Not everything behind the scenes of The Buccaneers is as pretty as it appears on screen.
Alisha Boe revealed that when the child actor who plays her character Conchita Closson’s daughter isn’t available on the Apple TV+ period romance, a doll is used as a stand-in. However, the doll is not as cute as the actual child playing baby Minnie.
“It was a beautiful experience to play a mother opposite my gorgeous daughter ♥️,” Boe hilariously captioned Instagram pics of herself and the doll on Sunday, June 29. “The resemblance was uncanny 🥰🥰🥰.”
Boe’s slideshow of snaps included a selfie of herself and the doll, pics of her TV daughter dressed in costume and sitting in a stroller, and a funny photo of herself and Imogen Waterhouse — who plays Jinny St. George — cuddling up with their respective fake children.
Boe’s costars shared their funny reactions to the photos in the post’s comments. “I want one,” Josie Totah, who plays Mabel Elmsworth, wrote. Aubri Ibrag, who plays Totah’s onscreen sister Lizzy Elmsworth, called the stand-in dolls “our sweet princess.”
Waterhouse, for her part, wrote underneath the post, “Hahaha.”
Season 1 of The Buccaneers saw Conchita welcome her first child with her husband, Richard Marable (Josh Dylan). After overcoming marriage woes, Season 2 picks up with the couple taking on their roles as Lord and Lady Marable following the death of Richard’s father. Looking to save the family from financial ruin, the pair take on coaching Cora Merrigan (Maria Almeida), an American department store heiress seeking to secure a noble English husband.
“In the first block of filming, it felt like I was doing a superhero movie. We were in corsets, and I had to do cartwheels, jump up and down, and spin. I was like, ‘I’m gonna pass out,’” Boe told Elle of Conchita’s evolution back in March. “But in Season 2, she becomes a woman. She’s grown into her own. She becomes the head of the family. She has to take charge, and she really takes that responsibility.”
Waterhouse’s character, meanwhile, is embarking on a more challenging motherhood journey. Season 1 ended with Jinny’s sister, Nan (Kristine Froseth), marrying Theo, the Duke of Tintagel (Guy Remmers), to use her power as a duchess to protect a pregnant Jinny from her abusive husband (Barney Fishwick).
“In Season 1, her main goal is to be part of society, and that was everything that was important,” Waterhouse shared in an interview with Town & Country earlier this month. “Now, we see her in a time where she’s got a baby and her perspective on what’s important has really changed.”
Waterhouse continued, “But within that, she’s also feeling really lonely and trying to kind of figure out who she is and trying to find her light again that was lost within this relationship with [her husband, Lord] Seadown.”
The Buccaneers, Season 2, Wednesdays, Apple TV+