The actor, who reprises his role as Captain Jack Sparrow, admits he spent three weeks of the shoot in agony as he struggled to hide his pain.

"I must have done something to my back during a stunt and ended up with this bad sciatic situation. It was this horrible, grinding electricity going through me," hollywoodreporter.com quoted him as saying.

"I kept shooting; there was no choice. I'd just limp on set. It was monstrous, man - so horrible that I actually started to like it! It was bad, and I had it a good three weeks to a month. But I got used to it and kind of missed it when it was gone," he added.