As an actor, I relish and delight in doing things that I'm not necessarily the demographic for. This is a demographic that is touching the psyche of a certain age group, facing the real internal questions of people who are going through rites of passage into adulthood. It's earth-shaking stuff.

The pamphlets going back to London telling of the violent derring-dos of the Bahamian pirates were the ones that brought infamy to the names of Charles Vane and Blackbeard. How much of that is really documented history? It carries a flavor with it, but take all this with a pinch of salt.

The best piece of advice Ive ever been given was, Be in the business youre in. Dont just be a satellite around it and expect it to come to you. Be in the business youre in.

It does if you put yourself out there being a pirate. It's like if you have an army and your army sit around and not doing anything and living the lives of decadence and they're faced with a battle, and you slide. Do they deserve the right to call themselves an army? Do these pirates who are basically languishing deserve the right to call themselves pirates? They're victims of their own success.

The way Shakespeare wrote Fallstaff is with a heightened language and everything. That's the genuis of having Ken Branagh here as well. Shakespeare doesn't require you to have a doctorate in his language or whatever to understand him. It just has to be directed and played right. It's all about scale and presence and getting these huge, epic stories across.

I consider it an actor going to work with other actors. It's not a competitive sport, it's not to outact anybody else, sorta thing, you can be a bad actor but you don't outact anybody, you just bring your character as best as you can.

Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking, 'I'm a bad guy.' They think they're the right guy.