How Jude Law was transformed into Henry VIII for ‘Firebrand’

Jude Law had no interest in wearing prosthetics for his role as Henry VIII in Karim Aïnouz’s Firebrand. The UK drama, produced by UK-Australian outfit Brouhaha Entertainment, centres on the infamous King’s sixth wife, Katherine Parr, played by Alicia Vikander. 

“He said right from the start ‘I want to do it authentically’,” reveals the film’s UK make-up and hair designer, Jenny Shircore. “He was always saying ‘Go further, do more. Do whatever you need to do to achieve it.’”

Working with UK costume designer Michael O’Connor., Shircore says the aim was authenticity .

“We wanted it to be a very honest representation of the [1500s],” she says.

Plumped up

The obvious challenge was how to transform a slim and good-looking 21^st century actor into that of a stout Tudor King whose health was deteriorating rapidly. On average, Law spent an hour and a half in the chair each morning, the pair passing the time playing Wordle, the online New York Times game, together.

“We had to pale him considerably which is never easy when you’re doing it over a tan,” Shircore explains. “The type of make-up you have to use is much heavier, but you can’t make it look heavy.”

To achieve the plumpness of Henry VIII’s face without the use of prosthetics was another challenge. “If you look at portraits of Henry VIII, he did have quite high, little cheekbones but he also had a large face. Achieving all of that was quite tricky,” says Shircore, who won an Oscar for her work on Elizabeth in 1999 and a scored two further nominations for The Young Victoria and Mary Queen Of Scots.

Various techniques included “beating and pulling out” Law’s beard as well as having the actor wear cheek “plumpers”.

With the beard taking up most of Law’s face, and his hair often under a cap, Shircore focused a lot of her attention around the actor’s eyes. “We really focused the ageing there,” she says. As the King’s health worsens, further make-up was added to make the eyes “more sunken and gaunter as he starts looking puffier”.

Chekov’s leg

Essential to Henry VIII’s deterioration was his wounded leg. Covered in sores and often infected, it was, in many ways, a driving force behind much of the King’s decisions depicted in Firebrand.

“It brought out his moods, his tempers,” says Shircore. “Anyone who can barely walk and is pain 99% of the time is going to respond to people around him because he’s in pain. He responds to the country because he’s in pain.”

Several surgeons and nurses were consulted about what this type of leg wound might look like, with one specialist nurse coming on set to work closely with Shircore. A prosthetic of Law’s leg was made and decorated with various effects including fake blood, gummy maggots and egg yolk to simulate pus.

“We applied it to [Law] every day,” reveals Shircore, who had no idea how much of it would actually be seen on screen, if at all. “But it was important to give [Law] that impetus for his character, to understand [that sense of pain].”

It is one of several techniques Law employed to authenticate his character. At the film’s premiere in Cannes last year, the actor revealed he wore a perfume made up of “pus, blood, faecal matter and sweat” to reflect the smell of Henry VIII’s leg wound.

“It was an awful, awful stink bomb of sorts,” Shircore recalls, not too fondly. “You’re standing in the corner while they’re shooting and trying to be quiet, but you can’t help but gag.”

Here and now 

Shircore’s work can next be seen on screen in Robert Zemeckis’ Here. The film, which spans several centuries at one place, sees Tom Hanks and Robin Wright portray ages 18 through to 80 with the help of both make-up and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“It was terrifying to begin with,” admits Shircore, who has been in the business for five decades. “The techniques in the make-up world, and in film, are changing so much, there were departments I’d never heard of.”

The experience was a “huge learning curve” for the make-up and hair designer though, who says it demanded “100%” of her time and focus. “By the time we finished the film, I realised I only want to work on these sorts of films now.”

This story first appeared on our sister site KFTV. 

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