The ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike means actors can’t talk about or promote any struck work, including the cast of Max’s superb (and superbly gay) pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death, whose second season premiered earlier this month. So it’s tricky that six of them comprised the show’s panel at the 2023 New York Comic Con in October 2023.
In lieu of talking about their TV show, Rhys Darby, Vico Ortiz, Nathan Foad, Matthew Maher, Kristian Nairn, and Con O’Neill instead played a game of Most Likely To. Yeah, this is what we’ve come down to, thanks to the AMPTP’s refusal to give SAG-AFTRA members a fair deal. The union went on strike in July, but the AMPTP walked away from the table this week, so there’s no end in sight for now. It means OFMD’s cast couldn’t discuss season two, their characters, or any fun details from their time filming the show.
However, Darby quickly referenced the strike at one point, saying “I guess one day, when we get a better deal and when someone sorts this out to give us what everyone deserves,” then they can basically get back to making the art they love. But that’s about as close as it got to talking about Hollywood and the current climate at the OFMD panel. The rest of the 45 minutes were dedicated to them trying to have as much fun as possible, and trust us, the audience was eating it the hell up. All Darby or Ortiz or any of them had to do was as little as breathe, and the crowd would erupt in laughter. That’s the power of the fandom, huh?
The cast answered questions like “Who is most outdoorsy?” and “Who would order expensive things off of a menu.” Then there was “Who’s most likely to take a selfie with Bigfoot,” with Rhys launching into a long-winded answer about how he’d do it. He did that often, prompting O’Neill to ask the moderator if the next question was “Who’s likely to eat the most amount of edibles.”
So we don’t actually know how any of these OFMD cast members feel about the currently airing second season—they tried damn hard to not break strike rules—but we know they get along well, and will try their best at improv. Is the latter not the most important thing, anyway?