Now queen Alicia takes on king Jude
OSCAR-WINNING star Alicia Vikander will keep her head when she portrays the last of Henry VIII’s six wives in a new film about the perils of being wed to the much-married monarch. Vikander will share the screen, and the throne, with Jude Law as the King.
Producer Gabrielle Tana told me last night that she’s thrilled to have signed Vikander to play Katherine Parr in the psychological thriller Firebrand, based on Elizabeth Freemantle’s best-selling historical novel Queen’s Gambit. ‘You can see why we’re not able to use that title,’ Tana joked, alluding to the Netflix phenomenon The Queen’s Gambit, which starred Anya Taylor-Joy.
Fireband is basically ‘a portrait of a marriage, and of survival’, the filmcreative explained.
The vivacious Parr was a noted scholar and author, and already twice widowed when she met Henry. However, she was a good choice for the tyrannical ruler who, by this point in 1543, was ailing and as much in need of a nurse as a wife.
He’d already beheaded two of his queens, cast aside two more, and watched one die in childbirth.
‘She’s smart, and she outwits the king,’ Tana observed of Parr. Not an easy task, given there were dangers lurking in every corner of Henry’s court. Katherine had to be particularly wary of Bishop Stephen Gardiner she was still Queen when Henry died in 1547. Simon Russell Beale has been cast to play the scheming Gardiner, Tana told me. And Brazilian screen artist Karim Ainouz, who made the film The Invisible Life — a sensation at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival — will make his English language debut when he directs the picture on UK locations this spring.
Vikander, who won a best supporting actress Academy Award for The Danish Girl, opposite Eddie Redmayne, has been filming HBO series Irma Vep for director Olivier Assayas.
Tana was the power behind an impressive line-up of films including The Dig, Philomena and The Duchess — as well as Coriolanus, The Invisible Woman and The White Crow, all
directed by Ralph Fiennes.