HBO's original comedy series 'Our Flag Means Death' is loosely based on the true story of a wealthy English landowner who left everything behind to pursue an outrageous dream.

Its lead star, New Zealand actor and comedian Rhys Darby, said several things made him very interested in playing the show's main character.

"Most of all others, his ridiculous middle age crisis, the fact that he left everything, including his wife and kids to go and become a pirate. I didn't really know about Stede Bonnet because he was kind of on the fringe of the famous pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy. But after reading his story, actually, I was looking at pictures trying to find anything about him before I even got the role. He loved reading. That was one of the things he did and that's what sort of drove him into this idea of escapism. He had these ridiculous outfits. So I just started to laugh and think, 'Oh, this is gonna be fun.'," Darby said.

Darby also shared how the notion of doing something unexpected may resonate particularly with today's audiences.

"I think people have sort of thought, 'Gosh. They've had more time to themselves to think what do I really want to do with my life when this thing's through.' It gives everyone a moment to obviously reconnect with their families and things like that, but then take a chance to say, 'Okay, we don't live forever. What else could I do? Am I not happy where I am? If I'm not, let's take a stab, a great term for piracy and something else."

The show's creator David Jenkins said making a period project comes with specific challenges but there were definite perks. These include working with funny entertainers like Darby and executive producer-costar Taika Waititi, as well as veteran comedian-guest stars Fred Armisen, Leslie Jones, and Will Arnett.

"It's a very hard show to make because it's a long day. And you know, a 12-hour day is not a 12-hour day because there's two hours of getting everyone in hair and makeup and these costumes are very elaborate. But it was fun. You got to go to work on a pirate ship. It was a real pirate ship - it rocks, you can hear the rigging moving. And then everywhere you looked was somebody really funny. It was amazing. We got paid to play pirates. So it will never get this good again," Jenkins said.

'Our Flag Means Death' is streaming on HBO Max and consists of ten episodes.

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