Henry VIII is a monster, but he’s our monster. We’re perversely proud of Henry. -Hilary Mantel
We have a date, Henry!
We are counting down to Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light on BBCOne on November 10 and PBS Masterpiece on March 23. As I can’t wait to see the mini-series and do weekly episode recaps, I would love to share my own very personal Wolf Hall journey with you. ENJOY!
Now tell me… what are the odds your all-time favorite actor plays your all-time favorite historical monster in a mini-series based on your all-time favorite book?
I know 🙂
It all started on a sunny and cold Saturday afternoon in New York City at the Belasco Theatre in January 2014.
Lewisto and I had front-row seats for Richard III on a Saturday matinee. We were so looking forward to seeing then two-time now three-time Tony winner Mark Rylance, arguably the best Shakespearean stage actor we have today. And his performance in Richard III was simply mesmerizing. Rylance gave us a tragic but equally funny Richard. The Shakespeare’s Globe production was brilliant also because it was staged in the same way that it would have been in Shakespeare’s time. All the actors on stage were men 🙂
We were so captivated by the play that during the intermission, Lewisto said we should read and watch more about the history of England. This made me think about Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize award-winning book about the meteoric rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII. The book was already sitting in my pile of unread books. I started reading it a few days later. And only a few chapters into it, I was utterly impressed.
Wolf Hall was not another “juicy” Tudor novel. No, it was not The Other Boleyn Girl. Not even close. Wolf Hall was dark. Wolf Hall was smart. Wolf Hall was political. It had some of the best lines I ever read in a book – and I am a voracious reader. Moreover, the book had the BEST sense of humor. I was simply blown away by Hilary Mantel’s unique prose.
So I was thrilled when I found out about the upcoming BBC production of Wolf Hall. And Mark Rylance, who started my Wolf Hall journey in the first place, would play Thomas Cromwell in the mini-series. BBC waited for him for over a year so that he could finish his run with Twelfth Night and Richard III on Broadway before filming Wolf Hall. And add Peter Kosminsky, a director known for his firm commitment to contemporary political drama with critically acclaimed Warriors, The Government Inspector, and The Promise, and yes, I now got a little too excited!
They started filming in April 2014, but there was no Henry VIII yet… And I had a particular Henry in my mind. When I read, and I read A LOT, I always cast actors as characters to create some familiarity. And I cast Damian Lewis as the red-haired Henry VIII and bragged about it to my husband and my close friends. Damian would make the PERFECT Henry because he could give this historical monster some compelling human touch.
This was almost a year before I launched Fan Fun with Damian Lewis. But I was already a huge fan of the man – I was still mourning my Brody. And I tweeted to Peter Kosminsky, the director of Wolf Hall, from my personal Twitter account and asked about Henry. He very kindly got back to me…
…only to tell me that I had to wait and see 🙂
BBC made the BIG cast announcement in early May 2014: Mark Rylance. Damian Lewis. Jonathan Pryce. Mark Gatiss. Anton Lesser. Claire Foy. Tom Holland. Jessica Raine. Bernard Hill. Thomas Brodie-Sangster. And more. It felt more like a fantasy casting than a real one. I could not ask for more! And this was probably the only moment I thought about calling Alex Gansa to thank him for what he did to Brody 🙂 Haha, and by the way, a friend of mine told me that she seriously believed I had some superpowers over casting decisions. Move over, Nina Gold 🙂
I followed the shoot as closely as possible on social media. And just to mention some of the fun highlights…
- King Henry VIII taking a selfie on the Wolf Hall set, still a personal favorite…
2. King Henry bought drinks for locals at a local pub as they were filming scenes in Episode 2: Entirely Beloved at Montacute House.
3. Oh, and there was a lot of talk about the codpieces 🙂
The Telegraph reported what Damian said when asked about wearing a codpiece at the Silent Storm Premiere at the BFI London Film Festival:
“The 43-year-old actor raised eyebrows in the summer when filming the drama on location at Chastleton House in Oxfordshire, wearing an enormous red codpiece.
Lewis said: “I’m glad to say I didn’t suffer from wilting codpiece, and Henry was fully functional at all times, being the slightly erratic, unpredictable king that he was. A fabulous, fabulous part to play.”
Well, here is THAT infamous pic for you 🙂
Oh, and when Damian guest-hosted Have I Got News For You in the fall of 2014 on BBC, this very picture was the Caption Competition! Watch the clip; it’s extremely FUNNY!
In the fall of 2014, as they wrapped the production of Wolf Hall, I was extremely lucky to attend a talk with the late great Hilary Mantel at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
The festival event was mostly for Mantel to unveil her new book, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, a collection of short stories. However, there was also some good discussion of her Thomas Cromwell Trilogy, what she thinks about the Royal Shakespeare Company stage version, as well as the BBC adaptation. She was also asked about the very much anticipated final part of the trilogy, The Mirror and The Light. Some people were disappointed that Mantel focused on her short story collection before she completed the third book.
Mantel’s talk at the Cheltenham Literature Festival created some news reports saying that Hilary Mantel warned BBC not to turn the TV version of Wolf Hall into nonsense. Two days later, reporters asked Damian Lewis at the World Premiere of his film The Silent Storm at the BFI London Film Festival about what he thought of Hilary Mantel’s comments. Damian gave a very gracious answer, but the thing is that I was there at Times Forum listening to Hilary Mantel, and she was not harsh about the BBC adaptation. Not even close. She said that she was involved at every stage of the way in the Royal Shakespeare Company stage production of Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies, which had an extremely successful run at West End. And RSC was getting ready to bring the play to Broadway, which I was extremely lucky to see twice. Did I tell you I was a Wolf Hall Junkie? 🙂
So what Mantel essentially said was that she was not as involved in the BBC production of Wolf Hall other than the script stage. She said she believed in, and rightly so, the importance of historical accuracy, and then she talked about TV productions in the Tudor Era that went wrong, in particular the Showtime series The Tudors.
What Mantel told us about the Tudors was simply hilarious. The executives thought Henry VIII having two sisters would be too much, so they just had one sister for Henry, and then they found some fictitious king to marry her off. What? Mantel told us:
“I think the problem was that there would be too many Marys in the story. But what can I do? Every second man in Henry VIII’s England is called Thomas. At any one time, there are five Thomases on the page, all shouting at each other.”
Ok. Here you go: A scene from Episode 4: The Devil’s Spit.
How many Thomases are there at the table?
Hilary Mantel also said that if we had been on the festival site at the right time that day, we could have seen both Henrys walking around. One is the RSC’s Henry Nathaniel Parker, who read poems at Allie Esiri’s poetry corner in the morning. And the other one is our Henry, of course, Damian Lewis, who read poems at Allie Esiri’s poetry corner in the afternoon. I was there to see THAT particular Henry. But he wasn’t MY Henry yet. He was still MY Brody. I was there to make sure MY Brody was alive and well!
Finally, Hilary Mantel gave us the good news that she needed another 18 months to finish The Mirror and The Light. She said that the RSC’s stage production gave her a lot of new ideas about how to write it.
When Wolf Hall finally came to the BBC on January 21, 2015, Fan Fun was only two weeks old! The fact that the mini-series premiered only a day before my birthday made it the best birthday gift ever. And Wolf Hall, being the first TV production I wrote weekly recaps for – I wrote the first weekly recap on my birthday – made the experience extra special for me. Lewisto and I read the books all over again in parallel with the series; I live-tweeted with incredible Twitter partners during the Wolf Hall PBS run, had sleepless but incredibly fun nights writing episode recaps as well as tons of other essays on different aspects of Wolf Hall — hey if you want an overdose that would make you indulge yourself in the world of Wolf Hall, feel free to click here – at the last count, we had 90 posts with Wolf Hall tag on it 🙂 Ah, the wonderful feeling of having overdone it 😀
My husband and I saw the BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall three times. We both think it is one of the best things that has ever happened to TV. And not because Damian is in it. But because it is very different from the typical juicy costume drama like The Tudors. Wolf Hall is a dark, slow-cooking, political drama with wit and humor exactly as Hilary Mantel put it on paper. It has such a contemporary feel to it. In a Sunday Times interview with Director Peter Kosminsky, he says, “I hope I will bring the same ethos — of a well-researched, contemporary, quite political drama — to Wolf Hall that I’ve tried to bring to my work in the past ten years or so.” This alone attests to the fact that Peter Kosminsky is the RIGHT director for the job because the book itself feels the same way — a well-researched, contemporary, and quite political drama — Kosminsky’s trademark in his work. Peter Straughan’s script is wonderfully condensed, with most of the conversation coming directly from Mantel’s pen. It is simply thrilling to hear some of the BEST lines I have ever read coming out of Mark Rylance or Damian Lewis’ mouth. Pure brilliance. And I also want to mention Debbie Wiseman’s gripping music. We are extremely lucky that Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light was able to bring together the team behind the first series that won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Peabody for Best Miniseries. I think The Atlantic put it into the best words possible: “With Wolf Hall, PBS finds a drama worth of the word “Masterpiece.”
After Wolf Hall‘s critically acclaimed run on BBC and PBS, Radio Times reported the exciting news that BBC would commission Wolf Hall series two when the third book, The Mirror and The Light, is out. Executive producer Colin Callender told Radio Times that the actors Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis, as well as the production team, were “eager” to film the last book in the trilogy. Callender said:
“We are waiting for Hilary to deliver it, but everybody involved felt they were making something of substance. Subject to everybody’s schedule, I think they will want to come back.”
And they came back… But, firstly, we had to wait for five and a half years for the book to be out. I can’t tell you my happiness when I had the book in my hands only days before the Covid lockdown started. I even took a picture and sent it to my husband when I had the book in my hands! Hmmm, have I told you I am a Wolf Hall junkie? 🙂
The Mirror and The Light was the first book I finished during the lockdown. And it was worth the wait. Hilary Mantel’s untimely death in 2022 left me heartbroken since she was one of my favorite authors. So I returned to The Mirror and The Light and read it one more time in Mantel’s memory. It is the perfect ending to her fantastic trilogy. I am currently listening to the audiobook narrated by the fantastic Ben Miles, who played Thomas Cromwell on RSC’s stage production of Wolf Hall.
BBC confirmed that they would adapt Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light for TV as early as May 2019. The Guardian reported that the BBC adaptation will see director Peter Kosminsky and screenwriter Peter Straughan resuming their partnership in 2015. Mark Rylance announced in March 2022 that he was to reprise his role as Thomas Cromwell and that he hoped to start the production sometime in 2023. And, finally, in an interview with Natalie Boare of ITV News ahead of his Brighton gig in September 2023…
…Damian shared the news that he would start filming Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light soon! You can see the interview in its entirety here.
We started the celebrations for The Mirror and The Light early in the year with a custom-made birthday cake for Damian’s 53rd birthday. Here is the cake…
…along with Damian’s reaction when it was delivered to his home.
Thanks to the pandemic and the busy schedules of everybody involved, they were able to start filming only in November 2023. And while we did not have any photos of the king from the set, we saw him having a pint at a pub with fellow actor Thomas Brodie-Sangster. Brodie-Sangster portrays Cromwell’s right-hand man Rafe Sadler who becomes a gentleman of the Privy Chamber in The Mirror and The Light…
…and Damian and his Henry beard, on their way to the set, inviting us all to the second leg of his UK tour on Instagram.
Finally when I caught up with Damian on his UK tour late March he told me that he was just done with filming The Mirror and The Light. And while I am sure he has some version of the trilogy at home, I gave him an elegant Gift Set edition of Mantel’s three volumes of Wolf Hall after a brief coronation ceremony in the green room, to continue the celebration of the return of the king!
Later that evening the king played along and took a selfie with the four queens of his UK Tour! Mel is the champion with 10 gigs on the UK tour, and Monique, Tsvete, and I are runner-ups with 7. So I think we deserve to wear these crowns!
To continue the Wolf Hall theme for the fun of it, we can call this photo Henry VIII and Four of His Queens Who Could Keep Their Heads! Tsvete would be Jane Seymour since she is shy and kind (I am a “rogue Ottoman” in some ginger’s words!), Mel would be Anne of Cleves because she is from Germany. And she did not only survive but also thrived. Monique would be Catherine Parr because she is the tallest queen. This leaves me as Catherine of Aragon which also makes sense since Henry did not necessarily choose her but was stuck with her 🙂 And, hey, I get the young Henry! 🙂
ps. I took this test and got what I was afraid of: Anne Boleyn. I sort of knew it since I honestly chose “clever” and “competitive” for my best and worst personality traits respectively. The test says my outspoken ideas were what killed me! And, you know, those crowns are my idea, too! 😀 😀 😀 We’ll see whether the “rogue Ottoman” will be able to keep her head on her shoulders… LONG LIVE THE KING!
