Leslie Jones on her badass Our Flag Means Death role: ‘I’ll do this for free!’

HBO Max is a pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death The company starts slowly and then speeds up quickly. It pivots from small-scale to large-scale. How we work in the ShadowsA comedy style about inept and self-important sailors. This humor is used to tell a wider story. Saturday Night LiveLeslie Jones, a veteran of the Republic of Pirates shows up to play Spanish Jackie. Based on the true-life partnership of Blackbeard and Spanish Jackie (Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi) and “gentleman pirate” Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), but the show’s aesthetic leans hard into the larger-than-life pop-culture idea of pirates, complete with grand adventures, grotesque violence, and swashbuckling style.

Jones told Polygon that the pirate imagery was an important part of Jones’ appeal when she accepted the role. “My agent sent it over and said, ‘They’re really interested in having you play this pirate,’” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m On!’ As soon as they said ‘pirate,’ I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? They will let me wear my pirate boots. Yes, for sure.’ They told me ‘Spanish Jackie has a wooden hand and like 20 husbands.’ I was like, ‘Sign me up, I’ll do this for free!’”

And sure enough, she did get those pirate boots she signed on for: “I got nice Rick James boots,” she cackles. “The ones that go up to theKnee.”

Spanish Jackie, who first shows up in episode 3 and memorably re-emerges as the season’s plotlines coalesce, is a ruthless bar owner with a longstanding grudge against one of Stede’s sailors. Fred Armisen is Geraldo. He’s her head bartender, and one of her many unhappy husbands. When a few sailors from the main cast re-enter Jackie’s life and her bar, she gets a grand entrance, complete with her own ominous theme music and a slow, dramatic zoom in to the table where she’s lurking in darkness. Later, Stede is introduced to the jar of severed noses she keeps on the bar, a testament to how many enemies she’s taken down.

Photo: Aaron Epstein/HBO Max

“I got to be an all-around badass,” Jones says. “I’ve always wanted to play a girl who is tough as a dude. To intimidate men, I was able to enjoy smoking cigars. People must be afraid of me. It’s something I love. I’ve always wanted to play a woman like that. An empathetic, swashbuckling lady on the wrong side. A thief, who gets to run stuff, and men fear her, and then she’s still charming enough to have 20 husbands? It’s also nice to have a good look. This is what I love! I love that she isn’t some dirty pirate woman. She’s like ‘Oh, nah, nah. Y’all can look good? You can too. Which? YouGet out there and do it! You velvet? ItGet out there and do it! mines, you know?’”

Jones has been performing stand-up since the 1980s, but she’s also been all over the entertainment field. She’s appeared in movies like TrainwreckAnd Come 2 America, and co-starred in Paul Feig’s 2016 take on Ghostbusters. Her ABC game show is called “The ABC Game Show”. Supermarket SweepShe recently launched a Netflix special celebrating her 50th Birthday. She was the longest performing artist to be hired for the 2014 Emmy Awards. Saturday Night LiveShe was cast and remained with the show for five more years. She’s built an entire fandom around her Twitter persona and her live TwitterInstagram comments and reactions to films and sporting events including the Olympic Games. But she says it’s still rare for her to get roles like Spanish Jackie, where she’s being asked to play a character instead of a version of herself.

“This pirate thing was different for me because they really was asking me to act,” she says. “I like to do stuff that makes me come out of whatever people expect. So I do look for projects like that.”

For Jackie’s introduction episode, Jones worked with Nacho Vigalondo, director of TimecrimesThe kaiju movie The ColossalThe Blumhouse movie and. Pooka! “I loved him,” she says. “He was such a good director. He was the best thing about me. [creator and showrunner] David Jenkins is — they came up to me like, ‘We love Leslie Jones, we’re so glad Leslie Jones is here. But we want Spanish Jackie when those cameras come on.’ And I was just like, ‘Yes, I love that!’ Because most times, people are like, ‘Oh, just put some Leslie Jones on it!’ And I’m like, ‘No, I want to play the character. Because that’s what’s gonna broaden my portfolio.’”

Jones said that there was still room for improv. “You canIt is not have me and Fred Armisen on a set and not improv. There’s just no notThat is what you should do. […]Fred and I could easily go back-and-forth with each other because he picked up on my activities, so I picked up his. And then the other actors, I got so many pointers where I was like, ‘Oh, damn, that is — oh, I didn’t know that — OK, that’s how you — wow, this is really good stuff!’”

One of the things she learnt on the Our Flag Means Death set, she says, was just about playing action scenes — how to cheat a knife strike at another actor’s face so it looks good for the camera, how to lunge and fall in realistic ways. “The stunt dude that taught us our moves was frickin’ sensational. Steve was off the chains. There was times when I was like, ‘How’s he gonna make this look real?’ And he’d say ‘Just fall this way.’ He would do every move first. He made me look like I could fight.”

Vigalondo gave her some great suggestions about how to invoke power while requiring minimal movement and action. “The note I most loved was, ‘You don’t have to lean in so they can hear you. You stay where you are, and they lean into you so you can hear them,’” she says. “‘You don’t have to ask for something — you look at them, and they give it to you, because you’re Spanish Jackie. It was a victory in war. You’ve fought battles. You don’t have to answer to nobody. Commanders are scared of you.’ I was like, ‘Dope.’ He’s telling me this, and my back is getting straighter the whole time. I love it.”

Leslie Jones can show strength and confidence. She’s stood tall and kept her poise through a number of high-profile public battles over the past few years, particularly in the wake of Feig’s GhostbustersShe was made a target by racist and sexist internet trolls. Twitter’s harassment campaign, which temporarily drove her off Twitter, was not a good look. It updated its policies and ended up banging Milo Yiannopoulos (an alt-right figure) for his part in her campaign. To dox and publish inflammatory images, the attackers took over her website. Her profile was elevated and she received widespread support. But, it has kept her in the limelight for other reasons.

Photo: Aaron Epstein/HBO Max

When asked if these public fights had affected her career or roles, however, she laughs.

“Let me tell you something about me,” Jones tells Polygon. “I’m 54 years old. The battles that I fight in this business ain’t shit compared to what I’ve come from. These battles made me look like a bunch of slobs in order to make it where I am now. […] Nah, I’ve seen things and done things and been places. These new battles don’t so much shape me as inform me of what to do. It doesn’t make me fearful, because I know who I am. What I’m capable of doing is what I do. I am able to give.

“And I know I’m not perfect, but I know I’m the shit. You’re not going to tell me better than what the fuck I say in my head. I don’t believe You Please send me. People can throw whatever the fuck at me. It’s a great thing. I’m a comedian. Do you know how bad I’ve been talked about? When people say stuff about me, I’ll be like, ‘That wasn’t even a good one.’ I want to answer them, like, ‘You know what youCouldI would say that it would.It is really funny?’”

However, her choices of role are influenced by the chance that she can surprise others. “I do like to do things they don’t expect me to do. I like to be vulnerable when they don’t expect it. Everybody hears ‘Leslie Jones’ and thinks, ‘Oh, she’s funny.’ Yeah, I’m funny, because I am a comedian. Dramatic is also something I am capable of. I dream of being a serial-killer. I would like to be able to do all things. I’m not just one base. However, you must first show them. So that’s how I pick projects. I go, ‘OK, I’ve done Come 2 America, I’ve done the SNL-type of thing. Now let me do something different.’”

There are limits to what she’s willing to do though, even to play a badass, swashbuckling pirate who intimidates and bullies the star of the series. “I don’t know about going on a ship,” she says. “But you know, baby steps.”

And she isn’t angry that she didn’t get a parrot to complete her pirate look. “I don’t want no damn pirate parrot,” she says. “I was like, ‘Can I get, like, a little sidekick or something?’ But no parrot. No. ’Cause I’m one of those people that actually know about birds. Birds are Evil.”

Season 1 Our Flag Means Death The new season is streaming now on HBO Max. There will be new episodes every Thursday.