I'm Volstag and what you see is what you get. He's a bon vivant lover of life epicurean goodfellow. He's a god, which helps. He's full of life. He reminds me very much of Falstaff. There's a wonderful innocence to him and the steadfast loyalty of a big Saint Bernard dog.

For me, because I've had classical theater training, when people say, "Oh, my god, the play is amazing!," I'll never get to see it because I'm in it.

Sometimes, I have lost out on a gig because I was not high enough profile.

Really Edward Teach, Blackbeard, was actually tall, so he was literally larger than life and so he knew that and actually the more you read about him, you realize that he actually respected and knew about the theatricality and he'd rather take a ship by threatening and having the power of his personality and the threat of the oncoming danger to sway the ship to just acquiesce and just give up their cargo and so none of his crew got hurt and they would just take their bounty and he wouldn't have to kill anybody, but of course he earned that reputation, so he was no saint.

[Pirates] are a victim of their own success. People have identified with pirates in a comic and caricature sense.

Blackbeard was larger than life. He was 6'4" in 1710. He was a colossus, and like a rock star walking into a bar. He was a tremendous commander, a great leader.

I didn't want people to go out wanting to go tool up against the bad guys (and at impressionable ages). I said, don't shy away from the violence or pull back on this, commit to this.