It is difficult to know how the Tudors actually spoke because we're going back before Shakespeare; much of the drama from that period is courtly, allegorical.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
With 'The Tudors,' I had a huge amount of material, I mean so many books and so much stuff about what they really said. So, in a way it was kind of trying to strip it out and find the stories inside all this material.
'The Tudors' was ground-breaking in the sense that it did ruffle the feathers of classical historians and alter the way people did period drama at the time.
The 16th-century theatre witnessed the particularly English manifestation of 'the history play.' There can be no doubt that Shakespeare's presentations of 'Henry V' and 'Richard III' have been incalculably more influential than any more sober historical study.
There was a time when people liked to take Shakespeare and twist him around to make whatever social or political statement they wanted to make.
There are a lot of theories about Shakespeare.
Shakespeare is universal.
Shakespeare is a wonderful language to speak, but it's also a world to get your mind into thematically.
When I first started acting, and we would all sit down and talk about Shakespeare and how great it was. I thought well, I suppose it is.
Most people, even among those who know Shakespeare well and come into real contact with his mind, are inclined to isolate and exaggerate some one aspect of the tragic fact.
I am Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors.