"I remember being puzzled at first," she recalls. "I had followed Johnny Depp's work for years and I thought, 'Johnny Depp in a Disney film? What is this all about?' So I knew that something was going to be interesting from the get-go. I showed up on the set and saw him with his dreads and the whole get up, and thought, 'OK, here we go, we're on to something here!'
"It was very obvious that everybody on the set really knew what they were doing, so I knew that it would be great, but I think the way this took off, the fire that spread across the world, nobody could have known that."
The success, Maher says, is due to many reasons — from the amazing writers, directors, and cast, to the current moment in time.
"I think people really need and want fantasy in their lives right now," Maher says. "With everything that's going on in the world, I think that it's a great escape."
The actress is quick to praise many of those behind the film, particularly writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio.
"You know, Ted and Terry write great scripts," Maher says. "These are the guys that wrote 'Shrek' and they wrote 'Aladdin.' They are clearly keyed into something that people love worldwide. They are incredible talented writers."
As a young, up-and-coming actress, the experience to work with director Gore Verbinski and Depp has also paid dividends.
"He was just an amazing person to watch," Maher says of Verbinski. "Here's this man who's directed this massive trilogy, the scope of which has almost never been seen on film before. He's always smiling, he's so enthusiastic, he gets so excited about things, and yet he's holding it together. When they were shooting parts two and three, he was shooting two blockbuster movies at the same time, out of sequence, yet managed to have all of the elements in mind — to the characters stories, to the shots, everything. I was just really amazed by everything that he was able to hold in his mind at the same time, and the grace in which he pulled that off. I was just very impressed by him, both as a human being, and as a director."
Her praise continues at the mention of working with Depp, someone that she has admired for many years.
"Just watching a performer like that, you can learn a lot," she says. "He approaches things with a lot of ease and grace, but he's also very fearless. You really get the feeling that he's willing to try anything. It's not about his ego. He's willing to try and do whatever works to serve the script. So it's really nice to see someone, on that level, have that kind of openness to their performance."
With a role steadily increasing in each part of the trilogy, Maher says that she is excited about this third, and final, installment.
"It's great, I really enjoyed it," she says. "It's more character-based I would say. You really feel like you're getting to know the characters a lot more. It's quite a dark film. And there's parts of it that are really kind of different, that are almost a little experimental that you wouldn't necessarily expect to see in the middle of a blockbuster Disney film, but it works really well.
"Plus, there are some great battle sequences that are some of the best that I've ever seen. I'm really glad that they ended the trilogy with a bang."
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