“Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light” producer Colin Callender has blamed the influx of American streamers for driving up the costs of drama production in Britain, saying it has “created a real problem for us.”
“In the ten years since we made the first show [“Wolf Hall”]“The cost of producing drama in Britain has skyrocketed,” Callender said this week after previewing the Hilary Mantel adaptation. “It has increased exponentially. And ironically, for all the talk about foreign investment from America being great for the industry, this has caused us a real problem because it has meant that the streamers in particular are paying significantly more money for talent, venues and so on.
“And so when you take the combination of inflation, cost of living and the extraordinary increase in the rates that talent is paid, partly because of the streamers, producing drama of this scale becomes quite a challenge for British producers.”
Callender is CEO of Playground Entertainment, which produces the series “Wolf Hall” as well as other shows including “All Creatures Great & Small.”
The first season of ‘Wolf Hall’, based on the first two books of Mantel’s trilogy about Henry VIII’s advisor Thomas Cromwell, was released in 2015, starring Mark Rylance as Cromwell and Damien Lewis as Henry VIII. Claire Foy played Henry’s second wife Anne Bolyen, who was fired – literally – at the end of the first season.
It took another five years before Mantel, who died unexpectedly in 2022, published the last book, entitled ‘The Mirror and The Light’. The film adaptation of the novel was further delayed by the COVID pandemic, the actors’ performance schedules and the locations, many of which are actual Tudor buildings, which meant the production could only be shot when they were closed to tourists out of season .
Peter Kozminski, who directed the first season, returns along with screenwriter Peter Straughan and many of the actors, including Lewis and Rylance.
Straughan said the creative team was “handicapped” after her death without Mantel’s input. The author had made significant contributions to the first season and to a stage adaptation, reportedly one of the reasons why the third book was much delayed. But the screenwriter revealed that while Mantel was writing ‘The Mirror and The Light’, she had sent him parts of the novel, as well as lengthy ’email exchanges’, which were a ‘fantastic resource’.
“Some people believe – I happen to have done the same – that she was, when she was alive, the greatest writer in the English language,” he said. “And we are now adapting her latest novel. It was quite a responsibility. And I think for me personally, I’m just obsessed with not letting her down.
The third book – and its accompanying series – charts Cromwell’s downfall from favorite courtier to public enemy, in what director Kozminski described as “a story of descent and descent into darkness.”
Kozminski also addressed the addition of actors of color this season, after the first part of the series had an all-white cast. “This isn’t something we did in the first series. I’m glad we were able to do it 1730938457″, said the director. “The approach was that we wanted the very best actors available for the show.”
“Obviously we are not playing lookalikes in the series. Damian is many things, but he doesn’t particularly resemble Henry VIII, Jonathan Pryce doesn’t particularly resemble Cardinal Wolsey.’
Lewis admitted during the question-and-answer session that he had put on padding to fill out his figure during the current series. When asked how he wanted to play Henry in the new adaptation, Lewis simply replied, “fat.” The actor wore a “fabulous foam suit”, he revealed, which protected him from the cold British weather while filming on location. “He is physically imposing, but also psychologically unpredictable,” Lewis said of the 16th-century monarch.
When asked what his most “memorable” moment during production was, Lewis said it was the wedding between Henry and his third wife, Jane Seymour (played by Kate Phillips), as well as another scene where she dies after giving birth. “It was an extremely moving day when she passed away,” said Lewis, whose own wife, “Harry Potter” actor Helen McRory, died in 2021. “From an acting point of view, and being immersed and present, it was a beautiful moment.”