Michael Jibson: Playing Myles Standish | Saints & Strangers

Miles Sish was the um military representative on the Mayflower. He went out as a kind of pilgrim as well to find his patch of land, I suppose, in the New World. But he was the military adviser. He was always at the front of the group of people that would be pushing further and further into the New World to make sure that it was safe.

"Gather what you can, but for your own preservation, do not leave my sight."

There's a lot of moments in this where he kind of takes the middle ground. We shot a scene yesterday where there was a big debate going on about whether or not to build a church or whether or not we were there for business or religion. Sish is the kind of one who sort of stands up and says, "With respect, you both need to think about this, and you need to think about this."

So yeah, I kind of see him as somewhere in the middle. I wasn't as familiar with the story as I should be, I suppose. I'm from the UK; I live in the UK. I certainly had heard of the Mayflower, and I knew about the founding fathers. It's been a fascinating journey for me, playing this part in this story, 'cause I've got to sort of learn it as I've gone along the way, really.

"This is our territory. You do not come into my house and tell me what I may or may not do. Let a few of us sit and converse that we might settle on a more formal agreement."

I think one of the most surprising things is the part of the story that they're telling about the natives and how it wasn't just as straightforward as they arrived. The natives were hostile; they took them on, and they set up a colony. There was so much more politics to that part of the story between the native tribes and the native territories, which kind of bled into the way in which the leaders of our pilgrims kind of dealt with certain tribes and how they traded with some and fought some of them off.

I think that's probably going to be the most fascinating part of this story when people see this on TV.