Damien Lewis Talks BBC’s Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light

A Royal Presence

The BBC’s adaptation of the second part of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light, starts soon and here’s Damien Lewis talking about it…

Where do we pick-up with Henry in The Mirror and the Light?

Henry was under great pressure politically from the Roman Catholic church who tried to excommunicate him because, as every school child knows, he divorced Katherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn – I think just because he really fancied her! I think he loved Katherine of Aragon, he fancied Anne Boleyn – who was tricky, smart and a reformist who caused him a lot of headaches – but he really loved Jane Seymour. Every marriage was political as well as personal. Henry was an interesting character and – in spite of his murderous tendencies! – he believed in love. He wanted to feel love and be loved, and I think he felt he could have this with Jane Seymour.

Can you tell us about Henry’s concerns about his position in the Court?

I think what is probably true of Henry is that there was a deep insecurity in him underneath the magnificence. He believed he possessed this magnificence. He believed he was next to God on Earth. But I think deep down there was an insecurity about him not being able to provide male heirs and his children not surviving. In Tudor times, they believed very strongly that if you had many extra marital affairs, you were less likely to have healthy children within marriage. It was a new dynasty. The Tudors, Henry VIII, had a thin claim to the throne. There were great families around – the Poles, the Courtenays – and they stoke Henry’s paranoia all through his reign. In fact, it’s one of the central reasons that Thomas Cromwell loses his head in the end.

Please tell us about Cromwell and Henry’s partnership…

Henry enjoys Cromwell’s honesty, his truth, and his ability to get things done. So he doesn’t have to think too hard about them himself. Henry was many things – he loved his pastimes and his pursuits, he spent a long time trying to create this idea of an Arthurian romantic court where people wrote poetry and played music and learnt languages, and where romantic love and the chivalric code were very important. This meant that there wasn’t always a lot of time to run the country, so he had Wolsey to do it for him, and then he had Cromwell. The essential difference was that Wolsey was really responsible for bringing up Henry and he knew Henry as a little boy. Wolsey was a father figure to him in a way that Henry’s own father wasn’t. Whereas Cromwell was the wheeler-dealer behind everything and, in the end, the architect of the dissolution of the monasteries.

We’re speaking in February 2024 on set between scenes, and your current look is magnificent. What’s it like wearing such fantastic costumes?

Oh, this is just something I threw on for this interview! This is a heavily foamed suit that goes all the way down into my knees. But it’s bloody hot, I’ll tell you that much. I’m the only person on set who hasn’t been cold since the start of November. I suppose what’s been fun about this is exploding certain myths. Until 1536, when Henry fell off his horse and had a bad injury to his leg, he was vigorous, athletic, and tall. Part of his tragedy, part of his short-temperedness with everything – if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time you might get your head cut off – is because he was unable to ride, hunt and joust… unable to do the physical things that he had always done. So he was in great pain for a lot of his time and his mood altered. He lost his looks very quickly.

Please tell us about working with Mark and Peter.

They’re amazing. The sheer level of concentration, focus and attention to detail they both have means that they unapologetically protect the work. And it’s an unfashionable thing to do, but the space you’re in when you work has something serious about it, and you can create something magical and sacred if you’re prepared to do it and not have people on phones mucking about too much. It’s good to have a bit of a laugh sometimes, otherwise we’d tear our hair out, but essentially it’s a special space and you come in and work. Mark and I talk about it a lot, it’s very hard as an actor on a film set to retain your bubble because filming is an industrial endeavour. In order to create an imaginative space you have to work hard and it’s made much easier with Mark and Peter running it because they demand that. Peter is meticulous, he’s unbelievably well prepared and knows the story inside out – who’s just lost their head, who’s in power, who has got a small force amassing up in Yorkshire, who hasn’t, what the French are doing – at any given moment of the story. And so his ability to place you in the story perfectly is brilliant. And I just love working with Mark. It’s like tennis, and when you hit something with a bit of slice and it comes back with topspin. It’s really fun. He’s not ‘Sir Mark Rylance’ for no reason.