Born in Barcelona to a Catalan father and French-American mother, rising star Astrid Berges-Frisbey makes her English-language debut as mermaid Syreena in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and spoke to IGN while on the film’s London set.

IGN: When you get the call that you’re cast in a Pirates film, after the initial excitement, is there a moment when you think, ‘how am I going to play a mermaid’?
Astrid Berges-Frisbey: Yes! (laughs) I thought, well what is the mermaid about? We’ve never seen any mermaid in the other Pirates movies, so you don’t have an idea. I told my little sister – she’s six-years-old – I’m going to play a mermaid, and she said wow. And I realized, seeing my little sister, how dreamy it is for children.

IGN: But the mermaids here aren’t like the child-friendly ones in, say, Disney’s The Little Mermaid…
Berges-Frisbey: The mermaids in this movie are really interesting. They’re not common mermaids, they’re not really human, they move more like a fish. They’re more animals, something else in between, and it’s what is really interesting for an actress to work on. They can be really dangerous and really strong. And they’re pretty girls and perfect girls but they’re not always good girls is what I can say.

IGN: Can you talk about the costume?
Berges-Frisbey: Part of it is CGI, and it depends on whether or not I’m in the water or not. So it changes all the time in all the scenes. Sometimes I’m completely a woman. And [in the water] I will have a tail and because this part is CGI, most of the time I’m wearing [motion capture] dots, they use the new technology. So it’s like I have a new special costume.

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IGN: Is it your first time working with motion capture?
Berges-Frisbey: Yes. You can’t really imagine before you’ve done something like that because it’s the same form of acting but everything changed. And they’re using new technology as close as they can to respect my acting all the time.

IGN: How do you prepare for a role like this beforehand? Lots of swimming?
Berges-Frisbey: A bit of swimming, and a bit of work to hold my breath.

IGN: So how long can you hold your breath?
Berges-Frisbey: I don’t know really, but I remember when I was in kind of a box full of water, everybody came to me [and asked] ‘How do you hold your breath all this time? You’re really a fish!’ [laughs] Some of them were holding their breath in front of the monitor, [saying] ‘I can do it as long as she does it!’

IGN: What else can you tell us about your character?
Berges-Frisbey: She has a lot of time with a group of pirates because at certain times they need her. And she has a special relationship with [the character of the missionary] Phillip in the movie. She is sometimes more human than a real human. And she’s really strong too in her mind.

IGN: You mention you speak two languages, French and Spanish?
Berges-Frisbey: I speak three – French, Spanish and Catalan, because I’m half-Spanish and half-French. And I’m learning English.

IGN: Growing up in France, you’ve experienced Paris but how is it working in Hollywood, an English-speaking environment?
Berges-Frisbey: Well it’s where I really learned to speak English mostly. It was like a challenge to be comfortable with the crew completely. And in Hawaii, it’s impressive how much people work on a movie like that. There is a really big action scene with the mermaids and I’m part of it, of course. And sometimes when I was in it for hours and hours, I forgot that it’s all fake. It really looks like it’s real. You really feel like a little girl. Discovering all these things, is magic.

IGN: What did you think of the first three Pirates movies when you watched them?
Berges-Frisbey: I think I was 16 when the first came out and of course, you have to enjoy it. It’s a perfect, entertaining movie with really detailed characters. And what I like in this coming one, is we find again the precision of the characters. Everybody was really excited about the script.

IGN: So is shooting a Pirates film as much fun as it looks?
Berges-Frisbey: I remember one day, when I had been filming in Hawaii for maybe a week, and I saw Geoffrey [Rush] and Johnny [Depp], and Kevin McNally too. And I think I’ve never seen two or three actors all having such fun before, it’s unbelievable how much they love their respective parts, and how much they like to act. And for a young actress like me, it’s like a dream. I want to have this much fun after years and years of my career.

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