Trivia / The Tudors

• California Doubling: Ireland doubles for England.
• Dawson Casting:
  • The actor playing the Earl of Surrey is only six years younger than the actor who played the Duke of Norfolk, his supposed father.
  • Katherine Howard is believed to have mostly likely been born in 1523, making her around 17 when she married Henry VIII in 1540 and 19 when she was executed in 1542. Tamzin Merchant was around 21 when she first played Katherine (before her marriage to Henry), though this is understandable given the sexual nature of the role; Merchant was also able to pass for a teenager well. It's also worth noting some sources place Katherine's birth year slightly earlier, which would make Merchant almost exactly the right age.
• Dueling Works: With the 2008 film adaptation of The Other Boleyn Girl, another work of Historical Fiction focusing on the Tudor dynasty and the Boleyn sisters.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Natalie Dormer dyed her hair black to play Anne Boleyn. The producers wanted her to keep her blonde hair for the role but Dormer insisted on the historically accurate brunette.
• Fake Brit: Princess/Lady Mary (Sarah Bolger), Thomas Boleyn (Nick Dunning), George Boleyn (Pádraic Delaney), Lady Rochfod (Joanne King) and Bishop Fisher (Bosco Hogan) are all played by southern Irish actors. The Duke of Norfolk (Henry Czerny), Thomas Culpepper (Torrance Coombs), Sir Francis Bryan (Alan van Sprang) and William Compton (Kristen Holden-Ried), among many others, are played by Canadians. Emma Hamilton (Anne Stanhope) is Australian. Wolsey is played by the New Zealander/Australian Sam Neill. Plus of course Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who is Irish, as Henry.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Spanish Catherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy), Italian Pope Paul III (Peter O'Toole) and German Duke Philip of Bavaria (Colin O'Donoghue) are — guess what — played by Irish actors.
  • Joss Stone is English and plays a German. And, to her credit, she plays the accent incredibly well.
• Hide Your Pregnancy: In season two, Henry finally divorces Catherine of Aragon for failing to give birth to a son. In Real Life, Maria Doyle Kennedy was pregnant with her fourth son during filming, leading to the show having to use a prosthetic torso and legs in order to hide the baby bump while Catherine is dying in her bed.
• The Other Darrin: Anita Briem played Jane Seymour in season two; she was replaced in the role by Annabelle Wallis in season three.
• The Other Marty: Some scenes from Season 2 were re-shot in Episode 3.01.
• Prop Recycling:
  • In the third episode of season one, Henry has a set of jewels made for Anne Boleyn, which she returns to him in order to string him along. However, this may be intentional, as Henry was known to do this. In the ninth episode, Henry can be seen wearing one of those pieces himself.
  • In the finale, the ghost of Jane Seymour wears the same dress that Katherine Howard wore on the day of her execution five episodes prior.
• Star-Making Role:
  • Natalie Dormer and Henry Cavill. The Tudors got them the industry buzz that would lead to their eventual more audience-famous respective castings as Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones and Clark Kent/Superman in the DC Extended Universe.
  • Katie McGrath. She was a wardrobe assistant on the show who had only acted in a couple of Irish TV movies before appearing in episode 2.5 as Bess, a common woman who has a one-night stand with Henry. She would go on to play Morgana on Merlin.
• Underage Casting: Jonathan Rhys Meyers (born 1977) plays Henry VIII, while from Season 2 onwards, Sarah Bolger (born 1991) plays his daughter Mary; there are only 14 years between the actors and Meyers looks his age most of the time, though later in the series the make-up department did start adding gray hair and wrinkles to make him look older.

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