Romola Garai & Jamie Parker – Becoming Elizabeth

By: Jamie Steinberg

Q) Jamie, what was it about Robert or about the series in particular that drew you to be a part of it?

Jamie: I think what drew me to it was was being able to be part of this you know, unexplored period of someone’s life who was such a huge, huge figure and that was really interesting to me. And to play Robert Dudley, who has been portrayed so many times in in a really, really early period of his life…to see to see what happens along the way how he becomes the man that that he became.

Q) Romola, Mary is devoted to God and her brother at the same time, do you think she can hold on to that, or is that just sort of fantasy

Romola: I think probably women like Mary and the Tudor Royals, and probably people in similar positions today sort of have to go through some sort of psychic split where they probably relate to individual people and then go about the business of states or their kind of religious project or whatever, and that those things don’t kind of overlap. So you can love your brother, as she does I think deeply, and simultaneously absolutely want to take the throne and undo the entire project of his life. I think that that is probably because they just…Yeah, people in those positions have to see their personal, individual kind of like emotions and the way that they feel about individuals as being probably quite a separate thing that they have to run kind of entirely separately from the business of state.

Q) Jamie, it takes a while for Robert to figure out that with court life, it’s actually more dangerous than he expected. Would you consider him naive?

Jamie: I don’t know. I don’t think so. Because it’s it’s a world that he is very much kept away from and I think that it’s not the only thing that kind of shocks him about the world that he’s a part of. I think that the people closest to him, he realizes that he doesn’t really know much about them at all. He doesn’t really know much about who they really are. And that’s all part of growing up, isn’t it? It’s all part of growing up, figuring out what world you’re a part of and the people around you who they really are and what that means for you and the person that you want to become – how do you feel about that and do you relate to it or do you or, or do you want to repel it and I think that’s some that was really fun to play.

Q) It must be also though a bit challenging for you as well to balance the naivete with duty to your country.

Jamie: Yeah, of course. Yeah, absolutely. And not just that but expectation and what’s expected of youfrom your father, for example. It’s very much very much Dudley is trying to mold Robert into the son that he wants, and sometimes that becomes very conflicted and difficult.

Q) Speaking of conflicted and role, Mary has an interesting path ahead of her, balancing very lightly on that tightrope between religion and her devotion to her brother. And there is quite a familial bond that you do really come off with portraying these characters. Talk about working with the other actor who does play the king.

Romola: It’s always the case I think whenever you work with actors, who quite a lot younger than you, where you’re trying to reassure them, and then they tell you what they’ve been doing recently, and then they reel off all their credit and you’re like, “Oh God, you’ve done so much more than me.” Like much bigger things! It’s very disturbing. But I loved working with Olli [Zetterström]. He was great. He had such an amazing handle on the character. And I think it’s always difficult, as is the case with trying to represent history, it is often hard when you are in it is a very particular age to kind of represent that age. He’s a child in some moments and a young man and others and I just think he does the most amazing job and was always really taken when we were working together with the way that he kind of would switch between those different sort of modes of being which you can really see in him as an individual and then at that point in time, and how he plays the character and the character himself. Of course, it’s gonna be quite difficult going forward in the next season because Olli is a lot older now.

Jamie: Yeah, a lot.

Romola: Sometimes he looks really like a child at moments and that always was very moving.

Q) Season to lots of CGI work to come is that what we’re saying.

Jamie: It’s gonna be like The Irishman.

[laughs]

Q) What you think is going to make it that much more intriguing and edge of your seat watching to keep people tuning in week after week? Is it that this is based in history and did likely happen?

Jamie: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think so. And I think that it’s been created by Anya [Reiss]. Not not just to appeal to people who love historical dramas. She’s not a fan of them herself and was kind of approached to create something that she would want to watch and I think that is going to be really appealing to people.

Romola: Yeah, I think there’s a real…If you love period dramas or historical romances, or however, you want to call them I think, or just historical pieces, ike I think that the fact that they did really happen is really important to people. If you break the connection with truth, like completely, I do think some of the freson is gone. Part of the reason I think particularly women really enjoy this medium is because they talk about issues pertaining to being a woman very explicitly, at least at this period. Do you know like, it’s a patriarchy, you know? And so it’s easier, in a way, to kind of talk about the experience of being female through the prism of history. If you’ve kind of, like diminished that or like pretend it wasn’t there, then I think that some of the kind of excitement of watching it or your interest engagement with a period is really reduced.