LOS ANGELES: Michelle Williams and Jude Law are teaming up for “Firebrand”, a psychological horror tale set in the bloody English Tudor court.
The film, directed by Karim Ainouz, will focus on Queen Catherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII, and the only one to avoid banishment or death.
While Williams will essay the role of Catherine, Law will play Henry VIII, her notorious husband.
Ainouz, known for “The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao”, will direct the film from a script by “Killing Eve” writers Jessica Ashworth and Henrietta Ashworth.
According to Deadline, “Firebrand” is told through Catherine’s singular point-of-view of the psychological horror of living with a monster — and the remarkable will to not only survive, but thrive.
The official logline of the film reads: “By the time young Catherine Parr (Williams) married the deteriorating, increasingly despotic King Henry VIII (Law), she had no assurances of a happy marriage; in fact, she had no assurances of surviving this marriage at all.
Of her predecessors, two were thrown out, one died in childbirth and two were beheaded.
While Catherine tried to keep her head about her to navigate the politics of her position, she brought a secret agenda.
“She was Protestant, believed it her duty to marry Henry, for it would be the only position in which she could convert him — and the kingdom — from his pro-Catholic position. That faith was tested when the church resisted granting his divorce from his first wife so he could marry Anne Boleyn, who would later be beheaded. With arrests, torture, and executions of Protestants on the rise, Catherine invited a dangerous game that would leave one of them dead before long.”
Ainouz, the Brazilian-born filmmaker, describes Parr as a “ferociously brilliant, enlightened, and emancipated woman whom I am inspired by deeply, a woman who has been largely disregarded, or certainly under-represented in English Tudor history”.
While much is known about Henry VIII’s tyrannical reign, the King himself, and about those who perished at his hands, the director said “Firebrand” will offer a modernistic look at the classic trope of the woman trapped in a castle with a monster.
“Henry was a most interesting person, but he was uber-violent, which was in tune with the times. Jude will not play him as the cliched fat man eating the turkey leg. Jude got how complex this guy was, not a loveable character but as a most powerful man of his time. And Michelle immediately came to mind. I so admire her choices, going back to Brokeback Mountain, and there is something fascinating about her each time I rediscover her in a performance,” Ainouz said about his lead cast.
Williams was recently seen in “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” and Law will reprise his role of Albus Dumbledore in “The Secrets of Dumbledore”, the third chapter in the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise from J K Rowling’s “Harry Potter” universe.
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