Johnny Depp returns as Captain Jack Sparrow to surprise 11-year-old superfan

Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow has set sail again, but this time his voyage takes place on the stormy seas of YouTube.

The actor, 59, sported Captain Jack's distinctive headscarf, hairdo, and puffy shirt — made famous by the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise — for a collaboration with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to surprise an 11-year-old superfan named Kori, who runs the YouTube channel "Kraken the Box."

On Sunday, Depp sent a prerecorded video to him in character, with the pirate's circular conversational style on full display.

"Meant to say it, forgot to say it, didn't say it, gonna say it now. Saying it, I'll say it," Depp says. "I hear tell of something they speak about in the ages of now called the YouTube channel, which I don't understand, but why not?"

He then promises to follow Kori's channel.

"That, I think, will make for a wonderful entertainment expertise. Momentary lapse of togetherness, all together in one space but far apart, but then at the same time, woof, very close," he says, gesturing broadly. "Curious, enduring, and strange."

Depp concludes by wishing "Captain Kori" the best of luck and declares himself the boy's number-one fan.

He then followed up a few days later with a live video call to Kori. The almost five-minute video shows Depp as Sparrow "struggling" with the newfangled camera technology.

"I'm extremely flammable," Depp says, glancing nervously around at the candles in the room with him. "Yet I'm amongst so much fire with candles that I fear this intrepid adventure may go awry."

Depp then jokes with Kori about his name and the tricorn hat the boy is wearing, which he refers to as a chapeau.

"As dumb as I look, I'm not as dumb as I look as much as you think I am dumb as I look. I am dumb, but not as dumb as this," Depp says, pointing to his face.

The video ends with Depp picking up a sword, preparing to knight Kori, but the YouTuber ends the video there with a promise that he'll post the rest of it when he hits 200,000 subscribers. As of this writing, his YouTube channel has 189,000 followers.

A source close to Depp told PEOPLE that his team was contacted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation with a time-sensitive request for a young boy in palliative care. The boy, a massive Jack Sparrow fan, watched the Pirates of the Caribbean movies during his multiple heart surgeries and subsequent recovery periods.

Depp has worked with the Make-A-Wish Foundation for more than 30 years and has been a longtime supporter of children's hospitals around the world, the source said.

These videos may be Pirates fans' best chance to watch the actor in full boozy Sparrow mode, as there are no plans for Depp to return to the Disney franchise yet. In his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard earlier this year, Depp testified that he would not appear in Pirates 6 even if he were asked, saying Disney cut ties with him after Heard published a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post chronicling her experiences as a domestic violence survivor.

Jack Whigham, who represents Depp at Range Media Partners and previously repped him at Creative Artists Agency, testified in May that he "closed a deal" for Depp to earn $22.5 million to reprise his role as Sparrow in a sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film, but Disney decided to go in a "different direction."

However, Tina Newman, a production executive at Disney, testified that she had no knowledge of the studio reviewing documents and having conversations about Heard's op-ed. She also told jurors there were no internal discussions about the op-ed or its impact on Depp's role in Pirates.

The franchise's most recent film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, was released in 2017. A planned female-fronted Pirates film to be helmed by Birds of Prey writer Christina Hodson is "dead in the water," says Margot Robbie, who was set to star in it. The film had been in the works since 2020.

A jury sided with Depp in the defamation trial, determining that Heard intentionally and maliciously defamed him with the op-ed, awarding him $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Heard won a counterclaim that stated Depp defamed her through his lawyer by calling her abuse accusations a "hoax" in the press, insinuating that her friends had set Depp up. A jury awarded her $2 million in compensatory damages.

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