Rhys Darby stars in a new comedy series starring fellow New Zealand actor Taika Waititi, which is due for release next month.
Darby tells Jesse Mulligan acting on the set of the big production Our Flag Means Death brought its pressures
Rhys Darby as Captain Stede Bonnet Photo: HBO Max
Listen
Our Flag Means Death is about a wealthy 18th Century man who takes up piracy in his middle age.
The story centres on Stede Bonnet, an early eighteenth-century Barbadian pirate known as The Gentleman Pirate because he was a wealthy land-owner before turning to a life of crime.
Warner Bros spent big on props and top quality comedy actors, mostly from the United Kingdom, as well as the two Kiwis.
The set was basically a life-sized ship that rocked as if at sea, with a giant HD screen around it, meaning the entire show would be shot without even a whiff of sea foam, Darby says
When Darby and the other actors saw the set they knew they needed to bring their A game to make the big budget show succeed.
“There was so much money on the line for this thing," Darby says.
"We all kind of got together and once we started putting the garments on, and then when we actually saw the set, which was this giant pirate ship built designed and built by Ra Vincent and his team, a fellow Kiwi… there was pressure from that.
"Usually they say the best comedy is made on a low budget, but I think the pressure of this was another thing that comedians have to attend to. So, when the pressure’s on… to be good you’ve got to be good.”
Darby said the flamboyant costumes in the show brought the character to life.
“I wore outrageously brilliant costumes and maybe over half were all made from scratch,” he says.
“They were fantastic to wear… Pretty much every other day I was in something different. This pirate, this man, who was real, around 300 years ago, was an aristocrat and he had an amazing wardrobe. So, he brought them with him, on to the ship and so that part of the show really made me come alive."
His attire included high heels which made it difficult to walk the boards of the rocking ship.
“You are walking on this pirate ship, walking back and forth. I tripped over a lot. You had to get used to it as you really felt like you were this person. So, it helped the whole thing come alive for me.”
Bonnet was a married aristocrat with basically nothing to do, Darby says.
“He had his father’s estate. He was told who to marry. They really didn’t get to choose anything back in those days, those fancy types.
"And he would read a lot. He read a lot, loved reading and it was the golden age of piracy when he was alive, so he would read about these pirate exploits and he decided one day just to leave his life, in a mid-life crisis, and just sneak out in the middle of the night and get a pirate ship purchased a few months before and installed his own library on the ship, he’d brought a merchant ship. Then he went down to the local pub and hired some crew and paid them a wage, buying his way into this ridiculous adventure."
The pirate set sail and during his antics ended up severely wounded, before meeting the notorious pirate Black Beard. “He had no idea what he was doing,” Darby says.
“But he ended up in a Republic of Pirates in Nassau. Black Beard came across him and these two just formed a friendship. So, it’s a fantastic story. I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before.”
Darby meshes well with Waititi, who plays Black Beard in the show. It’s the first time the pair have shared scenes together.
“He’s usually directing me,” Darby says.
“He’s playing this dark brooding character that really has nothing going on in his life, but he’s nailed it. He’s just so over himself. People run when they hear the name Black Beard. So, nothing’s a challenge.
“And then all of a sudden, he finds a guy who shouldn’t be in his world and he’s intrigued by it. So, that’s how they form their friendship. We show that in the show and it ends up being a bit of ying and yang. They want to be each other’s person, but they can’t work out how to get there. They support each other and that’s kind of the crux of the show.”
The series will be released from 4 March on Neon and weekly on free-to-air channel Prime from Thursday, 17 March.