The second season of Our Flag Means Death saw a lot of big changes for the crew, particularly for Stede Bonnet, the gentleman-turned-pirate who’s now trying to navigate his relationship with Ed (a.k.a. Blackbeard).
According to Rhys Darby, who plays Stede on the show, his character’s relationship with Ed wasn’t something that was in Bonnet’s original plan. “He probably wasn’t expecting to find love, but he found it in the most notorious pirate,” Darby told me in a recent interview, adding “imagine you’re in Lord of the Rings, and you’ve fallen in love with Sauron or something. Not that Ed’s that evil, but in pirate terms, he certainly was. But then when you meet a person and you realize that that’s all a façade, because of course it is. Because they need love and that’s why they are the way they are.”
[Note: Spoilers ahead for season two of Our Flag Means Death.]
The end of season two sees Ed and Stede planning on putting down roots and perhaps turning the shed they’ve housed up in into a bed and breakfast. Darby, however, doesn’t think things will stay that way if a third season comes round. “I think, in his head, that’s not the end, because he doesn’t think he’ll ever be happy or that the next door will open and someone will come through with a sword and try and kill them.”
Poor Stede! Read on for the rest of our discussion, where we talk about merman training, Stede’s wardrobe, and how many times Darby had to throw a certain violin.
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Let’s talk about clothes. So Stede gets a lot of outfits in season two—there’s the haunted jacket, some leather pants—what was it like to wear those different costumes and did they affect your performance at all?
100 percent. In the first season, there was so many garments that were beautiful and awkward to wear sometimes, the high-heeled shoes and things like that. But he always looked amazing, like he shouldn’t have been on that pirate ship. And I loved wearing that kind of stuff because it really made me turn into that guy.
And so when we got into season two, a lot of that was gone. I’d changed into a more romantic, well-worn version of a pirate that was capable, and the attire was linked to that attitude. Every step of the way, what Stede was feeling or should be feeling, you could see it in his clothing. And so it made it very easy for me.
But I did miss the beautiful garments, so when I got that jacket, the cursed suit, I remember actually putting it on and going, “Oh thank God!” And I felt like Steve was saying that as well: “Oh, my God, I’m back!” He didn’t care that it was cursed because he doesn’t believe in that kind of stuff, you know? So that was really fun to be able to do that.
And then later on in the season, obviously we won’t talk about the mermaid, which of course we have to talk about that. (Editor’s note: they do talk about it later.) But when I got near the end of the season, when he’s putting on that British jacket, when they’re dressing up as those guys. There was a slow moment there—we can tell he’s putting it on he’s going, “Oh, this will do me very nicely.” He just loves how things look on him. It gives him confidence.
And I think he’s a changed man, so there was probably some conflicting moments of when he was wearing the more open big collar sexy stuff, that’s who he had become—putting on the other stuff was that battle armor, where he’s putting on something that can protect him from this romantic guy that he doesn’t really think he is.
I interviewed Vico Ortiz, and they said that there were rumors that the haunted jacket was actually haunted, like a fire alarm went off and things like that.
It did, as soon as I turned up on set wearing that outfit. The fire alarms went off and there was there was no fire, but I think that’s just because I was looking so hot. A lot of people were saying that was the main reason.
So the mermaid outfit. As you said, we’ve got to talk about it. How did you learn how to swim in it like did? Because you look very natural when you’re swimming underwater there.
I already knew how to swim like that. When I was a kid I used to pretend I was a little merman or merkid, so I’d swim with my legs stuck together like that and like go like that in the water. I’ve always been into Cryptids, so I’ve always been into creatures and mermaids that are a mythical perhaps real thing. So I pretended to be one and so I already had the skills.
In some ways, it’s an innate training that I’d had my whole life. So when I put the thing on—first of all, we just tried it with a little flipper thing without the whole suit. I think they just wanted to make sure I could do it. And it was really easy for me. Once I put the actual whole thing on, I just embodied the merman creature and was able to do the same swimming technique that I’d done as a kid.
You as Stede had a lot more action scenes this year. Was there any memorable fight or action scene you did that was especially memorable for whatever reason?
When we’re in the sand dunes, the moment where Ed and Stede see each other, they’re both battling different soldiers. And I’m basically taking on four or five people at once. That was quite good because—they only showed a little bit of it, but there’s an orchestrated moment where I had to kill one here, chop one that way and then, with the guy I’d killed, I had to pull his musket out and then we run along and then I shoot one guy with a musket and then stab this other guy.
They show some of that, but that whole day was cool because it was just us being pirates in the true sense of the word. Yes, there was the romantic run to each other, but apart from that, it was action—it was on the sand and we dressed up and these outfits, and we had we had stunt people. I’ll never forget that day because it was in New Zealand. It was in a really cool location. We had heaps of extras.
And then you’ve got that moment when you see the three of us are sitting on sand dune after the fight, and we talked about how well we did and I think I say, “I did as well” and the other two acknowledge that. And it was a really special moment. That day I’ll always remember as far as fighting goes, because we’ve had a fair amount of rehearsal and things like that with the stunt people.
And when I basically do kill Ned [Lowe, the musician torture pirate], that was a powerful moment for me because I think it’s Stede at his ultimate point, where he’s standing up for his crew, and he kills the bad guy. And of course, he kills him in a funny way, because it’s a comedy. So he’s throwing a—what is that? A cello or something? And Ned is also doing the walk the plank thing, which reflects the whole theory that the actual real Stede Bonnet created walk the plank, because he wanted to kill someone without having to really do any damage. So Ned’s on the plank, so there’s that moment. And then I also had to throw the instrument at him and took a lot of shots before I could actually get the guy with it. So that was fun.
The first two seasons of Our Flag Means Death are now streaming on Max.
