The Big Picture
Director Karim Aïnouz
found strength in exploring character dynamics, not historical accuracy, in Firebrand.
Aïnouz aimed to humanize Henry VIII and Katherine Parr, exploring the complexities of their relationship.
Jude Law’s method acting included using rotting odors on set to portray Henry VIII’s decaying body.
Brazilian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz (Mariners of the Mountains) admits that the Tudor England historical drama Firebrand isn’t exactly in his typical wheelhouse. He tells Collider’s Steve Weintraub that the story of King Henry VIII and his final wife, Katherine Parr, played by Jude Law and Alicia Vikander, was “a big challenge for [him] to imagine how to tell a story that was very far removed from [his] experience.” What he perceived at first as a weakness, however, became his strength as he set out to tell not a historical retelling but a character-driven psychological thriller.
“The movies that I’m interested in making,” Aïnouz says, “they’re really about characters and the strength of the characters.” This was the director’s way into the dramatized look at Katherine Parr’s survival of her volatile husband. The film aims “to sort of forget the idea of monarchy and go into the intimacy of a couple and to see how that couple is falling apart.” Firebrand focuses on the peril a woman in Parr’s position would find herself in while navigating a minefield of the King’s paranoia.
To convey a dying King who once thought himself immortal, Aïnouz discusses the work he and Jude Law did to bring Henry VIII to screen, including keeping rotting odors on set to keep the cast repulsed and to remind them of his condition. He shares his thoughts on why Henry VIII was so tyrannical in his rule, what he learned throughout the making of Firebrand, and also teases upcoming projects.
You can watch the full interview in the video above or read the transcript below.
Firebrand
Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.
Release Date June 21, 2024
Director Karim Ainouz
Runtime 120 minutes
Writers Henrietta Ashworth , Jessica Ashworth , Rosanne Flynn , Elizabeth Fremantle
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COLLIDER: If someone has actually never seen anything you’ve directed before, what is the first thing you’d like them to watch and why?
KARIM AÏNOUZ: It’s funny. On the one hand, it is always the first movie. There is something about the first movie which is not very thought through, it’s very visceral. So, I would say the first movie. It’s a movie that I did in 2002 called Madame Satã. It’s been around for a few years, obviously. Then, Firebrand because it was a big challenge for me to imagine how to tell a story that was very far removed from my experience. I thought it was just a really exciting journey to enter that world and to discover the characters and learn about when it was done. For me, it was just really interesting to learn that actually, the movies, particularly the movies that I’m interested in making, they’re really about characters and the strength of the characters. It was really interesting to be able to relate to a character that lived over 500 years ago. That, for me, was proof of how the hearts we have are the same no matter where it takes place. I think it would be those two. But of course, every move you make is like a baby, so you have a particular sort of affection for them.
The Pandemic Film That Became a Love Letter to Algerian History
“I think a film becomes something of its own, and it tells you where to go.”
Image via Mubi
I’m fascinated by the editing process, and I’m always curious about people who have a good-size resume, which of your films do you think changed the most in the editing room in ways you didn’t expect going in?
AÏNOUZ: I think it was a movie called Mariner of the Mountains. It’s an essay film that I did in 2020. It was a movie that we started. It’s a mix between documentary and fiction. It’s a very autobiographical film. When I started, it was very funny because I told the producers, I said, “I need like a year of editing,” and they’re like, “This is impossible. It’s out of line,” blah, blah, blah. I said, “Listen, it is a movie that I’m gonna find when I’m editing, and that I’m gonna write when I’m editing.” This is the one that really started out as being sort of a travel documentary, and then it became a love letter to my mother and to Algerian history. That was a really fun process, and it’s interesting because it was done during the pandemic. I was sort of locked, couldn’t go anywhere, and it was a really productive time to make that film and to let myself learn from it and let it go to places. It’s funny because I think a film becomes something of its own, and it tells you where to go. That’s the one that changed the most, I think.
The Golden Boy Who Became “God on Earth”
“There’s something very delusional about a character like that.”
Do you think Henry VIII was a serial killer or just an asshole?
AÏNOUZ: Listen, I think he was a man of his time. I think he was a man who was born into privilege. It’s very strange to think that you were born, and then when you start to understand who you are, you understand you’re one of the most powerful men in the world just because you were born that way. So, I think that there’s something very delusional about a character like that. There was something very frustrated about Henry. He was a sort of handsome young golden boy who grew and became sick and couldn’t be as explosive as he was when he was a child. He was an adolescent, he was a young adult. So, I think there was a combination of things that made him– I don’t think it’s a serial killer, no. Again, I think it’s very interesting to see how the context forged who he was. There was a moment when he also thought he was God, which is the most interesting thing here because, at the moment that he breaks from the Catholic Church, he becomes God on earth.
That, for me, was so fascinating. It was so interesting because I think it is the first time that I did a movie where there was also a really relevant and important male character. I’m very interested in women, and I’m always fighting to make films about women. In this case, it was just really interesting to make it and to make it at a time when you see so many of those men emerging from everywhere, from every single continent every single day. It was interesting not to judge that character but to find out how Henry became Henry. That, for me, is the place that I think I learned most in making this film.
Jude Law Kept Rotting Odors on the Set of ‘Firebrand’
“With the smell, it was really, really wonderful what we achieved.”
I read that Jude had someone come in and keep odors on set to reflect the rotting skin on his body. Did he tell you he was gonna do this, and what was your reaction when he did it?
AÏNOUZ: I think it was something that we kind of thought together because he has done this before. For me, another challenge of telling the story of Henry VIII and Katherine Parr and the Tudors and England at that time was to forget that they have blue blood and to think that they have red blood like anybody else; to sort of forget the idea of monarchy and kind of go into the intimacy of a couple and to see how that couple is falling apart. The moment you do this, the moment you see them as human beings and not as heavenly creatures or hellish creatures, you start to think, “What do they wear? How do they eat? How do they live?” In the case of Henry, he had an ulcer in his leg for many, many years, and the records show that this ulcer smelled very bad throughout the palace. For me, it was very important to understand how he negotiated the fact that his body is rotting, but his mind is not, and he’s still very powerful.
Image via Larry Horricks
Jude proposed to do that in between other things. I think it was the smell. I think it was the fact that he would never walk onto set without being in costume and makeup, so it was this constant presence in the room of this man who was dragging himself. He did a lot of work with weights on his legs before we started shooting, so there was this body, which is sort of a rotten body, walking around the room and living the story. The smell was something really beautiful because smell triggers memory. It triggers a state that is like music. When you play music, there’s an energy in the room. With the smell, it was really, really wonderful what we achieved in regards to the crew and to the other actors working with him.
Definitely. It would definitely clue in to remind you about what his condition is.
What Is ‘Rosebushpruning’ About?
Image via MovieStillsDB
Are you doing Neon River next, or what is your next thing?
AÏNOUZ: My next movie is not Neon River. Actually, I just finished a movie now that was in Cannes this year called Motel Destino, so that’s really fresh. It just had one screening, and now it’s beginning it’s life. It’s a Brazilian film. I would say it’s like an erotic thriller with a little bit of comedy. The next movie I’m doing is called Rosebushpruning. It’s a movie that’s gonna be shot this fall, and it’s a reimagining of a 1960s Italian film called Fists In the Pocket. But more to come.
Firebrand is in theaters now. Check the link below for showtimes.
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