– Sweet in a Murderous Kind of Way –
by Mark Peikert | Gold Derby | June 11, 2025
”We could have all just said, ‘Nah, I don’t want to do it,’” Damian Lewis tells Gold Derby about returning to the Tudor court for Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light. “But the experience in the first series [Wolf Hall] was so enjoyable—and anyway, who doesn’t want to play Henry VIII?”
Especially the way screenwriter Peter Straughan writes the king, by way of author Hilary Mantel’s original trilogy. This Henry VIII is feckless and petulant, terrifying and sometimes touchingly vulnerable. But Lewis ensures that we never forget this is a man who could (and did) easily send close friends, confidantes, and wives to their executions. Or at the very least, years of imprisonment.
”He wants to go out, he wants to have a good time,” Lewis says. “He wants to be with his guys and he wants to be loved, clearly.” Throughout The Mirror and the Light, Lewis makes Henry’s sometimes delusional attempts at romance and courtship both misguided and moving. “I think he really wants to love the woman that he’s with and try to woo each of them with songs, poetry,” Lewis says. “That moment of him coming in [disguised to meet fourth wife Anne of Cleves], the theatricality of that. There’s something sweet about him. If that comes across then I’m pleased.” Lewis chuckles a bit and amends himself, “Sweet in a murderous kind of way.”
That ever-present threat Henry poses to everyone around him in The Mirror and the Light makes even a casual exchange with friend and advisor Thomas Cromwell fraught. And in Mark Rylance’s Cromwell, Lewis has an ideal foil.
“ He’s the best kind of actor,” Lewis says. “It’s not pre-choreographed. It’s not pre-programmed. He comes in ready in the moment to listen and respond to what you do. And I hope I did the same for him. Our scenes in this series in particular are chess scenes, really from the get go. In fact, we even have a scene over a chess board at one point….. Working with Mark is fabulous. He’s unbelievably skilled. He’s Sir Mark Rylance for a reason, probably.”
One of the most hypnotic aspects of Lewis’ performance as Henry VIII is seeing the ways in which he takes pleasure. There’s the Henry who thrives on attention, who loves a feast or a revelry. But there is also the Henry who takes delight in seeing others, and eventually especially Cromwell, unsettled. That Henry increasingly comes to the fore as his health deteriorates and he’s unable to enjoy the outdoors life he previously did.
The physicality of Lewis’ performance is remarkably subtle, ending in the Henry that feels most familiar to how history remembers him. After debating spending the season in a fat suit, the team decided to focus more when to introduce his pronounced limp and begin the season with Henry’s weight gain.
The first episode picks up where Wolf Hall left off 10 years ago. “It’s a slightly odd sort of psychological state to be,” Lewis says. “Everybody knows that we’re starting [with] the same day as the last series finished. But at the same time, in the hinterland of everyone’s mind, it’s 10 years later. We played on that and said, ‘Right now’s the time to create the expanded, overweight Henry.
“I actually started wearing no makeup, just so I could look as old as Henry,” Lewis adds with a laugh. “It turned out I looked as old as Henry. They just didn’t have to make me up. Who knew? I’ve never been so insulted.”
Read the rest of the original article at Gold Derby