Rupert Penry-Jones says that he was thought to originally play a much larger role but because some big wigs at the network "freaked out" over his gay romance with Flint, they scaled back the story.
"I knew that it would be a big deal," he said. "
Can you imagine… the lead character in a show about pirates - with a famous character like Flint, and you're going to basically say that he's gay - that's kind of massive!"
"I was certainly led to believe [Hamilton] was a more major character than he ended up being, so I think what happened was, they started seeing [the storyline] and what a major effect it was having and it freaked a few people out, like:
'No no no, we can have lesbian pirates but not gay ones!'"
"For a lot of guys, they just can't get their head around it," he said. "But then most of the guys that had cried out against it, by the end of [the storyline], they had come round again."
Well don't hold back, Rupert!
sourcei hope the show only gets gayer next year.