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Standing in a shadowy archway on a bridge leading into Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire, England, sheep nibbling the grass below, Julianne Moore curtsied deeply, lowering her eyes before a splendidly gowned woman. \u201cYour Majesty,\u201d she began, before being drowned out by a loud \u201cbaa\u201d from the sheep. Moore burst out laughing, as did her fellow actress, Trine Dyrholm, who was playing Queen Anne of England. \u201cTalk to the sheep!\u201d Moore commanded the director, Oliver Hermanus. \u201cTell them we\u2019re doing a TV mini-series!\u201d<\/p>\n
That mini-series is the visually sumptuous, seven-part \u201cMary and George<\/a>,\u201d strewn with sex scenes that look like Caravaggio paintings and riddled with all the good things: intrigue, scheming, cunning and villainy. The show, which premieres on Starz on April 5<\/a>, was inspired by Benjamin Woolley\u2019s 2018 nonfiction book, \u201cThe King\u2019s Assassin,\u201d<\/a> and tells the mostly true tale of Mary Villiers (Moore), a minor 17th-century aristocrat with major ambitions, and her ridiculously handsome son, George (Nicholas Galitzine)<\/a>, who she uses as a path to power and riches at the court of King James I (Tony Curran).<\/p>\n James likes ridiculously handsome young men. \u201cThe king,\u201d says Mary\u2019s new husband, Lord Compton, \u201cis a dead-eyed, horny-handed horror who surrounds himself with many deceitful well-hung beauties.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n George\u2019s ascent isn\u2019t easy: Mary must get the current favorite, the Earl of Somerset (Laurie Davidson), out of the way; forge and break alliances; and murder the odd opponent. George, na\u00efve and insecure, must learn how to deploy his beauty and charm. But over the course of the series, George becomes a powerful political figure, with Mary a formidable, frequently antagonistic, presence alongside him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThese are people who use sex not just for intimacy and relationship building, but for power, as a transaction,\u201d Moore said in a video interview. \u201cThe most compelling thing to me about Mary was that she was very aware of how limited her choices were. She had no autonomy, her only paths are through the men she is married to, or her sons.\u201d George, she said, \u201cis almost her proxy; he has access to a world she doesn\u2019t have.\u201d<\/p>\n Moore added that she was also intrigued by playing \u201ca not particularly admirable character. There is a neediness and voraciousness in her that is kind of shocking,\u201d she said. \u201cShe rips through life and people.\u201d (The one exception is her uncharacteristically tender relationship with Sandie, a brothel owner played by Niamh Algar.)<\/p>\n George, at least at the outset, is quite different. \u201cWhen we meet him, he is a very soft, fragile young man,\u201d Galitzine said. \u201cThen gradually, through the machinations of his mother, he turns into a coarse villain.\u201d He and Moore didn\u2019t discuss their characters or relationship much, he said, which fed his interpretation. \u201cGeorge feels very uneasy around his mother a lot of the time, he doesn\u2019t know whether her love for him is unconditional,\u201d he said. \u201cIn a lot of ways, their relationship is much less tender than the one he has with James.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The king was a fascinating, complex character to play, Curran said, and much less well-known than his Tudor predecessors. \u201cJulianne was the only American in the show, and said she didn\u2019t know much about King James. Then she got to England and realized that no one there knew much about him either,\u201d he said. \u201cBut he was an influential monarch: a king who did not go to war, a misunderstood king, a queer king, a Scottish king on an English throne.\u201d<\/p>\n Although James\u2019s sexuality drives the story, Curran said that surviving letters between George and the king suggest a deep relationship. \u201cNick and I talked about that a lot,\u201d he said. \u201cHow their relationship grew, whether James was in love with George, and if it was reciprocated.\u201d<\/p>\n Our current era tends to see history through a Victorian lens, said the producer Liza Marshall, who developed the show after being intrigued when she heard about a lecture on James\u2019s sexuality. \u201cWe think we invented modern sexuality, but I think people accepted the king, who was married with nine children, liked handsome young men, and didn\u2019t judge that.\u201d<\/p>\n The show\u2019s writer, D.C. Moore (\u201cKilling Eve\u201d), said he knew immediately that the characters\u2019 language \u201chad to have a wit and a verve and a drive, and be front-footed and unashamed.\u201d He added that, although he wove in phrases from George and James\u2019s letters and other historical sources, he had been \u201cfree and fresh with the dialogue, because I wanted people to understand this era.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n