We knew that Skins’ Kaya Scodelario was set to star opposite Johnny Depp in swashbuckling sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales – but we’ve finally found out a little bit more about her character Carina Smyth, and why she takes to the high seas. Plot details ahoy!


“I play an astronomer,” Scodelario told RadioTimes.com. “She’s on this journey, she’s a very feisty young woman.”

“So that was a six-month long job, really kind of big, massive, Disney, insane… and just cool!”

Perhaps Carina’s astronomy comes in handy for navigating Jack and co to a new objective – or maybe Johnny Depp’s just really getting into his stargazing. Either way, Scodelario insists that Carina’s not just a carbon copy of Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Swann, who was the female lead in the first three Pirates films. She probably has a lot more telescopes, for one thing.

“She’s a totally different character,” Scodelario said. “But yeah, it’s really weird – the first one came out when I was 10 or something, so I remember looking up to Keira and thinking wow, it’s so cool. It’s a part of our childhood, like the Harry Potter movies.”

She added: “I’m kind of an intense actor, and I just destroy myself when I do a job. With this one, it was just like, let’s go and mess around. And I loved that, I learned so much from it. But it doesn’t come out until 2017. So a while still.”

In the meantime, Scodelario has the post-apocalyptic Maze Runner trilogy, with second film The Scorch Trials in cinemas today with an expanded storyline for her character Teresa.

“I like it a lot more than the first one. I think it’s so much bigger, it’s an adventure story,” she said.

“The reason I signed up for these movies is because I knew my character was gonna have this arc in the second one. That’s what I’ve been working towards since the first audition. That’s what I wanted to be part of this for.”


The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is in cinemas now