In the movie firebrand, Judas Law portrays King Henry VIII as he approaches death and reaches a peak of paranoia at the end of a megalomaniac life. The last of his six wives, Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander), struggles to appease him while keeping her radical religious beliefs a secret.
Suffering from ulcers and an infection that would eventually kill him, the king was not only unstable and feverish; he probably smelled pretty bad too. Law told Yahoo Entertainment that the film’s director, Karim Aïnouz, wanted to create a “360-degree set” with an authentic scent, even though the story itself deviates from the historical record.
“I read that because of the painful sores he had on his legs, Henry actually smelled like he was rotting,” Law said. “So we came up with this disgusting smell that created a pungent and nauseating smell around him.”
Law consulted a perfume specialist, who created a mixture of blood, feces and sweat. At first he used it subtly, but eventually it could be smelled “three rooms away.”
The actor explained that Aïnouz is committed to creating “an atmosphere of truth” – he starts rolling the camera before they start filming something that is scripted, ensuring that the sensory experience is faithful to the time period, which in the case of Firemark was in the late 1540s.
For the film, which had its North American premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, Aïnouz kept animals around, paid close attention to room temperatures, kept fires burning and strategically selected the herbs that would appear in certain scenes. Law was there to ensure he portrayed the king, who appears in countless works of fiction, in the most accurate light.
“There was a strange duality between people fawning over this man and the fact that he was disgusting to be around,” Law said.
He was attracted to the opportunity to play a man “who looks back on the regrets and the decline he is in physically, emotionally and spiritually” because it “raises the stakes to make him even more surreal and unpredictable .’
“He will finally have to face his maker and answer for his actions,” Law said. “There’s an element of introspection and doubt in it, so you can finally see the human in him. For years he was probably so deceived that he thought he was second only to God on earth.”
Although Henry is the most flamboyant character in the film, the main character is Parr, who quietly rebels against the teachings of the Church of England in favor of the radical preaching of Protestant Anne Askew. Askew was eventually declared a heretic and executed in 1546 – a year before Henry’s death.
Although her husband was notorious for banishing and executing women, Parr managed to outlive him and publish religious work under her own name.
Vikander told Yahoo Entertainment that her first reaction upon reading Parr’s story, retold in the script, was that “it’s about time.”
“Many women throughout history have not told their stories,” she said. “I was surprised that the stories didn’t focus on her for so long, because she actually survived and survived Henry, despite… living with a man who clearly had very different opinions.”
Firemark now playing in theaters.
