In the movie Firebrand, Jude Law portrays King Henry VIII as he nears death and reaches an apex of paranoia at the end of a megalomaniacal life. The last of his six wives, Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander), struggles to appease him while keeping her radical religious beliefs a secret.
Suffering from ulcers and an infection that would eventually kill him, the king was more than just unstable and feverish — he probably smelled pretty bad too. Law told Yahoo Entertainment that the film’s director, Karim Aïnouz, wanted to create a “360-degree set” that included an authentic scent, though the story itself diverges from the historical record.
“I read that Henry, because of these agonizing ulcers he had on his legs, really smelled like he was actually rotting,” Law said. “So we came up with this disgusting odor that created a pungency and sickening scent around him.”
Law consulted with a perfume specialist, who created a blend of blood, fecal matter and sweat. He used it subtly at first, but eventually it could be smelled from “three rooms away.”
The actor explained that Aïnouz is committed to creating “an ambience of truth” — he starts rolling the camera before they begin filming something scripted, and makes sure that the sensory experience is true to the time period, which in the case of Firebrand was the late 1540s.
For the film, which had its North American premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, Aïnouz kept animals around, paid close attention to the temperature of the room, kept fires burning and strategically selected the herbs that would appear in certain scenes. Law was on board to make sure he was portraying the king, who has been featured in countless works of fiction, in the most accurate light.
“There was this weird duality between people fawning over this man and him being disgusting to be around,” Law said.
He was drawn to the opportunity to play a man “looking back on the regret and descent he finds himself at the foot of … physically, emotionally and spiritually” because it “raises the stakes to make him even more unreal and unpredictable.”
“He’s finally going to have to face his maker and answer for his actions,” Law said. “There’s an element of introspection and doubt, so you can finally see the human in him. For many years, he was probably so deluded that he thought he was second only to God on Earth.”
Though Henry is the most flamboyant character in the film, its protagonist is Parr, who quietly rebels against the teachings of the Church of England in favor of the radical preaching of Protestant Anne Askew. Askew was ultimately declared a heretic and executed in 1546 — one year before Henry’s death.
Though her husband was notorious for exiling and executing wives, Parr managed to outlive him and publish religious work under her own name.
Vikander told Yahoo Entertainment that her first reaction to reading Parr’s story retold in the script was that “it was about time.”
“A lot of women throughout history haven’t had their story told,” she said. “I was amazed that for so long stories haven’t focused on her because she actually did survive and outlive Henry despite … living with a man who clearly had quite different opinions.”
Firebrand is now playing in theaters.
