Heir conditioning
The formative years of a teenage Elizabeth I are focussed on in a new historical drama with Alicia von Rittberg and Jessica Raine. RACHAEL DAVIS finds out more
DIVORCED, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived: this macabre rhyme about the fates of King Henry VIII’S six wives may be drilled into schoolchildren but the living, breathing women behind the verse are often overlooked.
Neglected, too, are the children left behind. We know all about Henry’s hunger for a male heir, the daughters whose births led their mothers to lose their marriages or their lives, but not what life was like as a teenage girl growing up in Tudor England.
Soon to arrive on Starzplay, the historical drama Becoming Elizabeth explores the formative years of Queen Elizabeth I as she tries to play the dangerous games of the English royal court in the years before she takes the throne.
“It’s just taking a step back, not just seeing that great monarch we all know from the books, but actually having a closer look at the young girl and who the person was before she became Queen,” says Alicia von Rittberg, known for appearing alongside Brad Pitt in 2014’s Fury, who plays Elizabeth in the series.
“It’s more about the human behind that public figure, about the family affair, about trying to stay alive, about falling in love for the first time.”
When we meet her in Becoming Elizabeth, the future queen is trying to learn the rules of the court at a particularly dangerous time. Everyone, man or woman, is on a wheel of fortune that could see them go from being one of the most powerful people in the land to having their head on the chopping block.
Elizabeth’s nine-year-old brother Edward VI has just taken the throne, and all of the royal children have become pawns for the families of England and Europe who vie for power.
Young Elizabeth is in the care of Henry’s widow Catherine Parr, played by Call The Midwife’s Jessica Raine.
“I think there’s a double-edged kind of reason why we love it,” says Jessica, discussing why this period is so compelling.
“It’s far removed, and yet power corrupts whatever age we’re in. So I think that’s the hook.”
Alicia, 28, says when finding the character of Elizabeth, she drew on the parallels between her own childhood and that of a young girl in the 16th century.
“Reading the history books, I tried, but there’s not that much told about her early years,” she says.
“I found a book where they put all the letters she wrote herself, and some little poems, together – I think that was so informing, because you all of a sudden could hear her voice. It was actually hers.
“But other than that, because it is her being so young, I just took the scripts and tried to remember what I was struggling with when I grew up. Finding those emotions again, opening up and allowing your inner girl and child out again.”
Alicia also had to learn Tudor skills such as horse riding, calligraphy, the Volta – which was reportedly Elizabeth’s favourite dance – even some Ancient Greek.
“That is the lifestyle she had when she was young: being schooled all day, and if not in school, being on a horse,” she says. “That is probably the best preparation I could have gotten.”
After Henry’s death, Catherine is now free to pursue her former lover, the new king Edward’s uncle Thomas Seymour, played by Downton Abbey’s Tom Cullen. However, ambitious, hot-headed Thomas is reserving some of his attention for the teenage Elizabeth, who he sees as another pathway to power.
“I was so fascinated to learn about Catherine, because she’s just known as the one that survived, which I think does her a real disservice because she’s got so much about her,” Jessica, 40, says.
“At this point in the series, when you meet her, she’s released from this marriage to Henry VIII, who she never wanted to marry, and she’s completely in love with Thomas Seymour.
“It’s this dream scenario where she thinks: ‘OK, I’m going to be the queen, I’m going to be in charge, and I get to marry the man that I love’.
“You just feel like this woman has suddenly got it all to play for and she feels like she can control the situation by bringing Elizabeth into her home, manipulating her.
“I think she genuinely does love Elizabeth, but it’s a very complex relationship where she’s trying to control her as well.”
Creating a world that feels distinctly Tudor in the 21st century is no mean feat, but Becoming Elizabeth’s stars say it’s something screenwriter Anya Reiss took seriously.
Alicia says that, along with having to learn all the skills Elizabeth would have had in her younger years, she also had to wear “six, seven layers” of costume every day and perform on sets lit only by candlelight.
“The light was all naturally lit – you walked into a room where there were just 200 candles and nothing else,” she says.
“We shot in the most amazing locations in the Cotswolds and in Somerset.
“There were sets built that matched those locations, even in terms of wooden ceiling – it was so incredibly real, you didn’t even have to put that much imagination in. That’s something that helped us get into character a lot.”
Filming on location also gave Jessica an insight into the psyche of Catherine Parr – one which brings the pertinence of her story right into the 21st century.
While filming in one of the grand castles used for the series, Jessica says that one day Anya “came bounding up to me” having found an inscription hacked into the wall on the orders of Catherine Parr
herself. “I’m going to paraphrase it, but it said something like: ‘I will never look back on my past with happiness’, or ‘I will never look back on the past with a smile’,” she says. “This woman’s been through three marriages that are loveless, sexless, she’s just been passed around like a piece of meat, which is what happened at those times. And it really illuminated how special this time in Catherine’s life is.”
“For her to have that inscribed in the wall, it’s like the ghost of her is still there,” Jessica adds.
“It makes you get goose bumps just thinking about it.”
It’s more about the human behind that public figure... Alicia von Rittberg