Silent sets the key to Wolf Hall’s success

IT HAS already garnered praise for its beautiful costumes and award-winning actors, but it appears the secret to Wolf

Hall’s success may be rather more prosaic: silence.

Peter Kosminsky, the director of the BBC adaptation of the Hilary Mantel novels about Thomas Cromwell, has disclosed how he used peace and quiet to get the best out of his cast, which included Damian Lewis, Mark Rylance and Claire Foy. Speaking at the Edinburgh International TV Festival, he said he had banned the traditional clapperboard start to scenes from his set, in case it distracted the actors from their Tudor characters.

Instead, he said, he insisted the board was clapped down at the end of scenes, when the cast had already delivered their lines.

Kosminsky, who received widespread praise for his version of Mantel’s bestsellers, said directors were too often nervous of their all-star casts, and intimidated to give them direction. When asked the secret to his success, he said he obeyed his own rule of “cast the right people then give them the atmosphere and the space to do their best work”.

On the set of Wolf Hall, set in the era of Henry VIII, this meant ensuring actors had enough quiet to get into character.

“All you really do is create the right ambience for them to do their best work,” said Kosminsky.

“When an actor is about to go into a role, don’t snap a board in front of their face. Do it at the end of a take as an end board instead.”