Playing with Fire: Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, and Director Karim Aïnouz Talk ‘Firebrand’
by CHAD KENNERK
Jude Law as Henry VIII and Alicia Vikander as Katherine Parr.
Photo credit: Larry Horricks. All images courtesy of Roadside Attractions
Based on Elizabeth Fremantle’s 2012 novel Queen’s Gambit, Firebrand follows the story of Katherine Parr, the sixth (and ultimately last) wife of Tudor dynasty monarch King Henry VIII. During the film’s development, director Karim Aïnouz and writers Henrietta and Jessica Ashworth honed the story down to focus on a period four years into Henry’s final marriage. Queen Katherine has been named regent while Henry fights overseas. When the increasingly ailing and paranoid King returns, he turns his fury on the realm’s religious radicals, charging Katherine’s childhood friend with treason. Katherine soon finds herself fighting for her own survival in an increasingly oppressive palace. On the hope of a hereafter free from the tyranny that has defined blood-soaked Tudor England, Katherine uses every wit and caution to navigate King and Country toward a better future.
When the history books talk about the wives of Henry VIII, the focus usually leans toward the wives that lost their heads. The majority of the written texts about Katherine and her relationship with Henry paint her as a nurse wife who cared for her ailing husband. Yet Katherine was a queen that exceeded the limits of her prescribed role, becoming the first English woman to publish a book under her own name. In preparing to play Katherine, Alicia Vikander read Parr’s original writings to discover the lady through her own words. “It was amazing to hear somebody’s voice that many years later; it felt very personal, if not slightly spooky,” shared Vikander.
Director Karim Aïnouz used the Covid years to delve deep into Tudor research; watching as many BBC documentaries as possible, re-reading Fremantle’s book, and collaborating with the Ashworth sisters on their adaptation. A key reference that Aïnouz eventually gave production designer Helen Scott was the gothic fairy tale Bluebeard, about a murderous husband and a locked chamber filled with the bodies of his previous wives. After learning that Henry used rose oil to help mask the odour of his rotting leg, Jude Law worked with a fragrance chemist to help create an odour that would resemble the pungent mix. On the knowledge that Henry could apparently be smelled three rooms away, Aïnouz insisted on incorporating the odour into the shoot, so that everyone could sense his arrival and have the visceral reaction of being in the King’s presence.
The production spent months visiting every stately Tudor and mediaeval palace in the UK, initially working from a version of the script set in London with multiple locations. When production visited Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, Aïnouz recognised that bringing all the drama to one place would heighten the intensity of the film. The decision was made to shoot entirely at Haddon Hall and the script incorporated the narrative of the Royal Court escaping London’s plague. As the only location in the film, Haddon Hall becomes a character in its own right. The basic premise of a woman locked away in a castle trying to escape a monster of a husband also gave Aïnouz the desired environment for a political thriller or psychological horror film. For the cast, being in one location only increased the immersive nature of the shoot. Vikander and Law opted against having trailers, choosing instead to be within the castle walls. Law shared, “It was wonderful living up in Derbyshire, it felt like an escape and that we were filming in our own 16th-century studio.”
Firebrand premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in 2023, where it was selected to compete for Palme d'Or. As Firebrand arrives in theatres 14 June from Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment, Film Review speaks with director Karim Aïnouz and stars Alicia Vikander and Jude Law about the highly detailed and nuanced period-piece thriller.
In conversation with Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, and director Karim Aïnouz.
Film Review (FR): From colour and composition to the nuance of the performances, there is so much on the screen in every frame. How did you approach crafting these images?
Karim Aïnouz (KA): For me, it was really important to have an intimate portrait of these characters and of this world. I think that every time we think ‘royal’, we think of something which is not human. It was really important to get close to the actors and to the characters — what they wore and where they lived. There was also something that was very exciting to me about the Tudors. I’m Brazilian, so I felt there was something very Latin about the Tudors, despite the fact that they are not. They come from a Welsh lineage and they’re English, but there was something very lush and golden and rich and textured about that period. I really wanted to portray that in a way that feels warm and close to you. The colours were a big part of it and so was the fabric.
We had an amazing, incredible costume designer called Michael O’Connor, who designed every piece of clothing that they’re wearing in the film. The fabric was something that we looked at very closely. The lighting was a light that was always intended to be very colourful. I worked with a wonderful DP [Hélène Louvart] that thought through the lighting of the film in a way that it was not neutral. There was always an intention in the colour of the lighting that we were using. There was a painter that was really inspiring to me, which was Diego Velázquez, the Spanish painter. The way that Velázquez portrayed his characters was very, very human. There was nothing sacred about them and I think that was a huge inspiration as well.
(FR): These are delicious characters and each of you found a beautiful lived-in physicality with these roles. Katherine operates in a world that doesn’t allow a fullness of expression. Alicia, how did you find her restraint and also a freedom within that?
Alicia Vikander (AV): The restraint of just being a woman at that time meant that you were kind of living in a cage. We met a lot of historians in our prep for this film and an image I hadn’t really had [prior], was that in the court at this time, it was actually 350 men and then there were about ten women. They had these two or three rooms, which was the only kind of area that they were allowed to move within.
Then, of course, she lives with a ticking bomb next to her. Knowing that she had to tread on eggshells all the time to have his mood be stable around her; for her, everyday, to keep herself alive. It was, of course, that emotional impact, but we did have a lot of conversations with Karim about what you said, that we wanted it to feel lived in. We obviously have these few, very staged portraits of the people of this time, but obviously we are portraying people who live in this space and in this castle. Especially us women, who spend the day in corsets a lot. After just a few hours, when you’ve been in these layers of fabric, you start to kind of slouch on chairs, lie on the floor, and you realise, well, this is definitely what you would do if you were in this all day.
(FR): Jude, beyond this larger than life portrait, Henry is marked by the weight and pain he carries. What helped you discover the man outside the painting?
Jude Law (JL): Outside of that, it’s quite tricky to answer, because that was such a big part of who he was in many ways. The physical disintegration of having been a young man who was so virile and powerful and oversized. A sportsman, a musician, a dancer, all these things, and losing all of those attributes, I think was a big part of who he was. I know what it was — it was probably that he was never alone. He was surrounded by people who would do his every wish and want. It was a conversation I remember having with Karim about how you show status.
The obvious way to show status, I suppose, is to be loud and demanding, but in fact, if you really have true status, people are really scared of you — it’s how they react to you. Making sure that the reactions of those around me really set me up in this place of ultimate power and tyranny was quite key. The key guys around me, who were there to sort of entertain and to advise, but also ultimately look after him, were really important. That led me to this whole idea of manhandling people. I just wanted to touch everyone as if I owned them. Or like they were an animal or a piece of fruit. I could just look in their ears, inspect them, pet their hair like animals. There was a sort of ownership.
(FR): From the opening shots, birds have a strong presence all throughout the film. Karim, can you speak to their significance?
(KA): Beautiful question, thank you. I think that the question of nature was something very important; the way people lived very close to nature at that time was very, very interesting to portray. I think the birds were something that was always in my mind. There’s something about Katherine, which is sort of a bird living next to an elephant or a very heavy animal. This image was very present to me. I thought it was really interesting to have that, not only in the picture, but in the soundtrack, in the sound, and in the [different] ways that birds appear. That was something that was there for me from the very outset. Also, I always like to think what animal each character is. The birds become very present, not only in relationship to Katherine, but also in relationship to Elizabeth. There is something very frail, yet very strong about her that I thought would be beautiful to portray.
(FR): The film encourages us to read history in a new light and to think about the spaces between the facts. What was your biggest discovery throughout this process?
(KA): I think that for me, from the very beginning, the discovery was, ‘How come there is no fiction film about Katherine Parr?’ What we discover, is the little that we know about history and by whom it’s told. What I would love, one of my dreams with this film, is that it’s relevant to young audiences. That it can be seen not as a history lesson, but as a thriller and also a way to discover history from another perspective that we don’t have in the official records of history.
KARIM AÏNOUZ is an award-winning filmmaker and visual artist. He debuted as a director with Madame Satã. His other works include Mariner of The Mountains, Nardjes A., Central Airport THF, Futuro Beach, The Silver Cliff, I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You, and Love For Sale. Aïnouz’s The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão won the Un Certain Regard Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Aïnouz is also a screenwriter, tutor and member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
ALICIA VIKANDER is an Academy Award-winning actress and producer. Since her film debut in Lisa Langseth’s Pure in 2010, Alicia has collaborated with some of the industry’s most respected filmmakers on a diverse range of roles from projects such as Testament of Youth to Jason Bourne. Anna Karenina introduced Alicia to international audiences, with director Joe Wright having seen her as a young Danish Queen in Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair. The same year, Alicia was nominated for a Bafta Rising Star Award. Alicia’s portrayal of Gerda Wegner in the 2015 drama, The Danish Girl directed by Tom Hooper, resulted in the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as a host of other awards including a SAG Award and Critics Choice Award. Alicia is currently filming the Korean thriller, Hope, directed by Na Hong-jin. The film follows the residents of a small harbour town, who find themselves fighting for survival after a mysterious discovery is made on the outskirts of the town. Other notable projects include Son of a Gun, Seventh Son, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Ex Machina, The Light Between Oceans, Tulip Fever, Euphoria, Submergence, Tomb Raider, Earthquake Bird, Blue Bayou, Beckett, The Green Knight and The Glorias. Alicia is also an ambassador for the luxury fashion house, Louis Vuitton.
JUDE LAW is a Bafta-winning actor and producer who has worked alongside the most accomplished directors, writers and talent of our time. In a career spanning three decades, Law brings a passion and curiosity to his craft both on stage and on screen. Law’s Riff Raff Entertainment Ltd. has established him as a producer of note developing material from the ground up. Law had a meaningful collaboration early in his career with the late Anthony Minghella, starring in the psychological thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley. The performance earned Law a Bafta award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Minghella then cast Law in his 2003 war film Cold Mountain and again in Breaking and Entering. Law has also starred in multiple films directed by Martin Scorsese with The Aviator and Hugo and by Steven Soderbergh with Contagion and Side Effects. He starred as Dr. Watson opposite Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes franchise and as Albus Dumbledore in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter franchise, The Fantastic Beasts. Additional film credits include: Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi drama A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition, Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Enemy at the Gates, Mike Nichols’ Closer, David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees, Nancy Meyers’ The Holiday, Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina, and Sean Durkin’s The Nest. His upcoming roles include starring opposite Nicholas Hoult in Justin Kurzel’s The Order and Ron Howard’s survival thriller Eden.
Firebrand is available from Roadside Attractions & Vertical Entertainment 14 June.
