Oscar-winning star Alicia Vikander will keep her head when she portrays the last of Henry VIII’s six wives in a new film about the perils of being wed to the much-married monarch.
Vikander will share the screen, and the throne, with Jude Law as the King.
Producer Gabrielle Tana told me last night that she’s thrilled to have signed Vikander to play Katherine Parr in the psychological thriller Firebrand, based on Elizabeth Fremantle’s best-selling historical novel Queen’s Gambit.
‘You can see why we’re not able to use that title,’ Tana joked, alluding to the Netflix phenomenon The Queen‘s Gambit, which starred Anya Taylor-Joy.
Firebrand is basically ‘a portrait of a marriage, and of survival’, the film-creative explained.
The vivacious Parr was a noted scholar and author, and already twice widowed when she met Henry.
Oscar-winning star Alicia Vikander will keep her head when she portrays the last of Henry VIII’s six wives in a new film about the perils of being wed to the much-married monarch (Vikander pictured in Paris, Jan 21, 2020)
Vikander will share the screen, and the throne, with Jude Law as the King (Law pictured in London on Feb 10, 2022)
Vikander, who won a best supporting actress Academy Award for The Danish Girl, opposite Eddie Redmayne, has been filming HBO series Irma Vep for director Olivier Assayas
However, she was a good choice for the tyrannical ruler who, by this point in 1543, was ailing and as much in need of a nurse as a wife.
He’d already beheaded two of his queens, cast aside two more, and watched one die in childbirth.
‘She’s smart, and she outwits the king,’ Tana observed of Parr. Not an easy task, given there were dangers lurking in every corner of Henry’s court.
Katherine had to be particularly wary of Bishop Stephen Gardiner who, as principal secretary, was a powerful adviser to the King.
Gardiner was involved in an unrelenting campaign to destroy Parr, but it failed, and she was still Queen when Henry died in 1547.
Simon Russell Beale has been cast to play the scheming Gardiner, Tana told me.
Alicia Vikander attends Haute-Joaillerie dinner at La Vigie Restaurant on July 01, 2021 in Monaco
Jude Law attends ‘The Rhythm Section’ New York Screening at Brooklyn Academy of Music on January 27, 2020 in New York City
And Brazilian screen artist Karim Ainouz, who made the film The Invisible Life — a sensation at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival — will make his English language debut when he directs the picture on UK locations this spring.
Vikander, who won a best supporting actress Academy Award for The Danish Girl, opposite Eddie Redmayne, has been filming HBO series Irma Vep for director Olivier Assayas.
Tana was the power behind an impressive line-up of films including The Dig, Philomena and The Duchess — as well as Coriolanus, The Invisible Woman and The White Crow, all directed by Ralph Fiennes.
Newcastle charlady who made Helen Mirren think of her mother
Helen Mirren felt strangely at home when filming her latest movie The Duke, with Jim Broadbent, as their characters reminded her of her parents.
The Oscar winners play Kempton Bunton, a well-meaning fantasist involved in the theft of Goya’s painting of the Duke of Wellington from the National Portrait Gallery in 1961, and his charlady wife Dorothy. Mirren said that in many ways, Dorothy — who made a living cleaning houses in Newcastle — brought back memories of Kathleen, her own mother, because ‘my father was an idealist, rather like Kempton’.
She told me that her dad, Vasily Mironov, was a socialist who, like Bunton, went on marches and signed petitions. There were other similarities, too. ‘He was a cabbie, like Kempton. Then he went to work for the Ministry of Transport.’
Helen Mirren (R) felt strangely at home when filming her latest movie The Duke, with Jim Broadbent (L), as their characters reminded her of her parents. The Oscar winners play Kempton Bunton, a well-meaning fantasist involved in the theft of Goya’s painting of the Duke of Wellington from the National Portrait Gallery in 1961, and his charlady wife Dorothy
Mirren said that in many ways, Dorothy — who made a living cleaning houses in Newcastle — brought back memories of Kathleen, her own mother, because ‘my father was an idealist, rather like Kempton’
However, Kempton wasn’t able to provide for his family — he was always losing jobs. And as a result, Dorothy was the main breadwinner, through her charlady jobs. ‘My mother, like Dorothy, understood the practicalities of life with my father,’ Mirren told me, when I visited her on location in late 2019 (though set in Newcastle, The Duke was actually filmed in Leeds).
Mirren said her parents — and the Buntons — belonged to ‘the noble generation’: families who got through the Depression, only to be plunged into a war and its aftermath. When she lost her mother several years ago, she mourned her — but also grieved for ‘the loss of that generation who knew what it was like during the Blitz’.
She said she loved playing Dorothy because the character had ‘Newcastle backbone’. ‘She had to be that way, to put food on the table. I liked her lack of sentimentality,’ she told me. Mirren got down on her hands and knees to scrub doorsteps during filming. ‘I rather liked it — I like cleaning,’ she said, smiling.
The Duke. STUDIO: Sony Pictures Classics. DIRECTOR: Roger Michell. PLOT: In 1961, Kempton Bunton, a 60 year old taxi driver, steals Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. STARRING: JIM BROADBENT (L) as Kempton Bunton, HELEN MIRREN (R) as Dorothy Bunton
The film’s director, the late Roger Michell, told me he wanted to capture ‘a slice of Englishness’ and ‘a sense of the great British eccentric in Kempton — and the common sense qualities of Dorothy’.
There’s a lot about Dorothy that I recognise, too, in part from my upbringing with a white foster mother, though this was on the wrong side of Richmond, Surrey, not up North.
I have a great fondness for The Duke, partly because of my admiration for Michell, who died last September; and partly for the sheer pleasure of watching two celebrated thespians doing what they do, so effortlessly.
The Duke opens in cinemas next Friday, February 25.
