Editor’s note: The below interview contains light spoilers for the premiere of The Buccaneers.

The Big Picture

The Buccaneers brings a fresh and contemporary take on Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel, focusing on modernizing the characters and making them relatable to a 2023 audience. The use of Taylor Swift’s song “Nothing New” in the debutante ball scene perfectly captures the raw and relatable emotions of feeling judged and comparing oneself to others. The show’s unique and modern soundtrack was not initially planned from the beginning, but evolved during the development process, with an all-female, North American soundtrack that adds to the contemporary feel of the series.

From the very first frame of Apple TV+’s new series The Buccaneers, it’s beyond clear that this won’t be your average period drama. While the show is adapted from Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel of the same name, the premise all but lends itself to the notion of clashing cultures on-screen, of daring, bold Americans treading into unfamiliar territory as five heiresses embark on a mission to land themselves European husbands for the benefit of a higher social standing. But just because they’re being faced with a more traditional way of doing things doesn’t mean they’re going to sit back and do it quietly. Instead, on the heels of their dearest and most vivacious friend Conchita’s (Alisha Boe) marriage to an English lord, the rest of the group must wrestle with whether they want to truly embark into a world of so many unknowns. All of this happens against the backdrop of a female-forward, pop-rock soundtrack, consisting of such artists as Miya Frolick, Maggie Rogers, boygenius, Brandi Carlile, Warpaint, Lucius, Gracie Abrams, Sharon Van Etten, and box office sensation Taylor Swift.

Ahead of The Buccaneers’ three-episode premiere on Apple TV+, Collider spoke to series creator and executive producer Katherine Jakeways about bringing this story to the small screen for modern audiences. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Jakeways discusses how the project first fell into her lap, which pivotal scene Swift lent her song to, whether the show’s bold soundtrack was always the plan from the beginning, whether there are currently plans for a Season 2, and more.

Image via Apple TV+ The Buccaneers The Buccaneers are the daughters of America’s new rich — beautiful and untameable, despite the best efforts of England’s finest governesses, they are on their way to London to snare themselves an aristocrat, low in funds but high in class, to make a perfect match. Release Date November 8, 2023 Main Genre Drama Genres History Seasons 1
COLLIDER: In terms of your personal relationship to this story, when did you first come across it? I know The Buccaneers has been adapted before, but this feels like a much fresher and more contemporary version.

KATHERINE JAKEWAYS: Well, it was not my idea, is the first thing to say. I wish it had been. But Beth Willis, who was my co-EP for the whole thing, it was absolutely her brainchild, and she had been carrying a copy of the novel around in her bag for at least a decade, I believe. She and I met, talking about a couple of other projects, and she asked me if I knew the book and if I’d be interested in adapting it.

I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t read the book at that stage, and so obviously I did then go read it, and what I loved about it—and what I still love about it, really—is the characters. Edith Wharton is such a brilliant observer of human nature, and she was doing such a great job, when she wrote it in the 1930s, of modernizing the girls for a 1930 reader already. So, although it was set 50 years previously, she was already making them feel modern and relatable to her readers at the time. Our job became making it still relatable 100 years later and still keeping the girls as modern as possible and feeling as relatable and realistic to a 2023 viewer as they would have been to a 1930s reader. I was very honored to be asked to be involved in it. As soon as I did read the book, I was even more thrilled because it felt like Edith Wharton had done a lot of my work for me, really.

Image via Apple TV+

I’m glad you brought up how the story feels modern to the reader because there’s definitely the culture clash with American sensibilities, these more modern sensibilities, these girls that literally explode into a room. [Laughs] Wherever they walk, they’re an explosion of sound and color. But in terms of the tone of the show, the music was something that I really latched onto. Without going into too many spoilers, one of my favorite uses of music is that Taylor Swift song [“Nothing New” feat. Phoebe Bridgers] at the debutante ball. It’s just this really powerful juxtaposition of contemporary, female-fronted music against this very archaic institution.

JAKEWAYS: It’s so perfect, that song, isn’t it? Truthfully, the first time we heard that song over that scene, we all cried [laughs] because it was just like, “Oh my god, this is exactly right.” It’s like she had written that song for that scene, really, because she’s so clever with the lyrics of it. Because it felt so raw and so accessible — and the lyrics of it, of feeling like you’re yesterday’s news, and the way that you can go to a party and look forward to the dressing-up element. You’re getting ready with your mates, and the joy of that pre-party preparation that groups of female friends often have is often the best bit of a party.

Then the reality of that feeling, real and terrifying, when you actually walk into a party or a job interview or a classroom, or any occasion where you suddenly realize you’re being judged on the way you look — and you’re being, in fact, judged compared to the people next to you, which women recognize very much for their entire lives, pretty much every day, getting onto a bus or walking into a supermarket. Never mind walking down a staircase where people are literally writing names and comments down on a piece of paper. The fact that we were able to use that song and that Taylor Swift was kind enough to let us put it on that scene absolutely did everything that we ever wanted that scene to do and more, really. We were like, “Okay, that’s gonna make it totally understandable for a modern audience because she’s so brilliant.” So I’m glad you mentioned that because that’s everybody’s favorite scene and favorite use of the music across the series. It works perfectly, doesn’t it?

In terms of the soundtrack in general, it feels so unique. We’ve seen other period shows include pop songs, but it’s the instrumental cover — so it’s kind of a wink, but this show is in your face about it. Was that an element from the beginning?

JAKEWAYS: I wish I could say that right from the word go, we were entirely clear about how the music was gonna play out from the word go. We weren’t, truthfully. During the development process and even during the filming, we knew we wanted it to be modern in some way, we knew we weren’t gonna be using period-appropriate music, but we absolutely wouldn’t have wanted to do it the way Bridgerton did it because then it would look like we were copying Bridgerton. We were familiar with the way that they had done it, and I think it works really well in their show, but we wanted to find something that immediately made you go, “Oh god, that’s how it feels. Oh, that’s how it feels!”

We talked about maybe doing some modern songs that were diegetic and some that weren’t non-diegetic, but then we went, “Do you know what? Let’s just have everything be non-diegetic music and make it completely modern.” Our brilliant music supervisor, Matt Biffa, and then Stella [Mozgawa] from Warpaint, who was brought in as the person to sort of orchestrate in all ways and conceive this plan, suggested that we make it an all-female soundtrack — and make them all North American women so that all the songs feel like they’re the spirit of and the energy of these contemporary-feeling girls.

Some of the songs are like the Taylor Swift song that you mentioned, songs that existed before that we put on the scene, and a lot of them are ones that we amazingly got these brilliant female artists to write especially for the moment. They got sent the scene, the footage of the scene in some cases, and we told them roughly what we wanted the emotion of the piece to be and the kind of thing that we wanted them to say, and they came back with these amazing songs.

It was such an exciting period of post-production where we would wake up—because they were on LA time—in the morning and be like, “Oh my god! There’s a song in for Episode 6!” We’d listen to it, and then we’d put it over the scene. We were so thrilled that we got this amazing soundtrack, which I think really works. I know that there may be moments of it where people initially will go, “Oh, that’s not what I would have expected of a period drama,” but I hope that what we’re trying to do with the show is say, yes, fans of traditional period dramas will find loads to enjoy in our show — with the landscapes and the costumes and the romances and the kind of traditional elements of period drama that everybody loves — but also people who aren’t normally drawn to period drama, I hope, will watch the show and feel the experience in a lot of ways of watching a contemporary drama, as well. Because a lot of the storylines, a lot of the relationships, and a lot of the themes that are explored, and the way that the characters relate to each other, have much more in common with a contemporary drama than in a traditional period drama.

Image via Apple TV+

I wanted to ask about how you approached adapting the book because obviously it wasn’t finished. We’ve seen other shows take on an unfinished manuscript, like Sanditon. The show, again without going into spoilers, leaves some things open-ended. There’s a possibility for a continuation based on the finale. Was that a tricky process trying to figure out an ending, and could you envision another season? Because it does feel like there’s more to tell here.

JAKEWAYS: In terms of the unfinished novel of it all, without giving too much away, the big event that happens in Episode 8 actually only happens about a third of the way through the novel. We haven’t had to have an attempt at finishing anything beyond where Edith Wharton got to. The first third of the book is really beautifully written and well drawn and well thought through, and then I feel like it kind of sort of tailed off slightly — not in terms of the quality of the writing, far from it, but actually, just the speed at which she was having to do it. I suspect there are some bits later on that she probably would have gone back and done another pass on, and it’s probably a quite early draft later on. So up to about the first third, and up to that sort of big event that happens, it’s so beautifully drawn that that was the bit that we wanted to focus on for these eight episodes.

In terms of a second season, if you’ve watched the whole thing, you will see that there are clearly more stories that could be told and things that are set up for further storytelling. Clearly, it’s a world we’re obsessed with and we love spending time in, and we just want to do more with those girls really and see what happens to them, see how their relationships develop, see their friendships be able to be played out a little bit more fully than we’ve been able to do in just that one season.

And there’s obviously more scope. The reason they’re called the Buccaneers is they were the start of the American invasion. They came, and then there were hundreds of girls who followed over the years to come in terms of Americans coming over to get a bit of that pie Conchita started. In our story, it’s that she was the first. There are more stories to be told, and we would love to think that there will be more opportunities for that, but we’re focusing on the first season, obviously, at the moment [laughs], getting that out there and getting people to watch it.

The first three episodes of The Buccaneers are available to stream on Apple TV+, with new episodes released weekly every Wednesday.

Watch on Apple TV+