Interview with Black Sails Stars Toby Stephens and Hannah New
Toby Stephens: I play Captain Flint who is the captain of the Walrus. When we join in, historically he has been the most successful pirate on the island. He’s brought in the most money, but he’s hit a foul patch and his crew is becoming discontented and beginning to doubt his captaincy. There’s a guy on the crew who is trying to get him kicked out because these crews are democracies. They’d all be pressed, the crews and pirate ships have all been pressed to naval ships or onto merchant ships. They were taken away from their families, they were treated appallingly, they were paid very little, it was a very hard life, so when they became pirates, they imposed this real democratic system which was terribly inefficient because every time there was a decision to be made, they all kind of had to go by show of hands. The only time the captain had absolute power was in battle. So anyway, there’s this sense at the beginning of this that Flint is this terrifying figure, but he’s on the back foot, he’s in trouble, they’re going to vote him off, and he has to survive.
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