[Editor's Note: TVWW contributor Donna J. Plesh died April 2, 2015, from ovarian cancer. She was 71. Donna covered television since the early 1980s, initially for the Orange County Register and its TV magazine. She also was a member of the Television Critics Association. Donna was always a cheerful spirit within the TVWW network and often gave readers a kind, up-close viewpoint in her interviews with a wide variety of television stars. She will be missed.]
PASADENA, CA. -- Swordplay is nothing new for Toby Stephens, the British actor who heads the cast of the new Starz pirate tale Black Sails. Stephens plays Capt. Flint, one of the most feared of the Caribbean pirate captains. The new Starz series premieres Jan. 25 at 9 p.m. ET.
“I did extensive training when I was in drama school, in kind of stage fights, so I had already done some sword work. And then I did the Bond film [2002's Die Another Day] where I had to do a lot of fencing, so I had done quite a lot. And for me it was always very important in doing theatre, especially in Shakespeare, that [sword] fights are generally there for dramatic reasons.
"I had seen a lot of productions where you watch this play all the way through and you get this really lame fight at the end and it just loses credibility. So for me it was second nature to kind of slip into that, and we did do a lot of training. We had stunt doubles, but mostly it was us [cast members doing the sword fighting]. I prefer to do my own things rather than have somebody do it,” he said in an interview.
Black Sails is set on the high seas and in the former British colony of New Providence Island, now a lawless territory in the Caribbean, where pirates take their booty to be sold to the highest bidder. Sails is a very gritty, bloody, violent and sexy (there’s nudity, too) series.
Stephens said the series deals with the reality of those times.
“We put on our pirate clothes, but those are the clothes that we wear. They’re not fancy. They’re not clean. They’re dirty. They smell, we smell, it’s a real world. And also, it was very important to us not to kind of pose as these people. We wanted to make them seem like real people. They’re pirates, but, you know, one can identify with them as real people.
"That was really important, because if you’re going to go on a journey with these characters, you don’t want to have that separation of, like, oh, they’re from some distant time, and they’re from some mythological world. They’re real people in real situations that you can identify with. So for me, that was important. I know initially when you start watching it, it takes a while to tune into that world, and once you have, hopefully, you can kind of identify with these people...
"So that was what was important. It wasn’t like some fetish thing where I want to be wearing pirate outfits like Johnny Depp [in the Pirates of the Caribbean series of movies] or something. It was we’re trying to get to a place where you believe these people. I think that was the important thing,” said Stephens.
The book Treasure Island and Britain’s history involving naval sea battles were things Stephens grew up with.
“I think, initially, I read Treasure, or it was read to me as a child. And that was really my starting point to this kind of story. Naval battles, like [Admiral] Nelson, that’s part of our culture. It’s part of our history. Piracy was something that I guess I knew about, but it was really a mythologized version of piracy. I didn’t really understand the history of it or the reality of it, which is something that this [Black Sails] really brings to the genre.
"I did know that from Elizabeth I to Walter Raleigh, the buccaneering kind of thing was sort of tacitly, you know, like, yeah, go ahead. Interfere with Spanish-French trade. They’re our enemy. We’ll [the British government] turn a blind eye to it. In fact, they encouraged it. And then if it interrupted Spanish interests in South America or whatever, in the West Indies, then that was good. I did vaguely know about that from history, but I didn’t really know about the details of the golden age of piracy, which this [series] deals with,” he said.
Stephens comes from an acting family. His late father, Robert Stephens, was an actor. His mother is Dame Maggie Smith, currently starring as the Dowager Countess of Grantham in the hit PBS hit series Downton Abbey.
Stephens said Downton is not really his cup of tea.
“I appreciate Downton Abbey for what it is. I have to say I don’t regularly tune in. It’s not really the kind of show that I enjoy. I appreciate what my mum does in it. She’s great in it. But it’s just not really what I enjoy watching. Playing this kind of thing [a pirate captain], for me, is like going on an exotic vacation because we just don’t do this kind of stuff in the U.K. We do a lot of the kind of stuff like Downton Abbey, a lot of period drama, a lot of detective stuff. You know for me, that’s kind of like, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen that. I’ve done it. I don’t want to do it for the rest of my life.’ This [pirate role] is … a fantastic character, phenomenal production values and a fantastic story. And that’s what I want to be involved in,” he said.
As to Downton, “No, I was never asked to be on the show,” he added.