A pirate’s life for me

Taika Waititi is no stranger to comedy. He may have breathed new life into the Thor franchise with Ragnarok, but the New Zealand native has been tickling funny bones long before getting into the MCU, like with his 2014 mockumentary film What We Do In The Shadows, which follows the everyday life of a group of vampires. Now, he’s on HBO GO’s newest comedy, Our Flag Means Death, which premieres today and is very loosely based on the life of Stede Bonnet, where he serves as director, executive producer, and also plays the treacherous pirate, Blackbeard. Waititi spills the beans on what it’s like filming a pirate “workplace” comedy and juggling directing, acting, and producing while on set. 

Playing around with the golden age of piracy must have been a blast.

Yes, and I didn’t really know anything about the early 1700s. I tend to lump all those centuries together with men wearing tights and swashbuckling. I wasn’t a huge pirate fan growing up. I tended to associate them with Halloween costumes and silly things that kids would be into. Then Pirates of the Caribbean came along and tried to make pirates cool and sexy. I was really excited about showing what they do in their downtime when they’re not swashbuckling or raiding ships. It was the same with my vampire film, What We Do in the Shadows—it’s the idea of seeing a real slice of life for vampires. We wanted to do this “workplace comedy” idea where you’re seeing what pirates get up to when they’re not pirating.

How important was it to avoid the stereotypical depiction of pirates on the show?

Very. I think this world is ridiculous enough without adding parrots and all those clichés. It would have tipped it over and it would have become more of a sketch. What I love about this is that it’s a fully formed story with fleshed-out characters that all have arcs. It’s hilarious, but there are some great dramatic moments. It’s the idea of a midlife crisis when people go, “Is this it? I had dreams. Is this what I can expect from my one life?? I think everyone has those feelings although we’re not brave enough to actually go out and be a pirate, leave our families, or do the stuff Stede [Bonnet, the main character of the show] has done. It’s one of the things that attracted me to the show, the idea that he’s gone out and is reaching for this dream he’s had his whole life—of being an adventurer. But it comes at a cost. There’s a heavy price to pay if you want to be a pirate. There’s death every day and you’re stuck on a boat in the middle of nowhere wondering where your next meal is going to come from.

Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet

Was it easier to create stories when it’s based on a real person like Stede Bonnet?

It is way better than making it up. If you were to make it up, it could be too preposterous, but there’s enough in there for you to realise he went to sea, wasn’t very good at it, became kind of good at it, and then became homesick. There’s something about that which really resonated with me, maybe because I’m in my forties now!

Along with directing and producing, you also play the role of Blackbeard. Was it always the plan that you were going to play him?

This is one of the rare occasions where I didn’t put myself in my own thing; someone else asked me to do it. David Jenkins wrote Blackbeard with me in mind and, at first, I was just too busy to do it. But with some shuffling of schedules, we were able to do it, which was great because I really wanted to play the role. I would have been really bummed out if I had missed out on it. I was Blackbeard by day and then editing Thor by night and doing various other things. It’s probably one of my favourite roles because it’s something I didn’t have to write so I could bring a lot of myself to it. I didn’t do much research on Blackbeard. I went on Wikipedia and realised that no one really knows anything about him. That gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted and to use my own accent. The costume was all leather, like Mad Max, and it looks cool, although it was uncomfortable being in that hot leather all day. It made me grumpy sometimes, but maybe that’s what the character needed to help me get to that grumpy state.

Taika Waititi as Blackbeard

There are a lot of comics on this show. Did they ever try to outdo each other?

There’s not really a hierarchy but people have very different delivery styles. Some people who haven’t done comedy wonder what to do and our advice is always “Don’t try to be funny.” When the comic actors are doing the comedic stuff you could see the dramatic actors going, “How am I going to do that?” And then you see the drama guys really pull it out and blow everyone away with their acting and a lot of the comedians are like, “I could never do that!” So it’s great having these two camps working together, and then with people who could do both.

Did you guys ever improvise?

There wasn’t a lot of it. Only a handful of us was trusted to do it, I suppose. Also, we didn’t really have a schedule for it. We were hauling ass the whole time. Whenever it made sense to try and do some improvising, it was good, but the scripts were really tight, made sense, and were really well thought out. I often feel that improvising is only really helpful if you’re trying to figure something out. It’s very rare that incredible things come out of improvising. But Rhys [Darby, who plays Stede Bonnet] is really good at it and I think I’m good at it. We were the two who did most of it. Also, I was one of the bosses, so I was able to!

What was your favorite set?

My favourite set was the ship, the Revenge. The whole thing moved, and it really came alive. Behind us, we had these huge screens with the ocean and rolling waves. Some people would get on the boat for the first time and actually start to feel seasick. You really felt like you were at sea. It was wonderful whenever I stepped onto that ship.

Any favorite scenes?

I would say my favourite scenes were with Rhys. It was fun with him because we’d bounce off each other and throw each other ideas. We can read each other really well and can riff backwards and forwards with a lot of ease. He’s one of the best improvisers that I know. The dramatic scenes were really good too, and we really supported each other.