"It's difficult playing Henry.  I won't say that it isn't.  It's tiring sometimes.  You know what I mean?  It's the same with every job you do.  Every moment can end up on screen.  And you always have to approach it like it's the first scene you've ever done.  So it's recreating that freshness.  Even when everybody is there at 8 o'clock in the evening - and you just want a sandwich and to go home.  But you're on camera.  It's different.  All your flaws can be seen.  So that can be a little hard.  Cause I like to give as much energy as I can to every production I do and because there's so much in it sometimes that's where the fight comes in.  To make it seem fresh even at five to 8 in the evening because there's one more take and we still haven't got them and we've got to pull it out.

But the crew were fantastic.  I've worked with a couple of these lads before.  The Canadian guys are amazing.  The Irish guys are absolutely fantastic, really good friends that I've made and everyone on the production team are fantastic.  It's very very rare that you get ... it's not only one crew.  It's basically two crews that work together so well and are doing a lot of stuff.  You could say we're making three 3-hour movies.  It's an awful lot of work, you know what I mean? 

Natalie is extraordinary.  Natalie is such a technician, as an actress.  Natalie trained and Nnatalie is really I suppose the epitome of people that I've worked with where training meets talent in the best way possible.  You know?  She's very naturally gifted and comes so alive on camera.  It's just unbelievable and jarringly beautiful.  She's also incredibly gifted but also knows the techniques to be able to use those gifts, which not many actresses do.  I wouldn't be able to do what Natalie does because I didn't train.  it's this fantastic mixture, I mean it really really works.  Her Anne Boleyn is extraordinary.  It's more serious and sensitive.  Anne is very playful.  There is a beautiful scene where she's dancing and you can really see Natalie the actress enjoying doing the dancing scene and therefore Anne Boleyn was enjoying dancing.  And it was just extraordinary, her whole character was embodied in that.  Because while she's dancing, I'm looking at her, my wife is looking at me, Thomas Boleyn is looking at me looking at her looking at my wife looking at me.  Wolsey is at the top looking at us all. 

It's daggers at dawn always.  There is never a boring day in the kingdom.  Because it's like everyone's frightened of their position - one wrong move - you say the wrong thing to Henry and your whole family is wiped out.  That's an awfully tense place to be.  No wonder people didn't live very long and took to the drink!"