Josie Totah Wanted an Authentic 1800s Lesbian Experience on The Buccaneers

Mabel and Honoria are in the closet. Literally. During the second episode of the new AppleTV+ series The Buccaneers, which focuses on a group of American girls in England in the 1800s, the girls play sardines and two of them end up stuck in a closet together. As played by Josie Totah (Mabel) and Mia Threapleton (Honoria), the scene is intimate and filled with unconsummated gay longing. They gaze at each other, they share feelings, they lightly touch. Based on an unfinished novel of the same name by Edith Wharton, the series adds queerness into a story that, given that it was written in the 1930s, perhaps unsurprisingly didn’t include it. Totah, who began performing as a child, is the perfect person to help shepherd that arc, not only because she’s queer but because, despite being in a show set in the 1800s, she understands how things will play in modernity and where to avoid cliché.

In an excepted interview originally conducted in front of a live audience at Vulture Fest 2023, Totah elaborated on her work in The Buccaneers. “I wanted it to feel authentic and that we weren’t ignoring the sociopolitical climate of being gay,” she said. “You’re not just like ‘I like girls!’ and someone’s like, ‘Yeah you do!’”

Was that your first time playing—
Being a lesbian?

Onscreen?
[Laughs.] It was, yeah! You know, that was really important to me. I’m obviously a queer person, so I’m glad they chose someone who’s in the community and to do it right, and hopefully we did.

Did you know the story at all of The Buccaneers before you heard about the project?
No I didn’t. It was a book, which … I don’t pick up much of them. Wish I did! And it was also a period-historical thing … So no, not at all. I got an email about it which said it was an Apple show about “if Girls were to be in the 1800s,” which seemed very enticing. Also not what it ended up being, but very enticing.

What was so enticing about it?
The fact that it was Girls meets the 1800s. I just loved Girls.

The 1800s didn’t appeal to you at first?
Not necessarily with the political nature of that time. I don’t get excited when I see the 1800s written down.

You’re not a Pride & Prejudice girl?
Actually, fun fact: I did book a Pride & Prejudice remake last year that never got made.

Who were you going to play in it?
Lydia, which was strange because I was a 20-year-old woman playing a 14-year-old. The girl that was playing Lizzy was only like 17. It didn’t really make sense. Maybe that’s why it didn’t get made. Or it’s getting made without me. I have no idea. So that was cool.

What was exciting about this particular piece as a drama?
It felt really cool because I feel like a lot of these period pieces have these caricatures, and these giant set pieces, and the makeup is beautiful, and the hair is very large, like art. But it also feels like on a lot of those shows, those characters feel very far away and it’s harder for me to personally relate to them. Our show feels closer to you because it’s much more toned down in all those aspects, which I really liked.

It feels like YA in a lot of ways. It feels like it’s ready to speak to a youth as opposed to trying to just feel within the trappings of prestige.
Yeah. I think it’s honest. We don’t really wear much makeup. It was, like, ten minutes of makeup a day, which I fought with them about because I coulda done for a little bit more! But, you know, I honestly think they were right and it worked out well — but especially from Saved by the Bell, going from Oscar glam, two hours a day, to them just massaging you and being like “You’re done! Little bit of oil!”

What was it like to not be a producer on this show after having had that access for Saved by the Bell. Did you miss it?
It was cool to show up and work. And also it was with a lot of very prestigious actors who had gone to drama school, whereas my routine would be Nicki Minaj and a little shake of the butt. They would have done a Shakespearean sort of soliloquy alone in their trailer before coming onstage. So that was really cool to learn from those people, and I think they learned a little bit from me as far as the loosening up part of it! But the producing part, I’m always pitching stuff and saying stuff to them, and trying to get ideas in because it’s hard for me to not.

Did you get any ideas into this show?
I did. There was one point where … I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s the penultimate scene for my character that I got to write, based off …we’d gone back and forth because this character is obviously queer and they really wanted it to be a story of a girl who was not traumatized. I thought that was cool because a lot of period pieces and representation in general of queer people has to do with trauma, but I also wanted it to feel authentic and that we weren’t ignoring the sociopolitical climate of being gay. You’re not just like “I like girls!” and someone’s like “Yeah, you do!”

It’s the 1800s.
Well, what is that? What does that mean? What language do they have? That was important to me to work with them, and we went back and forth on that scene a lot. They were so lovely, the writers of that show were so kind about working with me and incorporating my ideas into it. I randomly was at dinner with Mia Threapleton, who plays Honoria, the girl in the closet with me. And I went on a roll and then opened up my computer and started writing what the scene would be. And I called the creator and I said, “Please tell me to go bleep myself if this is totally inappropriate, but I was just journaling and I have a few ideas for the scene!” and she said “Okay, what were you doodling about? Tell me.” And I was like “Okay, so what if she says this and the stage direction is this and the parenthetical is this and then …” and she was like, “Bitch, do you have this written down? Do you want to just send it to me?” So 90 percent of what I sent her ended up being what we got to shoot, which is so cool.

What was specifically important to you about your version of it?
Paying respect to the time. The original version was very cool, but this one was a little bit more “Huh? What?”

People were acknowledging that they didn’t have the words for queerness.
Yeah. It was great both ways, but I thought that was cool to do.

That’s the  balancing act on this show — there’s a Taylor Swift song in the first episode.
There’s Lana Del Rey.

Yeah, it feels like a program where they are acknowledging that it’s being made in 2023, absolutely, but it is set in the 1800s and they want you to remember that. How did you feel about that balancing act as a performer?
It was tricky, because you’re telling multiple things at once. But we just tried to be as clear with each other, as far as the cast goes, of what we wanted to do. We watched a lot of period pieces together, like Little Women or Marie Antoinette, which had modernized elements to them, to see what we wanted from each of them. In the beginning when we were doing rehearsals, we didn’t really have a coach to tell us how to talk because I think they wanted us to be modern, so we didn’t realize until we read each other lines at dinner that one of us was like, speaking in a British accent and meanwhile I was speaking in an American one. It was like, “Maybe we should get on the same page of how we talk.” Mostly, I think we all are.

What was the process like? How did you negotiate that among yourselves?
We all were very much, like, very clear on the fact that we wanted it to be good and not like we were “playing” characters and to make them feel real, but also not make them feel like they’re all TikTokers in 2023.

So there was no coach for that specifically?
No. There were only three American people actually on the show. Two of the other girls are not American in real life, but they play American in the show, so they had dialect coaches. But as far as the actual Americans, they just let us rock.