EXCLUSIVE: Veteran British director Susanna White has revealed she’s working on a feature film based on her teenage life set against changes in the fashion world, as she gears up for today’s launch of Apple TV+ period drama The Buccaneers.
White is developing an untitled script for the BFI, the first time she has written a feature script herself, and the plot is based on her personal coming of age story. “It’s the story of me at 13, set in the world of fashion in early 1970s,” she told Deadline in an interview. “It’s very fun, sexy and hopefully moving.”
We hear the film will follow 13-year-old Gingernut as she grows up with the fur trade’s decline playing out in the background. The plot will see her trying to make sense of her parents’ dysfunctional relationship and include themes of family, growing up, betrayal, love and loss.
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“My dream is to get the film made,” added the British producer-director, who is currently searching for financing for the project. Her previous projects have been in collaboration with writers such as Tom Stoppard on HBO and BBC period drama Parade’s End), David Simon on HBO miniseries Generation Kill and Steven Knight on A24 feature Woman Walks Ahead.
White is also currently developing the film version of Jodie Comer theater production Prima Facie, with Cynthia Erivo attached, and and executive-produced and directed the first two episodes of her latest project, The Buccaneers, the Apple series that launches globally today.
Her director roles include the 2017 feature Woman Walks Ahead starring Jessica Chastain and Sam Rockwell, John le Carré film Our Kind of Traitor and Working Title’s Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. On the TV front her credits include the likes of Bleak House and Jane Eyre for the BBC; Parade’s End; HBO trio Generation Kill, Boardwalk Empire and The Deuce; and season one of Billions for Showtime. She also worked on episodes of Disney+ Star Wars series Andor, something she described as “a departure” for her directing career.
The Buccaneers, from writer Katherine Jakeways (Tracey Ullman’s Show, Where This Service Will Terminate), is based on the novel of the same name by American Edith Wharton, who died in 1937 with the book incomplete. National Treasure producer The Forge, which Banijay last week acquired, has made the show. White, Jakeways, and The Forge’s George Faber and Beth Willis are the EPs. The first three episodes dropped today.
The eight-part series, shot in Scotland, stars Kristine Frøseth (The Assistant), Alisha Boe (When You Finish Saving The World), Josie Totah (Saved by the Bell), Aubri Ibrag (Dive Club), Imogen Waterhouse (The Outpost) and Mia Threapleton (Shadows), along with Mad Men star Christine Hendricks and newcomers Guy Remmers and Matthew Broome.
Frøseth plays the buccaneering Nan St. George, who moves with her Aristocratic girlfriends from the U.S. to 1870s London. A culture clash ensues as they are courted by landed but poor Englishmen, with Nan caught between the affections of Theo (Remmers) and Guy Thwarte (Broome).
“Edith Wharton is an extraordinary writer and particularly on this book, so when I was sent the idea, it seemed like fantastic opportunity, especially with Katherine as the writer because she had a fresh, intelligent and humorous take on it,” said White.
Several of the cast are newcomers or at early stages in their careers, something that appeals to White. She worked with Carey Mulligan on her first TV role in Bleak House and argued the case for HBO and David Simon to take the chance on Alexander Skarsgård in HBO’s soldier drama Generation Kill. “Finding new people has always been something that excites me,” said White, who oversaw the process with Casting Directors Kaheen Crawford and Tamara-Lee Notcutt.
Apple did not prescribe the need for established talent, added White, and was “very open” to the likes of Remmer, a theater actor and model, and Broome, who had previously only acted on stage. Both stood out in chemistry tests with Froseth.
“This was literally Guy Remmer’s first day doing anything and he was amazing,” said White. “He lights up the screen but is also a natural actor. Matthew Broome has done a lot of theater but I was literally teaching screen acting to both of our male leads on day one. They were very brave and wonderful.”
‘Bridgerton’ comparisons
A young adult period drama from a U.S. streamer with diverse, international cast was always going to attract comparisons with Netflix’s Bridgerton, but White was keen to play down similarities noting development on The Buccaneers began before Shonda Rhimes’ hit series began streaming.
“It’s nice to be compared with Bridgerton as it’s so phenomenally popular, but the ambition was never to make something like it,” added White. “The starting point was very much the book, the culture clash and the hurricane of young Americans arriving in England.
“What excited me the notion of what would it have felt like to be a 19-year-old in the 1870s going to the other side of the world with a totally different culture, along with your best friends. It’s the opposite of a fairy tale: Traditional period drama and romance leads towards a wedding to tie up the story so everyone can live happily ever after; we start with a wedding and then wonder what the marriage is like when one set of expectations have come from across the Atlantic and the other is from a very different culture.”
White said key themes were influenced by the modern pressures on young women, expectations around finding partners and how women can fall back on female friendships. “In all the period drama I’ve made, it’s a complete accident of fate when your bit of DNA lands on the planet. There will be highs and lows, jealousy and joy, whether you’re dressed up in a corset or in a pair of trainers.”
The female-centric soundtrack features the likes of Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift, whose song ‘Nothing New’ plays during in a pivotal early scene at a Debutantes Ball, where Nan tells Guy the girls paraded in front of the gentry are treated like “cattle.”
“We knew when we matched ‘Nothing New’ with the ball that we had found the sound and the heart of the show,” said White.
Just as Swift is the musical voice of a generation, White said each iteration of period drama has to speak to the audience of the day. “There have been something like 30 films versions of Jane Eyre and when it came to my version the question was how I could speak to the young women of the time,” she said. “It has to be truthful for the period you’re shooting in.
“What The Buccaneers has done is tap into the social anxiety young women are experiencing right now, often through social media. We’ve tapped into that particular zeitgeist, but hopefully we provide and fun and escape at the same time. I don’t know what’s around the corner but I always try to say something that feels real and truthful and speaks to the time I’m making it in.”
White is represented by Casarotto Ramsay & Associates and CAA.
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