The HBO Max series Our Flag Means Death, which hails from creator David Jenkins and executive producer Taika Waititi, is loosely based on true 18th-century adventures revolves around the hilarious misadventures of self-proclaimed "gentleman pirate" Stede Bonnet and his motley crew of the ship Revenge, who don't necessarily have the greatest faith in their captain as he tries to follow his true dream of becoming a real swashbuckler.
I thought the show, the premise was so original. I thought the pilot that David had written was so funny. And the thing about Lucius that I really liked was it's so fun to play the... Lucius is kind of, in a lot of ways, the audience's eyes, the straight man, if you don't mind the pun. He's the audience's way in, and that's so fun to play. When you're surrounded by doofuses, it's so fun to have all of that happen around you and get to kind of roll your eyes.
So I kind of combined those two passions of cooking and doctor knowledge, and the fact that his name was Roach made me feel like this guy's a survivor. He's seen his fair share of piracy. The last man standing is always the cook and the surgeon, because they're the most wanted jobs. Those people don't get killed off because they're always needed.
What's funny about Black Pete to me is that the more he states that, "I'm a pirate, I'm a big pirate," the less a pirate he seems, and it diminishes his pirateness. I think he's aware of that on some level, but can't help it, because he doesn't know what else to say but, "I'm a pirate." So he just gets more and more wound-up in that way.