Jessica Camacho, who plays Pirate Jenny in HBO's Watchmen series, has broken down the connection she sees between her character and the comic book source material created by Alan Moore and David Gibbons.
"I think it's [Pirate Jenny's name] paying homage to the Black Freighter and that world," Camacho told CBR. "It goes back to the very specific creation of her backstory. The pirate element is very purposeful. In the crafting of her own identity, I think she's enamored with the idea of pirates. The idea of them going about things in their own rowdy renegade way. 'We take what we need; we leave the rest.' I think there's something to the survivor in her that really identifies with what a pirate symbolizes to her. But I would say she's still tied to the Black Freighter from the original comics, which is so cool. I love seeing those Easter eggs pop up in the current Watchmen."
In the original Watchmen, Tales of the Black Freighter was an in-universe comic that centered on a castaway who assembled a ship using the corpses of his dead crewmates to try to sail home. Segments of the story were peppered throughout Watchmen, seen through the eyes of a boy named Bernie who hung out by the newsstand where Rorschach purchased his copies of The New Frontiersman.
Developed by Damon Lindelof, HBO's Watchmen stars Jeremy Irons, Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Jean Smart, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Tom Mison, James Wolk, Adelaide Clemens, Andrew Howard, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, Lily Rose Smith and Adelynn Spoon. The series airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.