Wolf Hall (BBC 2015)

Wolf Hall TV cast to include Damian Lewis and Mark Rylance

Mark Gatiss, Mark Rylance and Jonathan Pryce are among the starry cast who will don period costume for the TV adaptation of Hilary Mantel's historical novels.
Filming has already begun on the six-part drama based on Mantel's award winning Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Up The Bodies, about the relationships at the heart of Henry VIII's court.
According to the Daily Mail, Homeland star Damian Lewis will play the King, with Rylance taking the role of his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. Saskia Reeves has been cast as Cromwell's sister-in-law Johane.
Charity Wakefield, who has appeared in the BBC's Sense and Sensibility, has been cast as Mary Boleyn, the royal mistress and sister to Henry VIII's second wife Anne, who will be played by Claire Foy. Joanne Whalley will play Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The final female cast member to be named is Florence Bell, who will play courtmember Helen Barre.
The powerful, but ill-fated, Cardinal Wolsey will be played by Jonathan Pryce. Sherlock writer Mark Gatiss will be appearing infront of the camera as another civil servant, Stephen Gardiner and Anton Lesser, most recently seen in Game of Thrones, will play Thomas More. Lesser's co-star, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, will play Cromwell's ward Rafe.

Edward Seymour, brother to Henry VIII's third wife, Jane, will be played by Downton Abbey actor Ed Speleers.
The TV adaptation is being directed by Peter Kosminsky and will be broadcast on BBC Two next year.

BBC turns best-selling Henry VIII novel and Booker Prize winner 'Wolf Hall' into a mini-series

It had more betrayals, affairs, alliances and scheming than a soap opera.
Now the BBC is to turn best-selling novel Wolf Hall, which laid bare the vicious realities of the court of Henry VIII, into a mini-series.
The six-part adaptation will be based on Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize winning bestseller, and her follow-up Bring Up The Bodies.
Set in England in the 1520s, it will show a nation on the brink of disaster and civil war because the ageing king has no male heir.
The book follows Thomas Cromwell who came from humble beginnings as the son of a brutal blacksmith to become chief minister of King Henry VIII of England
A self-confessed 'ruffian' in his younger days, Cromwell rose out of the slums of Putney to become a mercenary, merchant and member of Parliament and eventually the right hand of the king, helping Henry VIII get his marriage to Queen Catherine annulled.
Viewers can expect to see his role in the downfall of Anne Boleyn, his manipulation of the king and the court and how he re-shaped English politics and the balance of power.


Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-21...l#ixzz2Y4S30xXy
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Award-winning actor Mark Rylance will play Thomas Cromwell, the 16th-century Godfather-like figure at the heart of Hilary Mantel’s phenomenal best-selling novels that explore behind-the-scenes machinations at the court of Henry VIII.
Rylance, who has given acclaimed performances on stage and on screen, will portray — I can reveal — the much-married Tudor king’s chief minister, brutal fixer and disposer of royal wives in the six-hour adaptation for BBC television of Mantel’s two Man Booker Prize-winning fictional historical novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies. Both end with beheadings.
Initially, the actor turned down the role of a lifetime because of his crowded schedule. But the drama’s producers declared they were prepared to wait for more than a year until he’s available to film this time next year.


Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/artic...l#ixzz2Y4Qq2a3Z
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

This is a big job – expectations will be huge – and he knows it. He's nervous. "I've been so busy, I'm only 100 pages into the book," he says. "The fluidity of her story-telling is amazing, but …" He frowns, and grips the table again. "It's a curious part because so much of what makes Cromwell interesting is what he doesn't say, and doesn't do. On film, that's going to be an interesting task."