Game of Thrones: Which actress should have met Jude Law and changed?

What is it about? Catherine Parry is the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, whose previous wives were either repudiated or beheaded (only one died after an illness). With the help of the ladies-in-waiting, he tries to destroy the traps set by the bishop, the court and the king…

A Swede in the shoes of an Englishwoman

For Karim Ainouz, Alicia Vikander’s Swedish nationality gave a new perspective to the role of Kathryn Parry: “The first thing he brings is that he’s not English, and for me that was exciting. There was a bit of revenge in seeing a foreigner playing an Englishman.”– says the director. It follows:

“After all those movies with Elizabeth Taylor about Egypt, I told myself it was time for a change! Alicia brought something very close to what I imagined, a very quiet and reserved presence, but also very strong and mysterious. It brings a lot of opacity and I would never have been able to paint a true portrait of Kathryn Parry without that element of mystery.”

Note that Michelle Williams was the first to play Kathryn Parry. But due to scheduling reasons, who gave many memorable performances, such as The Secret of Brokeback Mountain, Blue Valentine, Certain Women or Fabelmans, had to leave in favor of Alicia Vikander.

Catherine Parry on screen

Apart from the 1933 feature film The Private Life of Henry VIII, the character of Catherine Parry had previously only appeared on screen in the series: The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), The Tudors (played by Joel Richardson) and Becoming Elizabeth (played by Jessica Raine). .

adaptation

The genesis of the film began even before Elizabeth Fremantle’s novel. Queen’s gameIssued in 2012, not published. Producer Gabriel Tana read the evidence and immediately floated an option to bring it to the screen. He decided to turn to the Brazilian-Algerian director Karim Ainuz:

“I thought about it because I didn’t want another English period film. I dreamed of a visceral film about human relationships. He plunged into this past without preconceived ideas and brought a very modern view of history.

After extensive research, the director decided to focus on the final months of the King’s life, four years after his union with Catherine Parr, to tell the story of the end of the marriage rather than a classic biopic.

See you

The production spent many months visiting all the great Tudor and medieval sites in the UK. The entire film was shot at Haddon Hall. “With Haddon Hall, we had a remote prison where a woman tries to escape from a monster, a classic setting for a psychological thriller about an abusive relationship.”confides set designer Helen Scott, to whom Karim Ainouz gave The Tale of Bluebeard as a key reference.

stubborn smell

Jude Law requested that the set be deodorized so that everyone present could smell the dirt and rot on their bodies: “You could tell everyone had a visceral reaction to that environment, which helped us all play.”