the bottom of the canyon floor. That was a trip.”

Following a one-day shoot back in the Navajo Nation at Shiprock, a stunning 1,583-foot-high rock formation, the company drove to their next base of operations, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Along with shooting the Hell on Wheels and Reid Farm scenes in nearby Lamy, Verbinski found other ways to utilize the varied and often astounding topography of the region. The forbidding, moonscape-like rocks of Plaza Blanca were appropriately selected for the “Valley of Tears” location for scenes with Ruth Wilson, William Fichtner, and the Cavendish Gang. Meanwhile, the magnificent Valles Caldera National Preserve, a huge 12-mile-wide grass valley in the crater of a volcano, was utilized as the setting of a Comanche warriors’ village. Also utilized were the Gilman Tunnels, an ideal site for more train road rig work. And the high elevations of Pajarito Mountains provided the dramatic site of a last stand of courageous Comanche warriors.

In mid-August, the company once again packed up and returned to Albuquerque for one week more of shooting, before traveling 154 miles northward, beyond Taos, and 8,600 feet up in the mountains of Angel Fire, New Mexico, for 17 final days of location shooting. This final leg was almost entirely made up of alpine train road rig work as well as a spectacular crash engineered by special effects coordinator John Frazier and his team.

Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer completed their final shot for the film on Thursday, September 28, 2012, and appropriately enough they were together in the same frame rather than being shot separately. As Gore Verbinski called “Cut!” they waved their arms in a victory salute to the director, Jerry Bruckheimer and the rest of the company.

But there was still one more road trip to go for the rest of the company—177 miles north to the desert of Lone Pine, California, where a second Comanche camp had been erected for two final days of filming.

THE ART DEPARTMENT: REBUILDING THE WEST

The film’s talented production designers Jess Gonchor (“Moneyball,” “True Grit”) and Mark “Crash” McCreery (“Rango,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl”) enjoyed a large staff—composed of six art directors, eleven set designers, two illustrators, a scenic artist, several storyboard artists, two graphic designers, two model makers, a research coordinator, an art department production assistant, and 274 members of the construction team—but sometimes McCreery just liked to do things on his own. He hand-carved the Native American petroglyphs that adorn the wooden frame around Old Tonto’s diorama in the Wild West Exhibition tent, for example, and personally painted symbols on the walls of a two-hundred-foot-long train tunnel built in Creede, Colorado.

“Crash is a total maverick,” says Jerry Bruckheimer, “with a limitless imagination and tons of energy. We’ve been lucky enough to work with Crash as a creature designer on several films, and it really was time for him to take a step up and show the full range of his abilities.”

Production design challenges on “The Lone Ranger” included designing several massive sets on which the drama, comedy, and adventure of the film could play out. There were twelve full-size structures comprising the fictional town of Colby built in Rio Puerco, nearly all with four walls, including a train station, livery stable, saloon, rooming house, bank, sheriff’s office, and various shops, with five miles of railroad track surrounding the town built especially for the film.

Built adjacent to the Colby set in Rio Puerco was the set for another town, Promontory Summit, the historic site where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific trains met head-to-head after completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. Promontory Summit, as built for the film, has a very different feeling from the decidedly more ramshackle Colby; it is more solidly built with brick and wood, indicating greater prosperity and a longer history.

The wilder side of Crash McCreery really got a workout with his designs for “Hell on Wheels,” a moveable tent town, inspired by numerous pop-up towns that actually existed in the 19th century, which follows the workers building the Transcontinental Railroad. The tent town’s highlight is the lavish interior of its largest establishment, Red’s Traveling Entertainments.

The colorful and wonderfully bizarre Hell on Wheels set was prefabricated in the art department warehouse in Albuquerque for five weeks and then, over the course of another six weeks, assembled in the rolling hills of Lamy, New Mexico. The end result is a fantastical cornucopia that’s akin to a traveling carnival on Wild West steroids and populated by a splendid and weird combination of snake charmers, human oddities, fire eaters, tea merchants, intestinal complaint medics, makeshift dentists, religious fanatics, and railroad workers. All this debauchery is set against a backdrop of lavish tents, stages, and booths anchored by the imposing exterior of Red’s Traveling Entertainments.

“Hell on Wheels was kind of the embodiment of every spectacle and every fantasy about the Old West,” says McCreery. “No matter what you wanted and what your desire was, you could find it here. And Cheryl Carasik’s set dressing was spectacular, filling the street from one end to the other with every item imaginable.”

The set for the expansive interior of Red’s was actually built and shot months earlier on an Albuquerque Studios soundstage. The ramshackle walls of Red’s riotous saloon are festooned with authentic period postcards, advertisements and bottles of liquor, along with a sign displaying “Red’s House Rules.”

A mere stone’s throw from Hell on Wheels was the much more sober Reid Farm set, a classic slice of Americana with its wood and stone farmhouse and large wooden barn, abutted by stables and animal pens. “It’s one of the most realistic sets that we’ve built,” notes McCreery, “and it looks as if it were there for a long time. But it was built in just a few weeks, and we had to burn it down overnight!”

Another of the production designers’ most impressive sets was the Sleeping Man Mine, constructed in Creede, Colorado. The set was designed to blend in with the historic town’s actual 19th-century silver-mine buildings, but with elaborate new structures. These included a 200-foot-long train tunnel with a 40-foot-tall faux rock front, a mile of railroad track, elevated tracks and trestles for ore carts, plus mining shacks that, although newly built, looked aged enough to fall apart at any moment.

Supplying the characters with a formidable arsenal and a huge number of accouterments was prop master Kris Peck and his associate, armorer Harry Lu. From the Lone Ranger’s famous pearl-handed pistols loaded with silver bullets to Red Harrington’s ivory leg and Latham Cole’s pocket watch, these relatively small objects all played crucial parts in the story. Peck also wanted to make certain that key “hero” props were properly aged, consistent with Verbinski’s approach to the film’s entire rustic design scheme. “The history is in the prop when you look at it,” notes Peck. “Gore told me up front that there would be four or five props that we’re going to see 80 feet across the screen, and the Lone Ranger’s badge and silver bullet are two of those. They had to look as if they were made by hand, and not in a prop house.”

Curiously enough, Tonto’s main prop is probably the beaded leather bag in which he keeps various totems and, even more important, seed for the crow that adorns his headdress. He carries no firearms, just two knives, one of which is fashioned—ironically enough—from a railroad spike, as if Tonto is turning his enemy’s tool against him. But very possibly, Peck’s most remarkable prop—certainly the most original—is Red Harrington’s ivory prosthetic leg, which includes some hidden firepower. “Red is the living definition of how to turn a minus into a plus,” says Helena Bonham Carter, who portrays the colorful character. “Put a gun in your prosthetic leg and protect your girls. She’s empowered by her loss, not disabled by it.”

STUNTS: HARPER’S WORLD

The seven months of filming would see stunt supervisor Tommy Harper and his team accomplishing impossible stunts, many of them inside and on top of trains for the spectacular action sequences that bookend the film.

“The trains are amazing in that they’re real,” says Harper. “We never did anything on those trains slower than thirty miles per hour, and usually somewhere around forty miles per hour. We put special tracks on the top of the train cars so that the stunt players could run along the top but always tethered to the train on a limit line, which you can’t see, so that if something should happen, they wouldn’t fall off.”

Harper and his team were constantly doing safety checks and ensuring that, to the best of their abilities, the action, though inherently perilous, would be within certain boundaries.

In addition to his great team of stunt players, Tommy Harper was blessed with two stars and several supporting players who absolutely loved doing as many of their own stunts as possible. For Johnny Depp, that meant running on top of moving train cars and plenty of work on horseback. “Johnny’s fantastic,” says Harper. “What’s so great about him is that you tell him something, and he says, ‘Okay, yeah, I get that.’ And Johnny will go and do exactly what you say.”

With his youth, athleticism, and adventurous spirit, Armie Hammer was pretty much up for anything as far as stunts and riding were concerned, and Tommy Harper took full advantage of the actor’s enthusiasm. “I told him that if the whole acting thing didn’t pan out, he could come work for me anytime because he did a fantastic job with all his stunts.”

Another principal actor who got a major stunt workout was William Fichtner as Butch Cavendish. “Bill really embraced that character,” notes Harper, “one of the best movie bad guys I’ve ever seen. In one scene, he jumps from a moving train onto his horse, and he really did that.”

Strangely enough, Fichtner found that incredible stunt considerably less intimidating than the road rig work. “All I can tell you is that jumping out of a 20-mile-per-hour train onto a full galloping horse and landing on an empty saddle was not nearly as nerve-wracking as standing on top of a moving train when it’s flying around the bend!”

And it wasn’t just the boys in the cast who were having all the fun. “Ruth Wilson is amazing,” confirms Harper. “She’s another one who could be a stuntwoman. She’s fearless and very smart. She doesn’t just throw herself out there but asks all the right questions. I had Ruth hanging off the side of the train upside down with her head right next to the wheels. She saw what the parameters were and felt safe with us rigging her.”

ON TRACK AND OFF: THE TRAINS

What happens when a producer and director need three 19th-century American trains for several of the most ambitious action scenes ever committed to film? “We build them,” states Jerry Bruckheimer, “just as we built several full-size ships for the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movies. There’s no substitute for reality, and given what we needed to do with those trains, the real thing was the only way to go.”

The dilemma Bruckheimer and Verbinski faced in preparing “The Lone Ranger” was how to accomplish the mighty task of shooting what was in the screenplay—nothing less than some of the most complex and hair-raising train action ever devised. Possibilities included creating miniatures, using CGI, or utilizing extant period trains, but the trains in the screenplay were so well defined and such an important element of the drama and action that only the real thing would do.

“When you go into the exacting mind of Gore Verbinski, who knows camera angles, speeds, tilts and duration of shots, then it becomes very technical and specific,” explains production manager Tom Hayslip. “As the trains became a more important element of the movie, we started worrying about how they could do what they were needed to do. How can they go fast enough? How can they stop fast enough? In a way, the trains became characters, much like the ‘Black Pearl’ did in the ‘Pirates’ movies. They lived, breathed, worked, and failed us. Sometimes they would be great and other times not. There was a lot of head scratching as we got into the specificity of what Gore needed out of those trains.”

The train department of “The Lone Ranger” was coordinated first by Jim Clark, who brought years of traditional knowledge to the task, and then by Jason Lamb and assistant train coordinator Luke Johnson, with their contemporary engineering and logistics knowledge. The building of the two 250-ton trains, and the tracks on which they rolled, was a remarkable collaboration between several of the film’s departments and a major engineering feat by any standard.

Originally, the production planned to utilize existing track in a different part of New Mexico. Explains Hayslip, “They had already started construction on Colby down in the southern part of the state, which was chosen because there was already some railroad track there that could be used. But upon scouting it, we found that we would have to upgrade that track in order to travel up to thirty miles per hour on it, as well as build extra track and share it with the mining company that owns it. We immediately shifted gears and started the process of building our own track and trains.”

The towns of Colby and Promontory Summit were built with five miles of track surrounding them in an oval, along with a couple of miles of double track so Verbinski could shoot side-by-side train sequences. The construction of these tracks required sixteen weeks of building by Gandy Dancer, an Albuquerque-based railroad and excavating service company under the supervision of Joey Hutchens.

Gandy Dancer hauled in 3,889,425 pounds of the 33-foot rail, bars, tie plates, and ties on 82 flatbed truckloads from Blythe, California. A whopping 60,429 pounds of bolts, washers, and turnouts were sent on two flatbed trucks from Kansas City, and 402,000 pounds of ties and spikes from Stockton, California. Once the materials were collected, the company set to work building something akin to a whole new railway line in the dusty Rio Puerco desert, and another mile of track also had to be laid for the Sleeping Man Mine location in Creede, Colorado, for the additional train work there.

Back in a Sun Valley, California, workshop, Academy Award®–winning special effects coordinator John Frazier (“Spider-Man 2,” “Oz The Great and Powerful”) was busy building two full-size trains to run on the new tracks, the historic Jupiter and what came to be known as the Colby train, which was later converted into Latham Cole’s train, the Constitution. The trains were period authentic down to the last detail, except for two important elements: first, the locomotives would work on modern hydraulic power rather than steam, and second, the railway cars were all built like shipping containers, so that they could be lifted on and off the train chassis or the flatbed trucks that comprised the road rigs.

“The trains have hydraulic hoses going up into the coal cars, known as tenders, where we hide two one-thousand-horsepower Cummins diesel motors,” explains Frazier. “We have special effect steam and black smoke to give the illusion that they’re period trains.” Frazier built the locomotives for the trains, while the art and construction departments designed and built the 15 period railroad cars. Since the locomotives were not actually powered by steam, he had to be concerned about realistic smoke effects—and how to control them.

The trains were driven from a computer inside of the cab, and if Verbinski was filming inside of the locomotive, the controls were moved back into one of the cars. However, a real train engineer was needed to control the braking system, so that in case of an emergency he could override the safety brake, which was the only control not computerized. And although Frazier engineered the trains to go 30 miles per hour, when more power was necessary, modern diesel locomotives were put in play to either tow or push the period trains. “Our trains are basically movie props, so we didn’t want to wear them out,” notes Frazier. “So we used our trains in big, wide shots, and when the camera was tighter or inside one of the cars, the diesels were put into play.”

In terms of design, production designer Crash McCreery points out that the trains in “The Lone Ranger” are “built bigger than they actually were in that time period, because Gore wanted to give audiences a sense that these things were beasts tearing through the country. The Colby train was a utilitarian passenger train, but Cole’s train, the Constitution, was much more elegant, and it was fun to design his lounge and dining cars—it had to be a very opulent, masculine environment.”

Art directors Domenic Silvestri and Naaman Marshall were assigned to work only on the trains, and they took their inspiration both from history and the needs of the fictional film. As such, they definitely took liberties with the two vehicles that met head-to-head at Promontory Summit for the Golden Spike ceremony on May 10, 1869. As Silvestri notes, the film’s Jupiter train, a.k.a. Central Pacific No. 60, “is relatively close to the real thing,” but the Constitution diverges from the historic train simply known as Union Pacific No. 119. “The Constitution is tied to the character of Latham Cole, so it’s more about his character than being historically accurate. We looked at a lot of photographs of the period when designing the Constitution, and Gore wanted it to be big and mean looking, a black and silver coal-burning villain as opposed to the wood-burning Jupiter.” The locomotives of the Jupiter and Constitution were authentic down to the last detail, including the plaques adorning their exteriors.

Set decorator Cheryl Carasik made certain to decorate the interior of the railroad cars with objects that would swing to the motion of the train, even down to curtains with trim on the edge especially chosen for their movement. As for Latham Cole’s personal train cars, Carasik admits, “They’re a little over-the-top for a man, but Cole is over-the-top.”

The final, massive action sequence of the film also required specially designed trucks to tow railroad cars during the road rig work. “The third act train sequence traverses many different looks,” explains Hayslip. “It starts in the desert, then goes to high scrub, then down to low hills, then foothills, and on to alpine. Of course, we weren’t able to find rail track traversing all those looks, so we thought early on that we could instead bring our train into those environments. The road rigs are our actual train cars, lifted off and placed onto flatbed trailers, some of them up to seventy-five feet long.”

With extensive need for actors and stunt players to perform on the roofs of the trains, platforms had to be built on the sides of the railroad cars, with camera-mounted Technocranes capturing the action. “But once we got all that stuff on,” Hayslip continues, “we still had to get down the road. So we’ve got a ten-foot-wide train, six-foot-wide Technocrane platform on one side, and ballast—usually big water barrels—to keep it steady on the other side. Meanwhile, some of those rural roads we shot on were only twenty-two feet wide, so we would be clearing the trees by maybe two inches.”

To Armie Hammer, working or even observing the road rigs was nothing short of awesome. “When you see the rigs working their way down a highway, almost one hundred feet long and followed by support vehicles and police cars behind them, it’s breathtaking. After about an hour of shooting, all the townspeople are lined up on the side of the road, never having seen anything like it. Just the magnitude of it is amazing.”

All that was needed then were actors crazy enough to actually stand on top of trains moving upwards of 40 miles per hour down mountain roads with hairpin curves and long drops below. Luckily for Gore Verbinski and Jerry Bruckheimer, they found them. Says William Fichtner, “I’ll tell you one thing . . . it gets your heart rate going. It’s great, thrilling, takes your breath away, but yeah, a little scary.” In one scene, Ruth Wilson, as Rebecca Reid, is dragged by Fichtner as Butch Cavendish to the top of the train. “Bill spins me around and threatens to push me off the side of the train,” she recalls. “So I’ve got one foot on and one foot off the train, going about thirty miles per hour. It was incredibly exhilarating!”

Adds Barry Pepper, who plays the film’s eccentric Captain Fuller, “Just driving up and down through the mountains and forests, seeing this amazing scenery, doing all these gunfights as the trains are careening around these corners—it was absolutely incredible. You get the real rush of wind coming in, branches hitting the side of the train, people bouncing and rattling all over the place, lanterns swinging, and it’s just alive and electric. It’s something you just can’t create on a soundstage. It was incredible what Gore pulled off. I mean, he had Johnny Depp running on top of the train, with me shooting at him through the ceiling. It was a testament, too, to what Disney was willing to do to change the paradigm of the cowboy movie. The Western will forever be changed after this; it will set the gold standard much like ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ did with that genre. That’s what Jerry, Gore, and Johnny do, and it’s amazing to be a part of it.”

THE LOOK OF 1869: DESIGNING THE COSTUMES

For British costume designer Penny Rose, the devil is in the details, and no detail is too small to escape her discerning, uncompromising eye. Rose may have helped create the distinctive threadbare threads of Captain Jack Sparrow in all four “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, the glamorous costumes of the Argentinean dictator in “Evita,” and the battle gear of the Roman and Near Eastern warriors in Jerry Bruckheimer’s “King Arthur” and “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” but she has never before tackled a Western. “It was quite a challenge,” says Rose, “as I always do the costumes as authentically as possible and then give them a bit of fun.”

Rose was well aware of the iconic Lone Ranger and Tonto costumes from the classic television show, but neither she nor Bruckheimer nor Verbinski had any inclination to revive the campy ensemble Clayton Moore wore. “One of the things I observed watching Westerns from the 1950s and ’60s was that they were quite often indicative of the time in which they were made,” observes Rose, “whereas we decided that we were definitely going to make this as authentic to 1869 as possible.” Rose’s gigantic wardrobe department operation would include upwards of 1500 costumes, and hundreds of hats, shoes, and other accessories, either created especially for the film or rented and altered according to need. Ensconced in a gigantic warehouse at Albuquerque Studios, Rose worked alongside small armies of costumers, cutter/fitters, seamstresses, stitchers, and agers/dyers, creating and assembling the costumes for “The Lone Ranger.”

Joining Rose were numerous longtime collaborators, including assistant costume designer Charlotte Finlay, associate costume designer John Norster and costume supervisor Stacy Horn, all attuned to the designer’s whirlwind style of working. “I like to call her Hurricane Penny,” says Jerry Bruckheimer, who utilized the formidable designer on six previous films. “There’s really no one like Penny in her field; she’s incredibly creative and has a supernatural energy level.” Rose would need that energy level for “The Lone Ranger,” as at one point she and her crew needed to do an astonishing seven hundred fittings in one day for a scene with a large number of background players.

The designer, as much as possible, tries to use fabrics authentic to the time and place. “I don’t like anything man-made,” she confesses, “so everything is wool, cotton, and silk. I might cheat a little and use a fabric that looks like wool but would be more comfortable for the actors in the kind of extreme heat we’ve been filming in, but I never use anything fake. There are no zippers, the buttons have only two holes per that period, and every single female background player is wearing a corset.”

There are basically two costumes for the Lone Ranger, one early in the film when he’s introduced as young law school graduate John Reid, the second when he’s made a Texas Ranger by his brother, Dan, and joins the posse in search of Butch Cavendish. “John Reid is a lawyer coming from a big city in the East in a three-piece suit, very proper, so when he morphs into the Lone Ranger, we decided that he shouldn’t just become an instant cowboy,” says Rose. “There should be a kind of transition between the two. Also, when you are given an actor who is six-foot-five inches tall, as Armie is, it kind of changes things. He couldn’t wear chaps, or a duster coat; he had to have an iconic look of his own. That’s why we’ve gone for a really quite smart, tailored look, although throughout the film it becomes more and more distressed.

“He’s a kind of a ‘GQ’ Lone Ranger,” continues Rose. “This guy’s naturally got style.” Rose designed period-correct pants, a linen vest, a jacket of English wool, a white linen shirt, and, in a subtle nod to Clayton Moore’s costume, a neckerchief and white hat, which was custom-made by Stetson and authentic right down to the period label inside the brim. “They very kindly gave us more than thirty hats,” notes Rose, “which is a good thing because of all the wear and tear in the action scenes.”

Penny Rose’s long association with Johnny Depp meant that another exciting collaboration was at hand for his Tonto costume. “We have quite a good shorthand at this point, and Johnny is really good about costume,” she says. “He knows immediately what works and what doesn’t, so there aren’t long-winded sessions. I offer him up a selection of things, and the decision-making goes quite quickly.

“The story indicates that Tonto is a sort of rogue member of the Comanche tribe,” she explains, “wandering around by himself for years. Joel Harlow, the key makeup designer, developed the crow on Tonto’s head and Johnny’s wonderful body makeup, so my work has really been from the waist down, except for the native breast piece I’ve given him. The concept is that Tonto has picked up different pieces on his journey, bits and bobs of his own personal history.”

Butch Cavendish, as played by William Fichtner, is “a bit of a dandy,” according to Rose, although a particularly terrifying one. “William is just spectacular because he’s such a wonderful actor. Once Joel had designed Bill’s facial makeup, we just immediately got the essence of the man. We put silver epaulets on his shirts, because it says something about how Cavendish sees himself.”

For Rebecca Reid, the frontierswoman played by Ruth Wilson, Rose notes that “I designed her authentically as a frontier wife, which rather has a ‘Grapes of Wrath’ flavor, but luckily, later on in the story she’s given a gown that is a beautiful purple silk taffeta; so for a good portion of the film Ruth is looking really glorious.”

Rose describes the deliciously extravagant Red Harrington as “obviously, the most fun. Nothing can be too over-the-top when you’re designing for Helena Bonham Carter! There is not enough ribbon and beading and embroidery or anything else for Helena. I decided that she should be dressed in red, and Helena was happy about that.”

To accommodate Red’s ivory leg, Rose and her team “made a rather amusing pair of bloomers that is sort of high-thigh-length on one side, and knee-length on the other.” Red’s girls, Rose notes, “are rather glamorous in that period and had to look welcoming to the gentlemen of the railway, so I did them all slightly tongue-in-cheek. A few of them have wonderful sort of dressing gown peignoirs on, with lots of feather and lace. And others are in once-glorious evening gowns that had sort of lost their glamour and were rather faded and slightly shredded. With the wonderful makeup from Joel Harlow’s department, and fabulous wigs from Gloria Casny’s hair department, it was a good collaborative moment between the three teams.”

Finally, Penny Rose says that the Hell on Wheels sequence “was almost like the film’s gift to the creative team, because we could just really let go, and we did! I did Hell on Wheels almost exclusively with fabrics, which was very challenging because there were acrobats, contortionists and little people, but it was all great fun. I know that it was a bit cheeky for a Brit to do a Western, because it’s not my culture, but it was exhilarating to try something new.”

CREATING CHARACTER: THE MAKEUP & THE MASK

Academy Award®–winning makeup artist Joel Harlow (“Star Trek,” “Alice in Wonderland”) has previously transformed Johnny Depp into the iconic Captain Jack Sparrow in all four “Pirates of the Caribbean” films and into the Mad Hatter in “Alice in Wonderland,” among others. Now Harlow and Depp have worked together to completely reimagine Tonto for “The Lone Ranger.” “Johnny and Joel are kindred spirits,” observes Jerry Bruckheimer, “with a love of the offbeat and unusual. They always seem to visually find a way into the heart of the characters Johnny plays.”

Harlow, who took home an Oscar® for his imaginative work on J. J. Abrams’s “Star Trek” was also the film’s makeup department head, leading a talented department of some 25 workers. And whether attending to the film’s stars, or inventing fantastically bizarre creations (“goat skeleton marionette” or half-man, half-woman”) for the Hell on Wheels sequence, Harlow and company worked to the very limits of their capabilities—and beyond. He and his team were responsible not only for Depp but also for the entire cast, right down to the background players. The look for Tonto began during the filming of ”The Rum Diary” in Puerto Rico during the hot summer of 2009. “I came across a really interesting painting by Kirby Sattler titled ‘I Am Crow,’” recalls Harlow. “I showed it to Johnny, who thought it could be a great inspiration for the character and look of Tonto. Johnny then showed the image to Jerry and Gore, which really got the fire going.”

Sattler’s painting shows a Native American warrior with very strong features, face painted white with four vertical black stripes on either side of his nose, long hair adorned with eagle feathers, and most striking, a crow atop his head.

In addition Harlow wanted to incorporate a cracked-earth feel. Notes Harlow, “The idea being that Tonto has smeared this earth on himself and it’s dried over a period of time, and has cracked almost like a mud mask. I could have smeared a kind of mud mask material on Johnny’s face and let it crack naturally, but there’s no way that would have held up and waiting for it to dry would be ridiculous. So what I did was to take a life cast of Johnny, and smear molten clay on it; in that state it has the same texture as mud. Then I took that off his life cast, molded it, cast it in plaster and scribed crack marks into it, to turn it into a silicone prosthetic.”

As Harlow relates, there were times when Depp would wear his prosthetic Tonto makeup over multiple days without removing it at wrap, not only because it would save time for the hour-and-a-half makeup process each day, but also because “this makeup specifically looks better the longer you sleep in it, as long as it’s not more than three days.” A prosthetic nose in conjunction with four body pieces and four facial pieces comprised the look of Tonto, painstakingly manufactured and applied in a process Harlow eventually managed to refine to just ninety minutes.

Depp’s numerous tattoos were also a challenge for the makeup artist. “Some were period-correct and we were able to leave them,” says Harlow. “Tonto is a nomad, in exile from his Comanche tribe, so we could take some liberties with his look based on the journey he had undergone since he was a boy. The tattoos that didn’t work were covered with the same sort of mud that covers Johnny’s face, which keeps his look consistent.” In one case, a tattoo that began as a temporary makeup—the jagged lightning bolt on Tonto’s hand—became real when Depp had the design permanently tattooed partway through production.

The ever-present crow that straddles Tonto’s head was also a responsibility of Harlow’s department. Some 15 different versions of Tonto’s crow were created from a combination of taxidermic, imitation, and sculpted birds in a subsection of the department known as “the Lab,” run by shop supervisor Steve Buscaino and his team. As for Tonto’s long mane, hair department head Gloria Casny fabricated the elaborate wig, mysteriously streaked in the back with what looks suspiciously like bird droppings. Finally, Comanche technical adviser William Voelker provided the beaded feathers that are knotted into Tonto’s hair.

Armie Hammer didn’t require quite so much attention in his role as the Lone Ranger, but the hero’s all-important mask was also under the supervision of Harlow’s department. “The shape was very important,” says Harlow. “I worked very closely with Gore and Crash McCreery on that because just a little bit of difference in the contours of the mask and you go from the Lone Ranger to a superhero. Once we got the shape, it became a question of material, because Tonto uses the murdered Dan Reid’s vest to make the mask for his younger brother, John. The material of the mask needed to match the material of the vest, but also needed to look like its own element. In the script, the eye holes are cut from bullet holes in the vest, which I thought was genius.”

In all, getting the mask to the right place required some ten different designs and seven fittings with Armie Hammer. “It’s not as easy as just tying a piece of leather to a guy’s face,” continues Harlow. “That’s an iconic image, and you want to make sure that it’s correct through the whole film.” As a result, the actual fabrication of the Lone Ranger’s mask had to be every bit as painstaking as its design. “The mask is made out of very soft goat skin leather,” explains Lenny MacDonald, who fabricated the masks in the Lab. “It was vacuum-formed right over Armie’s face so that it fits nice and skintight. The leather is heated with warm water, which makes it pliable, and wrinkles are forced into it so it hopefully looks natural.” As always with such designs, there was a period of trial and error. “It’s very similar to the iconic look,” MacDonald continues, “but we wanted to make it more realistic than the original, which was pretty much what you can buy in a costume store.”

“The first time I put on the mask,” recalls Armie Hammer, “I was in a tailor’s back office in Burbank. It was the first version they made, which didn’t fit right. Two or three days later, they came back and said, ‘We finished the mask, come on in.’ So I showed up, and it was vacuum-formed and fit my face perfectly. I remember putting it on and just thinking, ‘Damn, this is badass. This is actually going to be very cool.’”

Another actor that Harlow and the makeup department unrecognizably transformed was William Fichtner as Butch Cavendish. “At first, I messed with the design of Butch’s nose tip, and just kept going and sculpted a piece that had a cleft lip,” explains Harlow. “Then, in conjunction with that, we created an effect where we grafted a piece of wire onto a denture with a silver tooth, then forced up the lip, which reveals the tooth.

“Then, since Gore talked about how he wanted Butch to be reptilian, on the morning of the first day that Bill started, we got a rattlesnake tail and stuck it in Butch’s hair,” Harlow continues. “Gore and Bill both loved Butch’s look, and based on that, we decided that each member of the Cavendish Gang would have their own distinctive physical signatures. For example, Ray, who is played by Damon Herriman, probably has the most extreme signature of the gang, because he was a victim of a failed hanging. So we sculpted a prosthetic that cuts across his neck and up the side of his face rather than the back of his head.”

Fichtner himself was deeply impressed by his makeup, along with everything else he encountered during his time on the film. “I’ve never been more inspired by a first day on a project. Two days after I talked to Gore about playing Cavendish, I got off the plane in Albuquerque, went right to Horses Unlimited to get on a horse—which I hadn’t done in thirty-eight years—only to be told that the first thing they were going to ask me to do was to jump out of a train onto a galloping horse. Then I went to see the incomparable Joel Harlow, who created a look within a matter of two hours to which I could only respond, ‘Wow!’ It’s what happens when you have a group of people who are at the absolute top of their game.”

The extravagant look for Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Harrington was the result of collaboration between Harlow’s makeup department and hair department head Gloria Casny. “We tried to find our own color and tone for Helena’s character, and this went on for a while,” says Casny. “Helena had her own ideas about the color of the wig, and she has a great sense of the character she was playing. The wig that we finally settled on is thirty inches long, and there are extensions that are probably another 25 to 30 inches.

Throughout the production Joel Harlow was impressed by how much creative leeway he and the other department heads were given. “I can’t express how much I appreciate both Gore and Jerry Bruckheimer,” adds Harlow, “because when you have a free flow of ideas, their ideas feed my ideas; it’s a back-and-forth creative process. You’re not stifled, and you can push the envelope. We were allowed to go crazy.”

VISUAL & PHYSICAL EFFECTS

The spectacular special effects in “The Lone Ranger” were the result of separate but often collaborative efforts between visual effects supervisors Tim Alexander and Gary Brozenich, and special physical effects supervisor John Frazier. The latter handled the stunning “in camera” mechanical effects, while the former was the magician tasked with the creation of digital effects. These subtle CGI wonders included transferring landscapes shot in Monument Valley to the background of shots filmed in Rio Puerco, and digitally extending the physically built town sets like Colby with a few extra buildings.

Tim Alexander, one of Industrial Light & Magic’s young geniuses, had already worked with Gore Verbinski on a film that was all virtual reality, the rule-breaking “Rango.” In doing so, Alexander helped create a degree of realism theretofore unseen by audiences, raising ever higher the bar that had been set by Verbinski’s previous films, from his more modestly scaled breakthrough movie “Mousehunt” to his three “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, where digitally animated characters like Davy Jones blend in seamlessly with the live action. Verbinski’s overriding philosophy for visual effects is that they should never be used for the sake of it. “That’s something that was drilled into my head during ‘Rango,’” confirms Alexander, “that it had to be about the point of the shot, that CGI needs to be part of the story. On “The Lone Ranger,” Alexander would oversee a department of approximately 30 members during filming, which would grow in the all-important post-production phase to more than 100, with his work ending only a short time before the movie’s July 2013 release date.

For “The Lone Ranger,” Alexander explains that “Gore, myself, and the others came up with a philosophy that we called ‘the 50 percent rule,’ where we wanted to always try to get at least half of something real into the camera frame to maintain as much realism as possible. Sometimes you can get stuck in a mode of just shooting blue screen on a soundstage, and you think everything is going great, but in the end all you have is a bunch of blue screens without anything real to grab on to.

“The other thing we did, along the same philosophy,” continues Alexander, “was not to shoot blue screen on a soundstage. All our blue screens were shot outdoors in real sunlight so that they would match the rest of the film. Once you get on stage, it’s often easier because it’s more contained, but you’re lighting for the sun instead of in the sun, and often it looks fake.”

Tim Alexander’s marching orders from Gore Verbinski were to make the visual effects not look like visual effects. “The effects are actually very big and extremely complicated in this film,” notes Alexander, “and I think the trick for us will be in not allowing audiences to think of ‘The Lone Ranger’ as a visual effects movie. It’s about the story, not a big summer visual effects blockbuster.” Not an easy task when one considers that the climactic train action sequence is one of the more complicated in recent film history. “It’s huge,” admits Alexander. “It requires about 350 visual effects shots, including rendering full or close-up trains. Gore wants the sequence to be a wild ride with two trains that are almost dueling each other, twisting, turning, crashing, and it just keeps going and going. And we’ve got to make it look real. So, all the real live-action footage that Gore pulled off gives us a basis for that, and we need to make sure that our CG stuff looks just as good.”

The requirement for approximately 1,300 visual effects shots in “The Lone Ranger” meant that in addition to ILM’s work, Tim Alexander would also be supervising other contributing vendors as well, including the effects houses Moving Picture Company (MPC), based in London, and Lola, based in Santa Monica. As MPC’s visual effects supervisor, Gary Brozenich, explains, his company is responsible for the Comanche attack at the Sleeping Man Mine sequence. “From the beginning to the end of that sequence,” says Brozenich, “we’re doing any number of things from set extensions, to adding a million Comanche arrows, to creating CG doubles getting hit by arrows, to face replacements and explosions. We’re also doing CG scorpions and some backgrounds and landscapes that will be peppered throughout the film.”

Brozenich says that working with Gore Verbinski and production designer Crash McCreery “gave us a strong vision from the start. Gore will do anything he can to get it real. There’s a holistic vision for ‘The Lone Ranger,’ which guides us into working within the structure of the vision of the film. It’s very clearly laid out, although there’s also room for creative breathing.” One of the methods Verbinski and his team used were detailed pre-visualization (pre-vis) animatics to map out the more complex sequences. These essentially function as moving storyboards (another technique the meticulously prepared Verbinski relied on heavily), although Brozenich points out that “it technically guided the work rather than dictated it.”

At the end of the long shoot, both Alexander and Brozenich knew that some of their most consuming work still lay ahead of them, but they were ready to take the bull by the horns. “I’m definitely really tired,” said Alexander two days before wrap, “but I’m excited to get into the next phase now, because I can get back to ILM and start looking at the work everyone has been doing there for almost two months. I know it’s going to be hard, with long days and nights, but with so much material to work with, it’s time to start implementing.” Added Gary Brozenich, “You can already tell that we’re working on a great film, which is why motivating everybody to put in those late hours is not going to be a problem for me.”

THE RETURN OF SILVER

There was Tom Mix’s Tony, Roy Rogers’ Trigger, Dale Evans’ Buttermilk, Hopalong Cassidy’s Topper and Gene Autry’s horse Champion, but arguably, no equine hero of classic Westerns ever equaled the fame of the Lone Ranger’s Silver. Although that “fiery horse with the speed of light” was beloved by millions on the radio programs and television shows, Gore Verbinski and Jerry Bruckheimer’s “The Lone Ranger” gives the horse something he didn’t really have in past versions of the tale: a distinct personality.

In fact, in the new movie, Silver possesses a beguiling combination of mystery, humor, majesty, eccentricity and heroism. This Silver is a horse that suddenly appears in treetops and on the roof of a burning barn; a horse who recognizes something special about John Reid, even when he’s already buried after being “killed” at Bryant’s Gap. “Something very wrong with that horse,” notes Tonto to the Lone Ranger, puzzled by some of the animal’s behavior. But Tonto also knows that the animal is John Reid’s “spirit horse,” a being that recognizes the young man as a “Spirit Walker,” one who has been to the other side and returned. “Silver is a scene-stealer,” confirms Gore Verbinski. “He shows up in the most unexpected places.”

With Silver featuring so prominently in the film, it was incumbent upon the production to find not only the best animal for the role, but also the best person to train it. In that respect, the path was absolutely clear, and it led straight to Bobby Lovgren, acknowledged as the finest in the world at his very specialized profession. The South African–born Lovgren, who grew up in an equestrian family, was a stable manager and rider in his home country before moving to Los Angeles and learning the ropes under legendary movie horse trainers Glenn Randall Sr. and Corky Randall.

Lovgren is now perhaps best known as the head trainer on Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse,” but previously he devoted his skills to the likes of “Seabiscuit” and “The Mask of Zorro.” The key to his success is that Lovgren loves and understands horses, and that feeling seems to be mutual. “We have to find out what horses understand,” says Lovgren. “Are we communicating with them properly? And then making sure they’re comfortable and enjoying it? We always try to make it easy for them, and that’s why I do short lessons. I’ll do a lot of them in the day, but never so that it’s strenuous for them. That way they pay more attention, just like a little kid.”

Lovgren notes that when seeking the perfect horse to portray Silver, “you have to find ones that play and look the part. You have to find out what their personalities are, what they can and can’t do, whether they jump well, stand quietly for a long time. All these things are very important.” Luckily, the “hero” horse Lovgren chose to play Silver is also, incredibly enough, actually named Silver. Lovgren had already worked with the ten-year-old Thoroughbred–quarter horse mix a few years back. “It was nice going in with a horse that I knew and could rely on,” he says.

Although Silver performed most of the actions the role required, Lovgren also cast several other white horses, among them Leroy, Parrot and Cloud, for specific actions. It’s Cloud who races across the rooftops of Promontory Summit, a sequence that took weeks of preparation with Lovgren, the horse wranglers, and stunt rider Lyn Clarke. “That whole sequence was an unknown,” admits Lovgren, “because that had never been done before, to my knowledge. Our biggest concern, as it is every day, is the animal’s safety, making sure there was no room for error. We had a lot of rehearsals on lower containers, and for that sequence, we patterned the horses so that whenever they went up there they did exactly the same thing over and over again, which normally on a film set never happens because things change from scene to scene.”

Tonto’s mount, known as Scout in the classic television series, was played by two American paint horses, one called Sergeant and the other—believe it or not—called Scout! Lovgren began training Silver, Scout and the other horses four months before filming began at a facility called Horses Unlimited, a few miles from Albuquerque Studios. “It’s always the slower things that are much more difficult,” notes Lovgren. “Running, jumping, those are relatively easy. But standing there doing a certain behavior, like picking up a hat, or a bottle, many times in a row, you find out how patient a horse is. The question is how many times the horse can do it before I have to switch to the double, because everything we do is backed up by another horse.”

Sometimes Lovgren was challenged by not only the horses’ limitations, but his own as well, particularly for a shot of the Lone Ranger and Tonto sitting on their horses on the edge of a cliff at John Ford Point in Monument Valley. “I’m not fond of heights, so that was scarier for me than it was for the horses,” he confesses.

And yes, there is a classic “Hi-yo, Silver” moment where Silver rears up with the Lone Ranger on his back—imbued, of course, with a Verbinski-esque twist. “Honestly, that was one of the easier things,” says Lovgren, “and it was really nice because Armie Hammer did that himself. Armie was really awesome. I was lucky enough to work with him on ‘Mirror Mirror’ as well, so going in knowing him made all the difference in the world.”

Easy for Lovgren, perhaps, but not so much for Hammer. “It’s very counterintuitive to rear on a horse,” explains the actor, “because you’d think you go backward, but in reality you have to throw all your body weight forward, because that horse knows where the tipping point is.”

LORDS OF THE PLAINS

Unlike previous incarnations of the legend, in this new version of “The Lone Ranger,” there’s no mystery regarding which Native American nation Tonto belongs to. As Jerry Bruckheimer notes, “It made complete sense to us geographically, historically and culturally that since the Lone Ranger is from Texas, Tonto should have been born into the great nation that had lived on those lands for generations: the Comanche.”

At the height of its power, the Comanche Empire ranged from present-day eastern New Mexico to southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Known historically as being among the fiercest warriors in protecting their lands from the waves of outsiders who encroached upon them, and some of the greatest horsemen to traverse North America, the Comanche—who call themselves the Numunu—have survived culturally and linguistically against unbelievable odds. Although reduced in number by some thirty thousand from their population in the late eighteenth century, the Comanche today, based in Lawton, Oklahoma, remain strong and committed to their powerful history and promising future. Wahathuweeka-William Voelker, one of the greatest living repositories of his people’s traditional knowledge, interpreted the Comanche’s extraordinary way of life for the film. As the founder of Sia (the Comanche word for feather), the Comanche Nation Ethno-Ornithological Initiative conservation program, Voelker has bred more than 400 eagles in captivity (many of them through revolutionary methods of artificial insemination) and restored their place in the natural order of Numunu spirituality.

Working on “The Lone Ranger” as a technical adviser along with Troy “The Last Captive,” his longtime associate at Sia, Voelker served as a close consultant on the film to ensure historical and cultural accuracy on many levels. Voelker’s wide range of responsibilities included coaching Depp on the Comanche language and assisting the production with accurate representations of Comanche Numu kahni (teepees), clothing, and weaponry. At the same time, however, he was also mindful that the film is a work of entertainment that occasionally takes dramatic license with the past. “Because of our life’s work in cultural preservation, the movie industry at times will come knocking when there’s an effort to involve historical accuracy,” says Voelker. “Our primary work is preservation of culture and the eagle as a historical, spiritual, and ceremonial entity. But when it seems appropriate, we look at the project and agree to come on board, as we did with ‘The Lone Ranger.’

“We’re not making a historical document with the film,” continues Voelker, “but the production is committed to historical accuracy, to the extent to which it works for the film. We know we have to try to take a cooperative point of view on this. Not that we will compromise our culture, but we are focused on entertainment of the masses, done with sensitivity to our way of life. Unfortunately, we’re living in a time where the Comanche people have fewer traditionally knowledgeable people, so anything of historical accuracy we can get before our young people is the primary reason we are involved.”

On “The Lone Ranger,” Voelker and Troy worked closely with numerous departments, particularly production design, set decoration, and props, to find the middle ground between historical accuracy and the needs of the fictional film. “Gore has a very specific vision,” confirms Voelker. “He’s played these scenes over and over in his head many times. What we’ve been able to arrive at is a happy medium between what’s absolutely historically accurate to us and what works within the palette that he has in mind. There’s been a little bit of compromise, but not to the point where it’s something we can’t live with. We’re making it work.

“We brought all the different departments together so that they could understand a little better about what we do and the living culture that we bring,” Voelker continues, “and in dealing with them I can say with absolute certainty that they were all committed to working within an authentic historical framework.” As a perfect example, Voelker and Troy worked in close collaboration with set decorator Cheryl Carasik, leadman David Manhan and their team to develop and create accurate teepees for the Comanche camps in the film. Voelker proudly notes this is the first time such dwellings will be seen in a film. “We Numunu always get stuck with Northern Plains teepees, but this is one of the things that we got accurate in ‘The Lone Ranger.’ Our Numu kahni had a four-pole foundation put together in a very specific way, and everything was built up from that. When you take into consideration that our villages were situated on the Southern Plains where there is nothing to break the wind, it was essential that our Numu kahni were set up in a way that fought back against the elements.”

Throughout production, Voelker and Troy were also pleased to develop a close relationship with Johnny Depp, advising him throughout the shoot on all manner of issues. “Johnny quickly revealed what a sensitive person he is, and a quick bond developed between us,” says Voelker. “As a result of Johnny’s great interest in who we are culturally, he has added words in Numunu that were not part of the original script where it seemed appropriate to call on our language. It’s gratifying that he’s so committed.”

Indeed, it was Voelker and Troy who presided over the ceremonial adoption of Depp (himself of partial Cherokee heritage) into the distinguished Tabbytite family of the Comanche Nation, “taken” in the old tradition by LaDonna Harris, the legendary activist who has spent the better part of her eight decades working tirelessly to improve the lives of indigenous peoples in the United States and around the world. The Comanche name chosen for Depp and announced by Voelker at the ceremony was Mah-woo-meh, which in an approximate translation, means “He Can Change” or, perhaps in the vernacular, “Shapeshifter.”

As one who has devoted years to the propagation of sacred birds, Voelker is uniquely qualified to address the most talked-about aspect of Johnny Depp’s Tonto costume—the inanimate crow that adorns his head. “The crow is probably second only to the eagle in the level of medicine or power that the warrior would aspire to,” explains Voelker. “We had an elite group of Comanche warriors, and the English translation of their name is the ‘Crow Tassel Wearers,’ of which I’m a direct descendent. The large cluster of crow and raven fathers on the head symbolize the fact that that the individual was a member of this elite warrior society. The use of a whole bird or major parts of a bird on the head is something that transects many different tribal boundaries. It just so happens that with the Comanche, it is even more pronounced. So it’s fitting that the Tonto character is one of us. A crow or feathers on the head is heavy-duty medicine, or spiritual energy, for our people.”

The relationship between Wahathuweeka-William Voelker, Troy “The Last Captive,” the Comanche Nation, and Johnny Depp continued beyond wrap. Just two days after completing seven grueling months of filming, Depp flew to Lawton, Oklahoma, on September 29, 2012, to participate in the Comanche Nation Fair, fulfilling a promise he had made months earlier to the late tribal chairman Johnny Wauqua. In one very rainy and busy day, often in the company of Comanche tribal chairman Wallace Coffey, Depp rode side by side with his adoptive Comanche mother, LaDonna Harris, waving to cheering crowds in a soggy but joyous parade. He spoke eloquently in a gymnasium filled with Comanche children and teens along with Harris and Gil Birmingham, who portrays Red Knee in “The Lone Ranger” and is himself a Comanche. He also visited the beautiful Sia facility in nearby Cyril, Oklahoma, and paid his respects to the grave of the great Comanche chief Quanah Parker in a cemetery at Fort Sill, just across the road from the fairgrounds.

The love and warmth with which Depp was greeted by the Comanche people was returned to them in kind by the humbled and grateful actor. During his talk to those assembled in the gymnasium, Depp reminded the young people of their incredible heritage, saying that they could accomplish anything they wanted because they have the “warrior spirit” within them. The survival of the Comanche is testament to a people of enormous inner strength and dignity who, unbowed, find their hopeful future in their proud past.

WHAT HAPPENS IN POST, STAYS IN POST

The end of principal photography hardly marked the final leg of “The Lone Ranger” journey. Rather, it was the beginning of a new, and perhaps just as challenging, race to a finish line that wouldn’t come into view until July 3, 2013, when the film would finally open in theaters around the world. The post-production schedule was about to ensue, with the millions of puzzle pieces created during the shoot needing to fall into just the right place.

Editing bays were prepared in Pasadena, California, where film editors Craig Wood (“Rango”) and James Haygood (“TRON: Legacy”) set to work on assembling the vast amount of footage shot over the previous seven months. There would be sound mixing, looping, and dubbing to be accomplished. Up in the Bay Area, visual effects master Tim Alexander would oversee an ever-growing team of artists to create the necessary magic, while across the Atlantic in London, the Moving Picture Company’s Gary Brozenich would be doing the same.

Longtime Verbinski and Bruckheimer musical collaborator Hans Zimmer (“The Dark Knight Rises,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”), who gave Captain Jack Sparrow his unforgettable theme, would now be doing the same for Tonto and the Lone Ranger. And of course, there was the ubiquitous William Tell Overture to deal with. “We’re going to hold back on it, and perhaps deconstruct and dissect it for a while,” says Verbinski. “It’s like foreplay for most of the movie, because John Reid hasn’t quite yet become that guy. Then, at a certain point, he wears the mask in a slightly different way. It fits better, the white hat fits better, the attitude’s better, and then we boldly break out the William Tell Overture in our last reel. Ultimately, we’re going to deliver ‘The Lone Ranger’ in the classic sense—we’re just going to get there in a completely different way.”

Ruth Wilson, who plays Rebecca Reid, sums up the experience for everyone involved in the production of “The Lone Ranger” best when she says: “Gore [Verbinski] has such amazing passion and energy; he cares so much about what he is trying to create and works tirelessly to achieve it. He sets a standard that is infectious; everyone wants to be bold, brave, and interesting in his or her choices to match what Gore is trying to achieve. It’s a wonderfully creative, loyal and exhilarating environment to work in.”

The journey to make “The Lone Ranger” is testament to the art of filmmaking, where creative vision translates to a movie of unmatched scale and adventure—and a legacy is reborn in a fresh, new way with both drama and humor. Promising to be summer’s most exciting movie event, “The Lone Ranger” releases in U.S. theaters on July 3, 2013.

ABOUT THE CAST

JOHNNY DEPP (Tonto/Executive Producer) is an award-winning actor who is also producing under the banner of his company, infinitum nihil.

A three-time Academy Award® nominee in the category of Best Actor, Depp was honored with his first Oscar® nomination for his work in Gore Verbinski’s 2003 blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” which launched the hugely successful film franchise. He also won a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award® and an Empire Award and garnered Golden Globe® and BAFTA Award nominations for his creation of Captain Jack Sparrow, who became an instant screen classic. Depp went on to reprise the role in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” earning another Golden Globe nomination; “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”; and, most recently, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.”

Depp’s second Oscar® nomination came for his performance in Marc Forster’s acclaimed 2004 drama “Finding Neverland.” Additionally, he received Golden Globe®, BAFTA Award and SAG Award® nominations for his portrayal of “Peter Pan” author James Barrie in the film.

Depp earned his latest Oscar® nod for his work in “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” director Tim Burton’s 2007 screen adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical. For his performance in the film’s title role, Depp also won a Golden Globe® for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical.

“Dark Shadows” marks Depp’s eighth collaboration with Burton, which began with the actor’s Golden Globe®-nominated performance in the 1990 feature “Edward Scissorhands.” He subsequently earned Golden Globe nominations for his work under Burton’s direction in “Ed Wood,” for which he won a London Film Critics’ Circle Award, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Alice in Wonderland,” and he also lent his voice to Burton’s animated hit “Corpse Bride.”

Depp began his performing career as a musician, before segueing to acting. He made his feature film debut in the horror hit “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” followed by Oliver Stone’s Oscar®-winning war drama “Platoon.” In 1987, he landed his breakout role on the hit television show “21 Jump Street.” After starring in the series for four seasons, Depp returned to the big screen in John Waters’ “Cry-Baby.”

His early film work also includes “Benny & Joon,” gaining a Golden Globe® nomination; Lasse Hallstr?m’s “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”; “Don Juan DeMarco,” with Marlon Brando; Mike Newell’s “Donnie Brasco”; and Terry Gilliam’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” In 1997, Depp made his writing and directing debut with “The Brave,” in which he also starred with Brando.

Depp’s long list of credits also includes such diverse films as Lasse Hallstr?m’s “Chocolat,” for which he was Golden Globe®-nominated; the Hughes brothers’ “From Hell”; Robert Rodriguez’s “Once Upon a Time in Mexico”; Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies”; “The Tourist,” earning another Golden Globe nomination; and “The Rum Diary,” which he also produced. In addition, he voiced the title character in 2011’s Oscar®-winning animated feature “Rango,” directed by Gore Verbinski, and was one of the producers on the Oscar®-nominated “Hugo.”

He is currently working with Wally Pfister on a film entitled “Transcendence” with Rebecca Hall and Paul Bettany.

ARMIE HAMMER (John Reid aka The Lone Ranger) has emerged as one of Hollywood’s most talented young actors. Hammer’s portrayal of Clyde Toson in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar Hoover biopic, “J. Edgar,” garnered Hammer a 2012 SAG® nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Hammer starred in the film opposite Leonardo DiCaprio from a script by “Milk” Oscar® winner Dustin Lance Black. “J. Edgar” was also honored at the 2011 AFI Awards for Film of the Year.

His performance as the Winklevoss twins in the award-winning film “The Social Network” garnered him critical praise and positioned him as one of Hollywood’s breakouts of 2010. Hammer was nominated Most Promising Performer by the Chicago Crix and awarded Best Supporting Actor by the Toronto Film Critics Association. The film received a SAG® nomination for Best Ensemble, as well as Best Picture for Golden Globes®. “The Social Network” was also recognized by L.A. and N.Y. Film Critics, Broadcast Film Critics Association, National Board of Review, and as one of the American Film Institute’s Top 10 Films of the Year.

Hammer’s other credits include “Mirror Mirror,” directed by Tarsem Singh Dhandwar, where he played Prince Alcott and starred opposite Julia Roberts and Lily Collins.

Hammer currently resides in Los Angeles.

TOM WILKINSON (Latham Cole) is an award-winning actor of stage and screen. Wilkinson received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Supporting Actor in Tony Gilroy’s Academy Award®-nominated “Michael Clayton.” He received an Academy Award® nomination for Leading Actor for his unforgettable performance in Todd Field’s acclaimed drama “In The Bedroom,” opposite Sissy Spacek. Wilkinson also received a BAFTA nomination, won the Independent Spirit Award, a Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize and a New York Film Critics Circle Award for the role. Prior to that, Wilkinson won a BAFTA for his role in the 1997 British and international box-office sensation “The Full Monty” and garnered another BAFTA nomination the following year for his performance in the Oscar®-winning Best Picture “Shakespeare In Love.” He received Emmy® and Golden Globe Award® nominations for his courageous performance in HBO’s 2003 film “Normal,” opposite Jessica Lange. Wilkinson won an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Supporting Actor for the HBO miniseries “John Adams,” in which he portrayed Benjamin Franklin. His most recent foray into television was for the History Channel, in the U.S. playing Joe Kennedy in “The Kennedys” and was nominated for an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a miniseries. Wilkinson also starred in the Golden Globe-winning TV movie “Recount,” playing James Baker opposite Kevin Spacey and John Hurt.

Wilkinson will next been seen in “Felony” with Joel Edgerton and also “Belle” opposite Miranda Richardson. Tom has also starred in “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” opposite Tom Cruise, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith; “The Debt” opposite Helen Mirren; “The Conspirator” for Robert Redford; Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost”; Michel Gondry’s “The Green Hornet”; Tony Gilroy’s “Duplicity” with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen; John Landis’ “Burke and Hare”; Woody Allen’s “Cassandra’s Dream” with Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor; Guy Ritchie’s London-set crime caper “RocknRolla”; with Gerard Butler; and Bryan Singer’s World War II-set drama “Valkyrie” with Tom Cruise. His previous film credits include Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins”; “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” with Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey; “The Last Kiss,” starring Zach Braff; “Stage Beauty” with Billy Crudup; “Wilde”; “The Governess”; Ang Lee’s “Sense and Sensibility”; “Smilla’s Sense of Snow”; Gillian Armstrong’s “Oscar and Lucinda”; “Ride with the Devil”; “The Importance of Being Earnest”; “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth; Roland Emmerich’s “The Patriot”; “A Good Woman”; “Ripley Under Ground”; “The Exorcism of Emily Rose"; and Separate Lies, with Emily Watson and Rupert Everett.

On the British small screen, Wilkinson received BAFTA TV Award nominations for his roles in “Cold Enough for Snow” and the award-winning BBC miniseries “Martin Chuzzlewit.” His other notable television credits include such long-form projects as the HBO movie “The Gathering Storm” and the BBC telefilm “Measure for Measure,” to name only a few.

An accomplished stage actor, Wilkinson has played the role of John Proctor in “The Crucible” at the Royal National Theatre; the title role in “King Lear” at the Royal Court; the role of Dr. Stockmann in the award-winning West End production of “Enemy of the People” with Vanessa Redgrave; a London Critics Circle Award-winning performance in “Ghosts”; and David Hare’s production of “My Zinc Bed” with Julia Ormond.

In the past year, WILLIAM FICHTNER (Butch Cavendish) has completed starring roles in Neill Blomkamp’s “Elysium,” opening August 9, opposite Matt Damon and Jodie Foster for Sony Pictures; writer-director Todd Robinson’s thriller “Phantom,” opposite Ed Harris and David Duchovny; and director-producer Danny DeVito’s thriller “St. Sebastian.”

In 2012, Fichtner starred in the John Stockwell-directed “Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden,” based on the true events surrounding the U.S. Navy SEALS mission to capture Bin Laden. In 2011 Fichtner starred opposite Nicholas Cage in “Drive Angry” for director Patrick Lussier and alongside Antonio Banderas in “The Big Bang” for director Tony Krantz. In 2010 he starred opposite Steve Carell and Tina Fey in director Shawn Levy’s “Date Night.”

Fichtner co-starred in writer-director Paul Haggis’ Academy Award®-winning “Crash.” For his performance in that film, he shared a Screen Actors Guild Award® for Best Ensemble Cast in a Feature Film. His additional film credits include “Blades of Glory” with Will Ferrell; director Chris Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”; the remake of “The Longest Yard” with Adam Sandler; the comedy “The Amateurs” with Jeff Bridges; two films that premiered in the same Sundance Film Festival season: Rodrigo Garcia’s “Nine Lives” and Arie Posin’s “The Chumscrubber”; Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down”; “What’s The Worst Thing That Could Happen”; Wolfgang Peterson’s “The Perfect Storm”; “Drowning Mona”; “Ultraviolet and Equilibrium,” both for writer-director Kurt Wimmer; “Armageddon”; Michael Mann’s “Heat”; Robert Zemeckis’ “Contact”; Doug Liman’s “Go”; Katherine Bigelow’s “Strange Days”; “Passion of Mind”; Steven Soderbergh’s “The Underneath”; “Switchback”; Agnieszka Holland’s “Julie Walking Home”; “The Settlement” with John C. Reilly; Kevin Spacey’s directorial debut “Albino Alligator”; and “First Snow” with Guy Pearce.

Segueing between television and feature films, Fichtner most recently completed filming the international television series “Crossing Lines,” created by Edward Allen Bernero, co-creator of “Third Watch” and an executive producer of “Criminal Minds.” Fichtner stars in the series opposite Donald Sutherland. Fichtner had a recurring role on HBO’s “Entourage” from 2009-2011. He played FBI Agent Alexander Mahone for three seasons on Fox’s hit drama series, “Prison Break.” He also starred with Paul Newman and Ed Harris in HBO’s critically acclaimed adaptation of Richard Russo’s “Empire Falls.” Other television credits include roles on NBC’s The “West Wing” and ABC’s “Invasion.”

As a member of the Circle Repertory Theatre, Fichtner won critical acclaim for his role in “The Fiery Furnace,” directed by Norman Rene. Other stage credits include “Raft of the Medusa” at the Minetta Lane Theatre, “The Years” at the Manhattan Theatre Club, “Clothes for a Summer Hotel” at the Williamstown Theatre festival and “Machinal” at The Public Theatre.

BARRY PEPPER (Capt. Fuller) gained critical attention for his portrayal of Private Jackson in the Academy Award®-winning feature “Saving Private Ryan,” and since then he has been sought out for compelling roles with award-winning filmmakers.

Both a television and film star, Pepper has starred alongside some of today’s most respected fellow actors and directors. Recently released films include “Broken City” for 20th Century Fox with Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe and Summit Entertainment’s “Snitch” with Dwayne Johnson and Susan Sarandon. He starred with Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin and Matt Damon in the Coen Brothers’ remake of “True Grit.” He starred opposite Kevin Spacey in “Casino Jack,” the story of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. For his performance in this film Pepper was the recipient of the Hollywood Spotlight Award from the 14th annual Hollywood Film Festival. He also starred in “Like Dandelion Dust,” which won more than 30 national and international film festival awards, including Best Actor at the 2009 Las Vegas International Film Festival and 2009 NY Vision Festival. He was seen opposite Will Smith in Columbia Pictures’ “Seven Pounds”; worked with Clint Eastwood in the World War II epic “Flags of Our Fathers” for DreamWorks/Warner Bros; and starred alongside Tom Hanks in the Academy Award®-winning feature “The Green Mile.” He also starred in “25th Hour,” Spike Lee’s compelling view of post-9/11 New York City, starring Ed Norton and Philip Seymour Hoffman. His film “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” for Sony Pictures Classics marked Tommy Lee Jones’ directorial debut and was shown in competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, and Pepper received a nomination for Best Supporting Male in the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards.

His other feature credits include the Bruckheimer/Scott thriller “Enemy of the State” with Will Smith and Gene Hackman; the critically acclaimed Paramount Pictures’ “We Were Soldiers” with Mel Gibson; and the New Line feature “Knockaround Guys” opposite John Malkovich and Dennis Hopper.

Pepper starred as Robert Kennedy in the Reelz Channel 8-hour miniseries “The Kennedys” with Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes. In recognition of his outstanding performance, he won the 2011 Emmy® Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie and the 26th annual Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series.

Pepper has also made his mark as a producer. He executive produced and starred in the title role of the ESPN feature 3: “The Dale Earnhardt Story,” a biopic of the NASCAR star who died in a crash during the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. His performance garnered a nomination for the 11th Annual SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries. He also executive produced and starred in “The Snow Walker,” which he received a Best Actor nomination for the 24th Annual Genie Awards in Canada as well as eight other nominations for the film.

Pepper’s starring role in the HBO feature “61*” earned him nominations for a Golden Globe®, an Emmy® and a Critic’s Choice Award. The film tells the story behind the competition between the New York Yankees’ Roger Maris (Pepper) and Mickey Mantle (Thomas Jane) to break Babe Ruth’s single season homerun record in 1961. The critically acclaimed film was directed and executive produced by Billy Crystal.

JAMES BADGE DALE (Dan Reid) is gearing up for an impressive 2013 as his work will be seen in three other major pictures in addition to “The Lone Ranger,” adding four completely different characters to his already complex list of roles played.

In Shane Black’s “Iron Man 3,” starring opposite Robert Downey, Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle and Jon Favreau, he plays the unique villain Eric Savin. In Marc Forster’s “World War Z,” based on the highly successful novel by Max Brooks, Dale appears opposite Brad Pitt, as the character Speke, a soldier struggling with his humanity during the zombie apocalypse.

Dale recently completed “Parkland.” The film recounts the dramatic true story of the chaotic events that occurred at Parkland Hospital in Dallas on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Dale plays Robert Oswald, the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald, in the ensemble cast alongside Jacki Weaver, Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton, Zac Efron and Marcia Gary Harden.

Dale was last seen in Paramount’s “Flight,” directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Denzel Washington, as the memorable character The Gaunt Young Man. Within the past year, Dale starred alongside Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan in “Shame,” the controversial and sexually charged drama directed by Steve McQueen. He followed with Joe Carnahan’s “The Grey,” starring Liam Neeson, a film centering on the survival of eight men in the wilds of Alaska hunted by a pack of wolves. His other notable film credits include Robert Redford’s historical drama “The Conspirator,” starring Robin Wright and James McAvoy, and Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award®-winning film “The Departed.”

In television Dale starred in AMC’s critically acclaimed series “Rubicon,” constructed in the vein of the political thrillers “Parallax View” and “Three Days of the Condor.” His most recognized role in television was his lead performance as Robert Leckie in the Emmy® and Peabody- awarded HBO epic miniseries “The Pacific.” Dale is also remembered as Chase Edmunds, Kiefer Sutherland’s younger partner in the hit television series “24.”

Dale is the son of late Broadway, film and television star Anita Morris and two-time Tony Award®-nominated director/choreographer, Grover Dale. He followed his parents onto the stage making his Off Broadway debut in 2003 with The Flea Theatre Company. Since then, he has returned to the New York stage to work with The New Group and New World Stages.

Two-time Olivier Award-winning actress RUTH WILSON (Rebecca Reid) will next be seen in Focus Features “Anna Karenina” alongside Keira Knightly, which will be released on September 7th in the UK and November 9th in the U.S.

Wilson has proven her versatility on stage, in film and on television. She is best known for her stunning portrayal of “Jane Eyre” in the 2006 adaptation, which led her to a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress in 2007 and a Golden Globe® nomination for Best Actress the following year. Jane Eyre was Wilson’s first role out of drama school. Following “Jane Eyre,” Wilson found herself quickly in demand and became Stephen Poliakoff’s muse, playing the lead in two of his critically acclaimed films, “Capturing Mary” and “A Real Summer.” Wilson then went on to play the female lead in “Small Island,” the critically acclaimed adaptation of the beloved book, which formed the centerpiece of the BBC’s Autumn 2009 season. In 2009, she starred in ITV’s miniseries “The Prisoner,” the remake of the cult classic film, alongside Ian McKellen. That same year, Wilson starred in the BBC 1 critically acclaimed series “Luther,” in which she portrayed an unnervingly intelligent sociopath Alice Morgan, opposite Idris Elba.

Wilson’s theatre work began in 2007, while appearing in Maxim Gorky’s “Philistines,” at the National Theatre. The play, set in 1902 Russia, depicts the life of bigoted patriot Vassily and his bullied children. Wilson portrayed the character Tanya, a depressed teacher bullied by her father. Her second appearance on the London stage was in 2009, playing the coveted role of Stella opposite Rachel Weisz in the sold-out West End production of “A Street Car Named Desire,” a role for which she won her first Olivier award for Best Supporting Actress and earned plaudits from the critics. In 2010, Wilson starred in an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s, “Through a Glass Darkly,” which premiered at the Almeida Theatre. Earlier this year, she starred alongside Jude Law in Eugene O’Neill’s “Anna Christie,” which garnered her second Olivier nomination and win in the Best Actress Category.

Wilson currently resides in London, England.

HELENA BONHAM CARTER (Red Harrington), a two-time Academy Award® nominee, earned her latest Oscar® nod for her performance in 2010’s true-life drama “The King’s Speech,” directed by Tom Hooper. Her portrayal of Elizabeth, the wife of King George VI, also brought her Golden Globe® and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award® nominations, and won BAFTA and British Independent Film Awards. Additionally, the stars of “The King’s Speech” won a SAG Award® for Outstanding Motion Picture Cast.

She was honored with her first Oscar® nod, as well as Golden Globe®, BAFTA Award and SAG Award® nominations for her work in the 1997 romantic period drama “The Wings of the Dove,” based on the novel by Henry James. For her performance in that film, she also won Best Actress Awards from a number of critics’ organizations, including the Los Angeles Film Critics, Broadcast Film Critics, National Board of Review and London Film Critics’ Circle.

Bonham Carter also garnered a Golden Globe® nomination and won an Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress for her performance as Mrs. Lovett in Tim Burton’s 2009 screen adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” opposite Johnny Depp in the title role. In 2010, she re-teamed with Burton and Depp for the fantastical adventure hit “Alice in Wonderland.”

In 2011, Bonham Carter appeared as the evil Bellatrix Lestrange in the blockbuster “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2,” reprising the role she played in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.” More recently Bonham Carter stars in Tom Hooper’s Academy Award®-nominated, big-screen adaptation of the musical “Les Mis?rables,” playing the duplicitous Madame Th?nardier.

In 2012 Bonham Carter was honored with a CBE from Buckingham Palace. She also received a BFI fellowship. In January 2013 The Critics Circle honored her with The Dilys Powell Award for Excellence in Film.

Bonham Carter made her feature film debut in 1986 in the title role of Trevor Nunn’s historical biopic “Lady Jane.” She had barely wrapped production on that film when director James Ivory offered her the lead in “A Room with a View,” based on the book by E.M. Forster. She went on to receive acclaim in two more screen adaptations of Forster novels: Charles Sturridge’s “Where Angels Fear to Tread” and James Ivory’s “Howard’s End,” for which she earned her first BAFTA Award nomination. Her early film work also includes Franco Zeffirelli’s “Hamlet,” opposite Mel Gibson; “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh; Woody Allen’s “Mighty Aphrodite”; and “Twelfth Night,” reuniting her with Trevor Nunn.

She went on to star in David Fincher’s “Fight Club,” with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton; the Tim Burton-directed films “Big Fish,” “Planet of the Apes” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”; and the actioner “Terminator Salvation,” directed by McG. In addition, she has starred in such independent features as “Novocaine,” “The Heart of Me,” “Till Human Voices Wake Us” and “Conversations with Other Women.” She also lent her voice to the animated features “Carnivale”; Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride,” in the title role; and the Oscar®-winning “Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.”

On the small screen, Bonham Carter earned both Emmy® and Golden Globe Award® nominations for her performances in the telefilm “Live from Baghdad” and the miniseries “Merlin,” and a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of Marina Oswald in the miniseries “Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald.” She also starred as Anne Boleyn in the British miniseries “Henry VIII,” and as the mother of seven children, including four autistic sons, in the BBC telefilm “Magnificent 7.” More recently, she starred as Mrs. Potter in the adaptation of Nigel Slater’s autobiography “Toast” and in the BBC biopic “Enid,” playing renowned children’s storyteller Enid Blyton.

Bonham Carter’s stage credits include productions of “The Woman in White,” “The Chalk Garden,” “The House of Bernarda Alba” and “Trelawny of the Wells,” to name a few.

Bonham Carter is currently filming the role of Elizabeth Taylor in “Burton and Taylor.”

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Academy Award®–winning filmmaker GORE VERBINSKI (Director/Producer) has enjoyed tremendous box-office success as the innovative director to both character-driven franchises, and thoughtful genre-bending fare.

In March 2011, Verbinski released his first animated film, the smash hit “Rango,” starring Johnny Depp. Grossing over $240 million worldwide, the film won the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film and also earned Golden Globe®, PGA and Annie nominations, as well as featuring on numerous Critics lists. Verbinski previously helmed the hit franchise “Pirates of the Caribbean,” directing the first three films starring Johnny Depp and Keira Knightley. The films have collectively grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide since release. He made his directorial debut with “Mouse Hunt,” starring Nathan Lane, followed by the road movie, “The Mexican,” starring Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini. He also directed the smash hit, “The Ring,” starring Naomi Watts.

Verbinski is also a successful award-winning commercial director. He has been honored with four Clio Awards and a Cannes Silver Lion Award for his work on an assortment of memorable advertising spots such as Nike’s “100 Foot Hoop,” featuring Michael Jordan, and the first of the popular Budweiser “Frog” spots. In addition, Verbinski directed music videos for bands, including Bad Religion and Crystal Method.

A graduate of the School of Theater, Film and Television at UCLA, Verbinski resides in Los Angeles with his family.

JERRY BRUCKHEIMER (Producer) has for 40 years produced films and television programs of distinction and quality, in the process becoming the most successful producer of all time in both mediums. His productions, with the familiar lightning bolt logo, have not only delighted audiences all over the world, but greatly impacted popular culture over the decades.

Bruckheimer’s films have earned worldwide revenues of over $16 billion in box office, video and recording receipts. In the 2005-6 season he had a record-breaking 10 series on network television, a feat unprecedented in nearly 60 years of television history. His films (19 of which exceeded the $100 million mark in U.S. box office receipts, three of which are on the all-time top ten list and two of which surpassed a billion dollars in international box office) and television programs have been acknowledged with 41 Academy Award® nominations, six Oscars®, eight Grammy Award® nominations, five Grammys, 23 Golden Globe® nominations, four Golden Globes, 113 Emmy Award® nominations, 22 Emmys, 30 People’s Choice Awards nominations, 15 People’s Choice Awards, 12 BAFTA nominations, two BAFTA Awards, numerous MTV Awards, including one for Best Picture of the Decade for “Beverly Hills Cop” and 20 Teen Choice Awards.

But the numbers exist only because of Bruckheimer’s uncanny ability to find the stories and tell them on film. He is, according to the Washington Post, “the man with the golden gut.” He may have been born that way, but more likely, his natural gifts were polished to laser focus in the early years of his career. His first films were the 60-second tales he told as an award-winning commercial producer in his native Detroit. One of those mini-films, a parody of “Bonnie and Clyde” created for Pontiac, was noted for its brilliance in Time Magazine and brought the 23-year-old producer to the attention of world-renowned ad agency BBD&O, which lured him to New York.

Four years on Madison Avenue gave him the experience and confidence to tackle Hollywood, and, just about 30, he was at the helm of memorable films like “Farewell, My Lovely,” “American Gigolo” and 1983’s “Flashdance,” which changed Bruckheimer’s life by grossing $92 million in the U.S. alone and pairing him with Don Simpson, who would be his producing partner for the next 13 years.

Together the Simpson/Bruckheimer juggernaut produced one hit after another, including “Top Gun,” “Days of Thunder,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Beverly Hills Cop II,” “Bad Boys,” “Dangerous Minds,” “Crimson Tide” and the cult satire “The Ref,” which Entertainment Weekly magazine named one of “The 50 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen” in July 2012. Box office success was acknowledged in both 1985 and 1988 when the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) named Bruckheimer Producer of the Year. And in 1988 the Publicists Guild of America chose him, along with Simpson, Motion Picture Showmen of the Year.

In 1996, Bruckheimer produced “The Rock,” re-establishing Sean Connery as an action star and turning an unlikely Nicolas Cage into an action hero. “The Rock,” named Favorite Movie of the Year by NATO, grossed $350 million worldwide and was Bruckheimer’s last movie with Simpson, who died during production.

Now on his own, Bruckheimer followed in 1997 with “Con Air,” which grossed over $230 million, earned a Grammy® and two Oscar® nominations and brought its producer the ShoWest International Box Office Achievement Award for unmatched foreign grosses.

Then came Touchstone Pictures’ megahit “Armageddon,” starring Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler and Steve Buscemi. Directed by Michael Bay, it was the biggest movie of 1998, grossing nearly $560 million worldwide and introducing legendary rock band Aerosmith’s first #1 single, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.”

By the end of the millennium, Bruckheimer had produced “Enemy of the State,” starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman and “Gone in 60 Seconds,” starring Cage, Angelina Jolie and Robert Duvall, both grossing over $225 million worldwide; “Coyote Ugly,” whose soundtrack album went triple platinum; and the NAACP Image Award–winning “Remember the Titans,” starring Denzel Washington. His peers in the Producers Guild of America acknowledged his abilities with the David O. Selznick Award for Lifetime Achievement in Motion Pictures.

He began the 21st century with triple Oscar®-nominee “Pearl Harbor.” Starring Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale and directed by Bay, the film was hailed by World War II veterans and scholars as a worthy re-creation of the event that brought the United States into the war. In addition to multiple award nominations and the Oscar for Best Sound Editing, it earned over $450 million in worldwide box office and has topped $250 million in DVD and video sales.

“Black Hawk Down,” the story of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, starred Hartnett, Eric Bana and Ewan McGregor and was directed by Ridley Scott. The adaptation of the Mark Bowden bestseller was honored with multiple award nominations, two Oscars® and rave reviews.

Turning his hand toward comedy in 2003, Bruckheimer released the raucously funny “Kangaroo Jack,” a family film that won an MTV Award for Best Virtual performance for the kangaroo.

And later in 2003, Bruckheimer unveiled “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” Starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush and Keira Knightley and directed by Gore Verbinski, the comedy/adventure/romance grossed more than $630 million worldwide, earned five Academy Award® nominations and spawned three sequels: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” all of which were to become even bigger hits than the first.

Following “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” Jerry Bruckheimer’s films have included “Bad Boys II”; “Veronica Guerin,” starring Cate Blanchett as the Irish journalist murdered by Dublin crime lords; and “King Arthur,” with Clive Owen starring in the revisionist re-telling of the Arthurian legend.

In 2004 “National Treasure,” starring Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight, Justin Bartha and Sean Bean in a roller-coaster adventure about solving the mystery of untold buried treasure, directed by Jon Turteltaub, opened to cheering audiences and grossed more than $335 million worldwide.

“Glory Road,” the story of Texas Western coach Don Haskins, who led the first all-black starting line-up for a college basketball team to the NCAA national championship in 1966, debuted in early 2006 starring Josh Lucas, was honored with an ESPY Award for “Best Sports Movie of the Year” for 2006, while the writers received a Humanitas Prize for work that “honestly explores the complexities of the human experience and sheds light on the positive values of life.”

Summer 2006 brought the theatrical release of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” which sailed into the record books by becoming not only Bruckheimer’s most financially successful film, but the highest-grossing movie opening ever in the history of the medium at that time: $132 million in its first three days. Shattering projected estimates, the film earned $55.5 million the first day of release. The final worldwide take of $1.07 billion placed “Dead Man’s Chest” in third position among the highest-grossing films of all time, and is still one of only six films to ever top the billion dollar mark, and creating a true worldwide phenomenon.

Teaming for the sixth time with director Tony Scott, Bruckheimer released “D?j? Vu” in late 2006, the story of an ATF agent who falls in love with a complete stranger as he races against time to track down her brutal killer. The film starred Denzel Washington, Jim Caviezel, Paula Patton and Val Kilmer.

In May 2007, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” third in the blockbuster trilogy, opened around the world simultaneously. Shattering more domestic and international records in its wake, “At World’s End” became the fastest film in history to reach half a billion dollars in overseas grosses. By early July, the film had amassed a worldwide total of $960 million, giving “At World’s End” hallowed status as the number one worldwide movie of the year, and, at that time, the sixth biggest film of all time in total box office receipts.

Released on December 21st, 2007, “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”—the follow-up to Bruckheimer’s 2004 hit, again starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Jon Turteltaub—opened to a smash number one weekend of nearly $45 million, almost $10 million more than the first film. “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” remained in the number one box office position for three consecutive weeks, with the combined box office total reaching $440 million. In addition to reuniting Cage with “National Treasure” stars Jon Voight, Diane Kruger and Justin Bartha, Academy Award®–winning actress Helen Mirren and four-time Oscar® nominee Ed Harris were also welcomed to the cast.

Next up from Jerry Bruckheimer Films in February 2009 was “Confessions of a Shopaholic,” a romantic comedy based on the best-selling novels by Sophie Kinsella, starring Isla Fisher and directed by P.J. Hogan (“My Best Friend’s Wedding”). This was followed by the international box office hit “G-Force,” a technically innovative 3D adventure film which combined live action and computer imagery under the innovative direction of Academy Award®–winning visual effects wizard Hoyt Yeatman. The film featured the voice talents of Nicolas Cage, Penelope Cruz, Tracy Morgan, Sam Rockwell, Jon Favreau and Steve Buscemi, and live-action performances by Bill Nighy, Zach Galifianakis and Will Arnett.

Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ 2010 productions for Walt Disney Pictures continued the producer’s tradition for quality. “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” an epic fantasy adventure directed by Mike Newell (“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”), starred Jake Gyllenhaal, newcomer Gemma Arterton, Sir Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina. A worldwide success, “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” is now the highest-grossing film based upon a video game. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” an imaginative comedic adventure partially inspired by the classic animated section of “Fantasia,” marked a reunion for Bruckheimer with star Nicolas Cage and director Jon Turteltaub following their “National Treasure” successes, with the cast also featuring Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina and Teresa Palmer.

Johnny Depp, in his Academy Award nominated performance, returned as the iconic Captain Jack Sparrow, in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” released on May 20, 2011 in Disney Digital 3-D. Starring alongside Depp in the spectacular new adventure, directed by Rob Marshall (“Chicago,” “Memoirs of a Geisha”) were Penelope Cruz, Geoffrey Rush and Ian McShane. Opening worldwide, the film’s opening weekend global box office of $256.3 million was not only the best overseas opener for the franchise, but the all-time record-breaker for an international debut. In only its first five days, “On Stranger Tides” amassed a staggering cumulative domestic and international box office total of $346.4 million. Among the film’s milestones were the 4th biggest global opening of all time, the biggest opening day and weekend of all time in the emerging market of Russia and fifth biggest domestic opening in the long history of The Walt Disney Studios. “On Stranger Tides” crossed the $600 million global threshold in only 12 days, matching the previous industry record set by “At World’s End” in 2007, and in its second week of release, the film remained in first place in more than 50 territories against stiff new summer competition. “On Stranger Tides” joined its predecessors “Dead Man’s Chest” and “At World’s End” on the all-time top ten box office list on June 20th, exactly one month after its theatrical release.

“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” became only one of eight films of all time to cross the landmark $1 billion in international box office on July 2nd, less than seven weeks after release, joining “Dead Man’s Chest” among that heralded list.

Collectively, the four “Pirates of the Caribbean” films to date have brought in some $3.7 billion at the worldwide box office, $900 million from home video and $1.6 billion from merchandise sales, marking it as a truly international cultural phenomenon.

In February 2012, production began on iconic locations in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah on the epic adventure “The Lone Ranger,” a spectacular reinvention of the classic tale which reunited the team behind the first three “Pirates of the Caribbean” films: Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinski and star Johnny Depp, bringing his great inventiveness to the role of Tonto. Scheduled for release on July 3, 2013, “The Lone Ranger” also stars Armie Hammer (“The Social Network”) in the title role, joined by an international cast including Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale, Ruth Wilson and Helena Bonham Carter.

Most recently, filming began June 3rd, 2013 on “Beware the Night,” a unique paranormal thriller filmed entirely on location in New York City directed by acclaimed filmmaker Scott Derrickson (“The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” “Insidious”) and starring Eric Bana of “Black Hawk Down,” Edgar Ramirez, Olivia Munn, Joel McHale and Sean Harris. “Beware the Night” is scheduled for release by Screen Gems in early 2015. Also for release in 2015 will be the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” epic, starring Johnny Depp in his iconic role as Captain Jack Sparrow, and directed by Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, whose “Kon Tiki” was nominated for the 2013 Academy Award and Golden Globe Award as Best Foreign Language Film.

Bruckheimer brought the power of the lightning bolt to television in 2000 with “C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation,” starring William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger. It quickly became the number one show on television, averaging 25 million viewers a week, and, along with its two spin-offs, “C.S.I.: Miami”—distinguished as the biggest television series hit on a global scale in 2005 as well as being broadcast TV’s #1 prime-time series for the summer of 2006—and “C.S.I.: NY” helped catapult languishing CBS back to the top of the broadcast heap. In June 2012, the Monte Carlo International TV Festival honored “C.S.I.” with its International TV Audience Award as the most watched television drama series in the world, having already won that honor previously in 2007, ’08, ’10 and ‘11, with “C.S.I.: Miami” taking the prize in 2006. Emmy and Grammy Award-winning actor Ted Danson took on the leading role of “C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation” in July 2011 in time for the program’s 12th season.

Jerry Bruckheimer Television broadened its imprint by telling compelling stories and delivering viewers in huge numbers with such programs as “Without a Trace,” “Cold Case,” “Dark Blue” (the producer’s first foray into cable) and “The Amazing Race,” a nine-time Emmy Award-winner in the category of Reality Program – Competition, eight of those won consecutively. JBTV brought viewers another exciting reality competition program, “Take the Money and Run,” for ABC-TV in August 2011. Fall 2013 will see the debut of Jerry Bruckheimer Television’s provocative new thriller for CBS, “Hostages,” starring Toni Collette and Dylan McDermott.

In 2004, Bruckheimer made the “Time 100,” a list of the most influential people in the world. Also in 2004, Bruckheimer was named number one in the Power Issue of Entertainment Weekly. Variety selected Bruckheimer as their Showman of the Year for 2006. This award—determined by Variety’s top editors and reporters—is presented to an individual who has had significant economic impact, innovations and/or breakthroughs in the entertainment industry.

Bruckheimer was presented with the Salute to Excellence Award from The Museum of Television and Radio for 2006 for his contribution to the television medium. And, in 2007, the Producers Guild of America presented him with the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television for his extraordinary body of work in television.

In March 2010, ShoWest honored Bruckheimer with their Lifetime Achievement Award, his fifth honor from that organization following his awards as Producer of the Year in 1985, 1988 and 1999, and Box Office Achievement in 1998. On May 17th, 2010—the same night as the U.S. premiere of “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”—he planted his hand and footprints into the concrete in the forecourt of the famed Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. On the same evening, he was honored by the American Film Institute with a retrospective of five of his blockbuster films, introduced by their casts and filmmakers.

2012 saw Bruckheimer receiving the Outstanding Producer of Competition Television honor from the Producers Guild of America for “The Amazing Race,” as well as the prestigious Humanitarian Award from the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Another great honor will be bestowed upon Jerry Bruckheimer on June 24, 2013, when he receives his own Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, further cementing his show business immortality.

In her 2008 autobiography, “In the Frame,” Dame Helen Mirren recalls Bruckheimer, during the course of filming “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” as “gentle, supportive and courageous, proving the saying ‘he who dares, wins.’”

Jerry Bruckheimer has been successful in many genres and multiple mediums because he’s a great storyteller, takes dares…and almost always wins.

Look for the lightning bolt. The best stories are right behind it.

JUSTIN HAYTHE (Screenplay/Screen Story by) received British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), Satellite Award and USC Scripter Award nominations for his screenplay adaptation of the critically acclaimed “Revolutionary Road,” directed by Sam Mendes and starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet. Haythe’s other screenplays have included “The Clearing,” starring Robert Redford and Helen Mirren, and “Snitch,” starring Dwayne Johnson and Susan Sarandon.

Haythe also authored the highly praised “The Honeymoon: A Novel,” published by Grove Press in 2005. The British-born Haythe makes his home in Brooklyn, New York.

Academy Award®–nominated writers TED ELLIOTT and TERRY ROSSIO (Screenplay/ Screen Story by/Executive Producers) wrote one of the most successful franchises in motion picture history, with the Walt Disney Pictures/Jerry Bruckheimer Films productions of “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.” They also worked with Jerry Bruckheimer as screenwriters of “G-Force,” and received story credit on “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” Elliott and Rossio also wrote the DreamWorks animated feature “Shrek,” winner of the first Academy Award for Best Animated Film in 2002.

In 1992, the pair co-wrote the highest grossing film of the year, the Disney animated feature “Aladdin,” starring Robin Williams. Their live-action feature film credits include: “Little Monsters,” starring Fred Savage; “Small Soldiers,” starring Kirsten Dunst; “Godzilla,” starring Matthew Broderick; and “The Mask of Zorro,” starring Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins.

In 1996, Elliott and Rossio became the first writers signed to an overall writing and producing deal at DreamWorks SKG. Their animated projects at DreamWorks include “Shrek,” with Mike Meyers and Eddie Murphy; “The Road to El Dorado,” featuring Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh; “Antz” (creative consultants), featuring Woody Allen; and “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas” (creative consultants), featuring Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Elliott and Rossio have been members of the Writers Guild of America, West since 1986.

MIKE STENSON (Executive Producer) is president of Jerry Bruckheimer Films for which he supervises all aspects of film development and production. Before joining the company, he was an executive in charge of production at Disney, responsible for many Bruckheimer films including “Armageddon,” “The Rock,” “Crimson Tide” and “Dangerous Minds.” More recently, Stenson served as a producer on “Bad Company” and “Gone in 60 Seconds” and as an executive producer on “Glory Road,” “National Treasure,” “King Arthur,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” “Bad Boys 2,” “Veronica Guerin,” “Kangaroo Jack,” “Black Hawk Down,” “Pearl Harbor,” “Coyote Ugly,” “Remember the Titans,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “D?j? Vu,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” “Confessions of a Shopaholic,” “G-Force,” “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.” Upcoming for Stenson as executive producer is Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ “Beware the Night.”

Born and raised in Boston, Stenson graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master of business administration. After his undergraduate stint, he started as a production assistant in New York and worked for two years in independent film and television as an assistant director and production manager before returning to Boston to complete his graduate education.

After completing business school, Stenson moved to Los Angeles where he began his tenure at Walt Disney Studios in Special Projects for two years before moving into the production department at Hollywood Pictures as a creative executive. He was promoted to vice president and subsequently executive vice president during his eight years with the company, overseeing development and production for Hollywood Pictures as well as Touchstone Pictures. In addition to the many Bruckheimer films, Stenson also developed several other films and nurtured them through production, including “Rush Hour,” “Instinct,” “Six Days, Seven Nights” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus.”

While at Disney, many filmmakers attempted to woo Stenson away from the studio, but not until 1998 did he entertain leaving. With his new position at the helm of Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Stenson spearheaded Bruckheimer’s plan to expand the company’s film production schedule.

CHAD OMAN (Executive Producer) is the president of production for Jerry Bruckheimer Films for which he oversees all aspects of film development and production. Oman produced, along with Bruckheimer, “Remember the Titans,” starring Denzel Washington for Walt Disney Pictures, and “Coyote Ugly” starring Piper Perabo and John Goodman for Touchstone Pictures.

His most recent executive producer credits for Jerry Bruckheimer Films include “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” “G-Force,” “Confessions of a Shopaholic” and “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” He also executive produced the critically acclaimed “Veronica Guerin” starring Cate Blanchett, as well as the blockbuster hits “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Johnny Depp, “Bad Boys II” starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, “Black Hawk Down,” directed by Ridley Scott and starring Josh Hartnett, “Pearl Harbor” starring Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett, “Gone in 60 Seconds” starring Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie and Robert Duvall, “Enemy of the State” starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman, “Armageddon” starring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, “Con Air,” starring Nicolas Cage and John Malkovich, “Glory Road,” “D?j? Vu,” starring Denzel Washington and “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” again starring Nicolas Cage and both “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” again starring Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. Upcoming for Oman as executive producer is Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ “Beware the Night.”

In addition to his work on JBF’s many motion picture projects, Oman also supervised production on several television projects including ABC’s drama “Dangerous Minds,” starring Annie Potts, and the ABC drama “Swing Vote,” written by Ron Bass and starring Andy Garcia.

Prior to joining Simpson Bruckheimer in 1995, Oman was a founding employee of the Motion Picture Corporation of America. After six years, he left the independent production company as senior vice president of production.

Oman served as an associate producer on “Dumb and Dumber,” starring Jim Carrey, executive produced Touchstone Pictures’ “The War at Home,” starring Emilio Estevez, Kathy Bates and Martin Sheen, and co-produced “The Desperate Trail” with Sam Elliott and “The Sketch Artist,” starring Drew Barrymore and Sean Young. Oman produced “Hands That See” with Courteney Cox and “Love, Cheat and Steal” with John Lithgow and Eric Roberts.

Oman graduated from Southern Methodist University with a degree in finance. He also attended the University of California at Los Angeles where he studied screenwriting and New York University where he participated in the undergraduate film production program. He was born and raised in Wichita Falls, Texas.

ERIC ELLENBOGEN (Executive Producer) is the co-head of DreamWorks Classics, formed in August 2012 with the acquisition by DreamWorks Animation of Classic Media, the company that he co-founded in 2000. The company is home to some of the most enduring properties in all of popular culture, including “The Lone Ranger,” “Lassie,” “Casper the Friendly Ghost,” “Richie Rich,” “Underdog,” “Where’s Waldo” and Bullwinkle Studios’ “Mr. Peabody and Sherman” (now an all-new feature film from DreamWorks Animation, to be released spring 2014).

Prior to starting Classic Media, Ellenbogen was President and CEO of Marvel Enterprises, now part of The Walt Disney Company. Previously, he ran Broadway Video Entertainment, Lorne Michaels’ New York-based TV and film company.

ERIC McLEOD (Executive Producer) has a wide range of production experience as a producer, executive producer and unit production manager. He served as an executive producer for Jerry Bruckheimer’s blockbuster productions of both “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” which he followed up by producing the highly anticipated summer 2008 comedy “Tropic Thunder” and Bruckheimer’s production of “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” Tony Scott’s “Unstoppable” and “47 Ronin.”

Previously, McLeod produced the smash hit “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and was executive producer of “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “The Cat in the Hat,” “Showtime,” “Bubble Boy” and “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.” He also produced “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” “The Cell” and “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.”

Earlier in his career, McLeod was co-producer of “Feeling Minnesota” and “Now and Then,” line producer of “Corrina, Corrina” and “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” and associate producer of “Live Wire.” He also served as unit production manager on several of the above films, as well as on Jerry Bruckheimer’s production of “Enemy of the State,” “Wag the Dog,” “Wide Sargasso Sea” and “The Rapture.” McLeod began his work in motion pictures as a production coordinator on “Cry-Baby,” “Drugstore Cowboy” and “8 Seconds.”

BOJAN BAZELLI (Director of Photography) is one of the great image-makers working at the forefront of high profile, visually progressive films today.

“The Lone Ranger” reunites Bazelli with both producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski. Previously, Bazelli lensed both “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “G-Force” for Bruckheimer, and helped to create the spooky, foggy atmosphere of director Verbinski’s “The Ring.”

Bazelli previously shot the musicals “Rock of Ages” and “Burlesque”; “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” for director Doug Liman, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie; and such acclaimed independent films as “The Rapture,” “Deep Cover,” “King of New York,” “Kalifornia” and “Dangerous Beauty.”

In 1990, Bazelli received an Independent Spirit nomination for his work on “King of New York.” In 1993, “Kalifornia” took Best Cinematography at the Montreal Film Festival.

Acknowledged for Best Cinematography in both 1996 and 1998 at the prestigious American Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) show, Bazelli’s contribution to shaping the evolution of the art and technique of the American television commercial is profound. He is one of the few cinematographers to have received the honor twice since the event’s inception. Bazelli also took home a Gold Clio for Best Cinematography in 1998.

After high school, Bazelli trained at FAMU Film School in Prague. Impressed with one of Bazelli’s student films, acclaimed director Abel Ferrara immediately offered him the job of shooting “China Girl” in New York City. Bazelli leaped at the opportunity and has lived in the United States ever since. The world of TV commercial and music videos embraced Bazelli and became an avenue for experimentation.

Bazelli lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.

JESS GONCHOR (Production Designer) received an Academy Award® nomination and an Art Director’s Guild nomination for his work on the Coen Brothers’ “True Grit.” He also collaborated with the Coen Brothers on “No Country for Old Men,” for which he received an Art Director’s Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design; “A Serious Man,” for which he received an Art Director’s Guild nomination; and “Burn After Reading.”

Other feature film credits as production designer include Bennett Miller’s Academy Award®–nominated “Capote” and Academy Award–nominated “Moneyball”; Sam Mendes’ “Away We Go”; and David Frankel’s “The Devil Wears Prada.” As an art director Gonchor worked on such films as “The Last Samurai,” “The Siege,” “City of Angels” and “The Crucible.”

Gonchor recently completed work on two upcoming films, Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” and the Coen Brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis.” He has also begun to direct television commercials, most notably the latest campaign for A Partnership for a Drug-free America.

Gonchor’s passion for the art began in Mammaroneck, New York’s high school theater and lighting department. He attended the State University of New York College at Brockport.

MARK “CRASH” McCREERY (Production Designer) was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Receiving a scholarship to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, he graduated with a BFA in illustration in 1988. That same year McCreery met special effects pioneer Stan Winston, establishing a working relationship that would last 12 years. His first design challenge was “Predator II,” soon after collaborating with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp for “Edward Scissorhands.” Immediately following was James Cameron’s epic “Terminator 2,” followed by McCreery’s design of Danny DeVito’s makeup as The Penguin in Burton’s “Batman Returns.”

Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” gave McCreery the opportunity to fulfill a childhood passion, creating concepts for the film’s dinosaurs as well as serving as an on-set puppeteer through radio-and-cable-controlled performances. He then designed makeups for “Interview With the Vampire,” “Tank Girl,” “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” “The Relic” and “The Lost World: Jurassic Park.”

McCreery’s first collaboration with director Gore Verbinski was on the filmmaker’s debut feature film, “Mousehunt.” He followed with a string of films for which he served as either concept designer, concept art director or concept artist, including “Small Soldiers,” “Inspector Gadget,” “End of Days,” “Galaxy Quest,” “What Lies Beneath” and Spielberg’s “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” and “Jurassic Park III” (the latter produced by Spielberg), “The Time Machine,” “Dreamcatcher” and “Hulk.”

McCreery and Gore Verbinski once again collaborated on “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” and the designer lent his prodigious talents to both of Verbinski’s follow-ups, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” These also marked the beginning of McCreery’s long-standing relationship with producer Jerry Bruckheimer. He also worked on “Van Helsing,” “The Village,” “A Sound of Thunder,” “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” “Lady in the Water,” “Ghost Rider,” “Enchanted,” “Bedtime Stories” and Bruckheimer’s production of “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.”

In 2011, McCreery advanced to the rank of production designer on Verbinski’s Academy Award®–winning “Rango.”

CRAIG WOOD (Editor) has previously worked with director Gore Verbinski on all of his previous feature films: “Mouse Hunt,” “The Mexican,” “The Ring,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” “The Weather Man,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” and “Rango.” His other credits as editor have included “Forces of Nature,” “We Were Soldiers,” “The Burning Plain,” “The Road” and “47 Ronin.”

Wood won American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie Awards for both “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” and “Rango,” with nominations for “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.”

JAMES HAYGOOD (Editor) collaborated with famed director David Fincher on “The Game,” “Fight Club” and “Panic Room.” His other credits have included “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Where the Wild Things Are” and “TRON: Legacy.”

TIM ALEXANDER (Visual Effects Supervisor) previously worked with Gore Verbinski on the director’s Academy Award®–winning “Rango.” He has served as visual effects supervisor for ILM on such films as “Hidalgo,” “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,” “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” “The Spiderwick Chronicles” and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

Alexander shared British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award nominations for “The Perfect Storm” (on which he was associate visual effects supervisor), “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

GARY BROZENICH (Visual Effects Supervisor) has served in that capacity for the Moving Picture Company (MPC) on “The Da Vinci Code,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” “The Wolfman,” “Clash of the Titans,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” and “Wrath of the Titans.”

Brozenich shared a Primetime Emmy Awards® nomination for his work on the miniseries “Rome,” and shared VES (Visual Effects Society) Awards for “Kingdom of Heaven” and “Rome.”

JOHN FRAZIER (Special Effects Coordinator) has worked with Jerry Bruckheimer on many previous films, including “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor,” “Bad Boys II,” “D?j? Vu,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.”

Frazier has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards® in his field (including nods for “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”), winning for his work on “Spider-Man 2.”

He was born in Richmond, California, but when he was a child, his family moved to Southern California, where he was raised. He attended Canoga Park High School and attended college at Los Angeles Trade Tech, where he studied high-rise construction and freeway design. In 1963 he began designing special effects props at the Haunted House nightclub in Hollywood. The owner recognized his skills, and got Frazier a job at NBC. In 1970, he joined Local 44 and began working on special effects for motion pictures.

Frazier has been the special effects coordinator and/or supervisor on more than 40 films, among them “Unforgiven,” “Speed,” “Outbreak,” “Twister,” “The Perfect Storm,” “Spider-Man,” “xXx,” “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,” “Unstoppable,” “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “Oz the Great and Powerful,” “Pain & Gain,” “After Earth” and Michael Bay’s three “Transformers” epics.

Frazier also won British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards for “Twister” and “The Perfect Storm,” and two CLIO Awards for his work in TV commercials.

He currently resides in Southern California.

PENNY ROSE (Costume Designer) has designed the costumes for all four of Jerry Bruckheimer’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, the first three of which were directed by Gore Verbinski, as well as for “King Arthur” and “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.” For “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” Rose received Costume Designers Guild nominations for all three “Pirates” films, and British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) nominations for “The Curse of the Black Pearl” and “Dead Man’s Chest.”

Rose had received a previous BAFTA nomination for her work on director Alan Parker’s acclaimed screen version of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical “Evita,” starring Madonna and Jonathan Pryce. Rose is a longtime collaborator of Parker’s and has designed costumes for three of his other films: “The Road to Wellville,” “Pink Floyd: The Wall” and “The Commitments.”

Rose’s additional credits include “The Sleeping Dictionary,” Neil Jordan’s “The Good Thief,” “Just Visiting,” “Entrapment” and Disney’s hit remake of “The Parent Trap,” directed by Nancy Meyers, and Gore Verbinski’s “The Weather Man.” Earlier in her career, she designed costumes for Brian De Palma’s “Mission: Impossible” and has twice worked with Academy Award®-winning director Lord Richard Attenborough on “Shadowlands” and “In Love and War.” Her resume also includes Christopher Hampton’s “Carrington,” Vincent Ward’s “Map of the Human Heart,” Bill Forsyth’s “Local Hero,” Pat O’Connor’s “Cal,” Marek Kanievska’s “Another Country” and Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “Quest for Fire.”

Recently, Rose designed the costumes for the Walt Disney Pictures comedy “Wild Hogs,” starring Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and John Travolta,” “St. Trinians,” “Made of Honor,” “Unstoppable” and the Steven Spielberg-produced miniseries “The Pacific.” Just previous to beginning work on “The Lone Ranger,” Rose designed the costumes for the epic historical fantasy “47 Ronin,” starring Keanu Reeves.

Rose was trained in West End theater and began her career there and also in television, designing for commercials where she first met such directors as Alan Parker, Adrian Lyne, Ridley and Tony Scott and Hugh Hudson.

Rose was born and raised in Britain and is fluent in French and Italian.

Academy Award®–winner JOEL HARLOW (Personal Makeup Artist to Johnny Depp/Makeup Department Head/Special Makeup Effects) is one of the most innovative makeup and special makeup artists and designers in American motion pictures. Born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Harlow’s passion to work on film began with his childhood viewing of the original 1933 “King Kong.” Moving to New York City at college age, he studied animation at the School of Visual Arts, but his true passion was special makeup effects. Harlow gained practical experience on such New York–based, low-budget horror and fantasy films as “The Toxic Avenger” (parts II and III) and “Basket Case 2. Harlow then moved westward to Los Angeles, where he worked for several makeup effects houses, finally landing in Steve Johnson’s XFC, Inc., where he remained for eight years as a makeup effects designer on a number of films.

Anxious to apply his skills on set, Harlow began working on such high-profile films as “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” “Planet of the Apes,” “Constantine” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” creating a long-standing relationship with Johnny Depp, director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Harlow would be the key makeup artist, makeup effects supervisor, prosthetic makeup designer and special effects makeup supervisor on both “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” again directed by Verbinski, and then makeup department head on “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” directed by Rob Marshall.

Harlow shared an Academy Award® with fellow makeup artists Barney Burman and Mindy Hall on JJ Abrams’ “Star Trek” in 2010. Earlier, Harlow won Primetime Emmy Awards® for the television miniseries versions of Stephen King’s “The Stand” and “The Shining,” and received nominations for “Mad Men,” “Carnivale” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

Most recently, Harlow worked as Johnny Depp’s makeup artist on “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Tourist,” “The Rum Diary” and “Dark Shadows.” Additionally, he was key makeup artist on Ron Howard’s “Angels & Demons,” key prosthetic makeup artist for Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” and “Green Lantern” and makeup department head on “Battle: Los Angeles.”

Harlow’s company, Joel Harlow Designs, creates a full range of state-of-the-art makeup, special makeup effects and prosthetics, from lab to set.

HANS ZIMMER (Composer) continues a unique association with Jerry Bruckheimer and Gore Verbinski, which has included him scoring the “Pirates of the Caribbean” blockbusters (the first three of which were directed by Verbinski), as well as Bruckheimer’s productions of “Crimson Tide,” directed by Tony Scott and “Black Hawk Down, directed by Ridley Scott; and the Verbinski-directed “The Ring” and “Rango.” Zimmer has scored over 100 films, grossing more than 15 billion dollars at the box office worldwide. He has been honored with an Academy Award®, two Golden Globes® and four Grammys®. In 2003, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers presented him the prestigious Henry Mancini Award for Lifetime Achievement for his impressive and influential body of work.

Zimmer’s interest in music began early, and after a move from Germany to the U.K., would lead to playing with and producing various bands, including The Buggles, whose “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first music video to ever appear on MTV. But the world of film music was what Zimmer really wanted to be involved with. Not long after meeting established film composer Stanley Myers, the two founded the London-based Lillie Yard Recording Studios together, collaborating on such films as “My Beautiful Laundrette.”

It was Zimmer’s solo work in 1988’s “A World Apart,” however, that gained the attention of director Barry Levinson, who then asked him to score “Rain Man,” Zimmer’s first American film. Levinson’s instinct was right—the score’s Oscar® nomination that followed would be the first of nine.

With Zimmer’s subsequent move to Hollywood, he expanded the range of genres of film music he explored, and his first venture into the world of animation, 1994’s “The Lion King,” brought him the Oscar®. “The Lion King” soundtrack has sold over 15 million copies to date and “The Lion King” musical has gone on to win a Tony Award®, and to become Broadway’s ninth-longest-running show in history.

A number of scores for animated films have followed, including co-writing four Bryan Adams songs for “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” including the Golden Globe®–nominated “Here I Am.” Zimmer has also scored “The Simpsons Movie,” “Kung Fu Panda” and collaborated with will.i.am in “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.”

Zimmer’s career has been marked by a unique ability to adeptly move between genres—between smaller films and comedies (such as “Driving Miss Daisy,” Peter Weir’s “Green Card,” Tony Scott’s “True Romance,” Ridley Scott’s “Thelma and Louise,” James L. Brooks’ “As Good As It Gets,” Nancy Meyers’ “Something’s Gotta Give” and “The Holiday”) and big blockbusters, including Tony Scott’s “Crimson Tide,” Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line,” John Woo’s “Mission: Impossible 2,” Ridley Scott’s “Black Rain” and “Hannibal,” Edward Zwick’s “The Last Samurai,” Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” for which he received another Grammy®, and Ron Howard’s “The Da Vinci Code.”

It was Zimmer’s unique take on the historical in Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” that earned him another Golden Globe®. The album sold more than three million copies worldwide and spawned a second album, “Gladiator: More Music from the Motion Picture.”

Zimmer’s roots in performing never left him, and in 2000, he performed his film music live for the first time in a concert at the 27th annual Flanders International Film Festival in Ghent, Belgium. With a 100-piece orchestra and 100-piece choir, he performed a number of newly orchestrated concert versions of a selection of his work. The concert was recorded by Decca and released as a concert album entitled “The Wings of a Film: The Music of Hans Zimmer.”

His background in collaboration and mentoring never left Zimmer either, and he created a Santa Monica based musical “think tank,” Remote Control Productions, in order to build a creative environment to nurture the talent of those new to the composing world. In the process, he has launched the careers of an unparalleled number of film and television composers, including John Powell (the “Bourne” trilogy), Harry Gregson-Williams (“Shrek”), Geoff Zanelli (“Disturbia”), Heitor Pereira (“Curious George”), Henry Jackman (“Monsters vs. Aliens”), James Dooley (“Pushing Daisies”), James Levine (“Nip/Tuck”), Ramin Djawadi (“Iron Man””), Rupert Gregson-Williams (“Hotel Rwanda”), Steve Jablonsky (“Transformers”) and Trevor Morris (“The Tudors”).

Zimmer has received a total of 10 Golden Globe® nominations, 10 Grammy® nominations and nine Oscar® nominations, the most recent for Christopher Nolan’s “Inception.” His innovative and powerful score was praised as the best by countless critics’ groups and has earned him BAFTA, Golden Globe, Grammy and Critics Choice Award nominations. His other Oscar nominations include “Sherlock Holmes,” “Rain Man,” “Gladiator,” “The Lion King,” “As Good As It Gets,” “The Preacher’s Wife,” “The Thin Red Line” and “The Prince of Egypt.” Zimmer has been honored with the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in Film Composition from the National Board of Review. He also received his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in December 2010. Zimmer served as Music Director for the 84th Academy Awards in 2012.

His recent films include “The Dark Knight Rises,” which marked his fourth collaboration with director Christopher Nolan, “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted,” Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” “Kung Fu Panda 2,” “Megamind,” “How Do You Know,” Nancy Meyers’ “It’s Complicated” and Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon” and “Angels & Demons” and Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel.” Zimmer also scored the title sequence to the hit 2013 History Channel miniseries “The Bible,” created by Mark Burnet.

Portions of the text were adapted from the new book “The Lone Ranger: Behind the Mask,” published by Insight Editions.

спасибо emma

Hide

Loading