Don't Casting Directors ever look at pictures of historical personages?

Arundel Castle, Arundel, West Sussex, England, UK

Cary Elwes and Helena Bonham Carter in Lady Jane (1986)

Jeremy Irons and Helen Mirren in Elizabeth I (2005)

Helena Bonham Carter and Bill Nighy in Salting the Battlefield (2014)

Peter O'Toole in Augustus: The First Emperor (2003)

Amy Brenneman, Kathy Baker, Jimmy Smits, Maria Bello, Hugh Dancy, Maggie Grace, and Emily Blunt in The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)

Sean Bean, Helena Bonham Carter, and Ray Winstone in Henry VIII (2003)

What did I do to upset you? That a maid of mine should turn against me like this?

Let me tell you this. You want me to lie before God and admit my first marriage was consummated? Well, it was not. You want me to retire, and withdraw my daughter's claim as sole rightful heir to the throne? Well, I shall not. Not in a thousand years. Not if you rack me within an inch of my life. So, I hope you have the belly for a fight, Anne Boleyn. Because I'll fight you every inch of the way.

Sean Bean, Helena Bonham Carter, Assumpta Serna, David Suchet, and Ray Winstone in Henry VIII (2003)

Mark Strong and Emily Blunt in Henry VIII (2003)

Ray Winstone

Joss Ackland

Sid Mitchell

Peter Morgan

Two part mini-series documenting the stormy thirty-eight-year reign of King Henry VIII.

Pete Travis

Henry VIII

Not one for historians but fairly good entertainment for Soap fans.

Like the film &apos;Elizabeth&apos;  the factual content of this film was very slim. Unlike Elizabeth it had no compensating qualities.  It gave virtually no insight to the character of Henry or any of his wives, from the opening scenes where the Duke of Buckingham apparently survived his execution in 1513 to appear as a crusader for Catherine of Aragon 15 years later, to the death bed scene where Henry&apos;s family (who were actually celebrating New Year miles away) are clustered round his bed to hear his dying words.  Jane gets knocked about and Henry hides round the corner during Anne Boleyn&apos;s trial-Complete nonsense! historically, once Henry had decided to lose a wife, he avoided all contact and blamed everyone else for their treatment. What is odd is that the directors chose to invent completely spurious scenes to illustrate Henry&apos;s crimes when there were plenty of real incidents which would have provided more than enough spectacle. I appreciate that Henry&apos;s court of more than 1000 people, glittering with excessive layers of sumptuous cloth and huge jewels could not be managed on a TV budget- but this Henry spent half his time in empty buildings talking to his echo, something impossible in the Tudor Court where even the King going to the toilet was surrounded by hereditary attendants.  So, setting aside accuracy, we are left with the casting of Ray Winstone.  Not impossible that Henry might have cracked coarse jokes, had a cockney accent and been free with his hands.  Before he became a human boulder, he was also athletic, obsessed with doing all of those sports his father,  fearful for the life of the only surviving son, had forbidden.  But what happened to the literate defender of the faith? The king who owned dozens of pairs of reading glasses, who played a range of musical instruments and sang every day, who enjoyed disguising and dancing, who spent hours in disputes with intellectuals about faith? This film&apos;s Henry was like a soap opera character- a renaissance Dirty Den. Two dimensional and unbelievable. It was the choice to rely on spectacle rather than knowledge, assuming the audience to be dummies, incapable of following a plot, that sank this film. Another film which would not manage a release in cinema and will, I guess, be forgotten!

Like the film 'Elizabeth'  the factual content of this film was very slim. Unlike Elizabeth it had no compensating qualities.  It gave virtually no insight to the character of Henry or any of his wives, from the opening scenes where the Duke of Buckingham apparently survived his execution in 1513 to appear as a crusader for Catherine of Aragon 15 years later, to the death bed scene where Henry's family (who were actually celebrating New Year miles away) are clustered round his bed to hear his dying words.  Jane gets knocked about and Henry hides round the corner during Anne Boleyn's trial-Complete nonsense! historically, once Henry had decided to lose a wife, he avoided all contact and blamed everyone else for their treatment. What is odd is that the directors chose to invent completely spurious scenes to illustrate Henry's crimes when there were plenty of real incidents which would have provided more than enough spectacle. I appreciate that Henry's court of more than 1000 people, glittering with excessive layers of sumptuous cloth and huge jewels could not be managed on a TV budget- but this Henry spent half his time in empty buildings talking to his echo, something impossible in the Tudor Court where even the King going to the toilet was surrounded by hereditary attendants.  So, setting aside accuracy, we are left with the casting of Ray Winstone.  Not impossible that Henry might have cracked coarse jokes, had a cockney accent and been free with his hands.  Before he became a human boulder, he was also athletic, obsessed with doing all of those sports his father,  fearful for the life of the only surviving son, had forbidden.  But what happened to the literate defender of the faith? The king who owned dozens of pairs of reading glasses, who played a range of musical instruments and sang every day, who enjoyed disguising and dancing, who spent hours in disputes with intellectuals about faith? This film's Henry was like a soap opera character- a renaissance Dirty Den. Two dimensional and unbelievable. It was the choice to rely on spectacle rather than knowledge, assuming the audience to be dummies, incapable of following a plot, that sank this film. Another film which would not manage a release in cinema and will, I guess, be forgotten!

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Henry VIII

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