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What’s your character’s interaction with Margaret? I can’t imagine how it would be helpful in any way.

Shakespeare is a strange one, where because so many other people have played the part, you have the opportunity to watch other people play it. I didn't even look at the original plays. That decision-making felt important to honour, not anything else. The scripts, although they are Shakespeare’s words, have a very strong authorial voice of their own, which is difficult to articulate because they are only impressed upon you as you read them. I realised very quickly that reading the history books was not helpful. He says at the end that all he wants to do is spend his last days in devotion.ĭid it help you to look at the real historical character?

His primary evolution is through that realisation.

Despite wearing the crown, Henry’s place is not to be a king. That was considered weak at the time, because it means he can’t make decisions in the aggressive-minded way that is required in medieval England. I think his perceived flaws as a king are to do with his great genius, which is that he can hold these two conflicting ideas in his head and have love, essentially, for both parties. He doesn't have a barrier between what other people feel and what he feels. The first word that always came into my head with Henry VI was empathy. I always think that period between the ages of 18 and 24 is such a bizarre stage, and the two people at either end are always very different. It was the question of how to play the transformative period of becoming a man.

In the landscape of Shakespeare, that’s the first thing you need when you have no idea what you’re doing. He was clearly so passionate and articulate about the project. (Director) Dominic Cooke has also always been someone whose work I've admired. It didn’t feel like you were taking on the burden of the long history of those characters, which is exciting, for something which is so beautifully written and extraordinary. I think very few people know it, so unlike with a lot of Shakespeare, people don’t come to it with preconceptions. First of all, it was a play that I didn't know at all.

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