The Cast & Creators on the Series

(dramatic music) - Those for the bill, to my right.

Those against, to my left.

- Modern audiences today are used to central characters in their dramas that walk a difficult moral line, and that's who Thomas Cromwell is, right at the heart of it, and that's what really makes this so interesting for a historical drama, because we don't... This isn't the story of the king, this isn't the story of royalty, this is the story of a working class man who rises to the heights of the Tudor courts and has to navigate that complex world.

He has to do things sometimes that he doesn't really want to do, but has to do, because he knows that he has to survive, and he has to execute the King's orders.

- What's remarkable about him is that he's the first lowly born man to do this.

- And who is that?

- [Wolsey] Oh, nevermind who that is, he's nobody.

- [Mark] And you will see him rise to be personal secretary to the King of England, which was the most powerful position in the land apart from the King himself.

- Everything that you are... Everything that you have... Will come from me.

- We've tried to make this as accurate as we possibly can.

Hilary Mantel, who wrote the novels on which the series is based spent five years researching the material before she put pen to paper.

And we've tried to honor that approach.

We hired a team of researchers.

We've tried to make sure that everything we shoot is correct, both in costume, both in look, in lighting... 85 days, no sets built at all because we shot entirely on medieval Tudor locations where in some cases, our characters actually walked themselves.

Henry VIII in England, one of the most famous characters in our history.

When we first meet him, he's almost like a kind of Sun King.

A young, charismatic figure, bringing about a new age of chivalry, a return to jousting and chivalric behavior towards women.

But across the six part series you see the Sun King is replaced by a fairly terrifying figure.

- This is shot like a contemporary political thriller.

- You think you are the king!

And I am the blacksmith's boy!

Don't you?

Don't you?

- God preserve your Majesty.

- The great sadness, I think, of Henry's reign is that he killed the ones he loved, and he allowed people to be killed who he loved.

In the name of governance, in the name of maintaining the established order, ensuring that he couldn't be crossed, he couldn't be challenged.

So, his vanity played a part in those.

All these things just make him a fascinating character to play.

- One thing... One simple thing we asked of the Cardinal, and he would not.

- You know it wasn't simple.

- Well perhaps I'm a simple person.

Do you feel I am?

- You may be.

I hardly know you.

- I love the dynamic between Thomas Cromwell and Anne Boleyn, because they are equals in intelligence and in competitiveness.

- Rome will issue a decree telling the King to part from me.

Nevermind who grudges it.

This will happen.

I mean to have him.

(dramatic music) - The biggest challenge in playing Anne Boleyn is not to soft-peddle the less-likable aspects of her personality.

The challenge is to play her nasty when she's nasty, and yet, still, at the end, to break our heart, nonetheless.

- Traditionally, Thomas Cromwell has been portrayed as a sort of two-dimensional villain.

What Hilary Mantel has done here is she's taken a character who's usually in the shadows, who's traditionally been portrayed as a villain, and she's put him center-stage.

- England is ours!

(dramatic music) - [Kosminsky] I hope the audience, who are probably quite familiar with this well-trodden period of English history will feel that new life has been breathed into it, and that they are able to look at something that they thought they knew and was kind of comfy and familiar, in a rather more edgy and interesting and refreshing way.

- You know my decision.

Execute it.

- It won't be easy.

- Do I keep you for what's easy?

(dramatic music)