Characters & Actors
Queen Mary
Actress Joanne Whalley is keen to clear up exactly who Queen Mary was, "No one really knows about her. You say I'm playing Queen Mary and they go, 'Oh, Mary Queen of Scots?' and you go 'No! Mary Tudor!' - and they don't know who she is. She is completely overshadowed by Elizabeth - as she was in their time."
"She has a terrible reputation as Bloody Mary but she didn't have an easy time of it. She had a terribly unhappy childhood; she has an unhappy marriage, a nightmare half-sister and religious trouble, so she has a full plate!"
"Elizabeth's mother (Anne Boleyn) replaced Mary's mother in the favour of the King; Mary's mother was sent away to live in exile and Mary wasn't allowed to see her, and she was forced to wait upon Elizabeth's mother," explains Joanne. "So there's a lot of history in their relationship and her paranoia, her fears, are all based in reality. She could have had Elizabeth killed really, but didn't - she was not an unkind person. There are various reports of her showing this much more kind, benign side of her personality, but given the times that she was in that bit wasn't allowed to shine through very often."
"She had a miserable and difficult journey to becoming Queen and it turns out very differently than she had imagined," says Joanne. "One of the keys to that is her relationship with her husband, Philip of Spain. She was hoping for a real marriage, she thinks how wonderful to have a companion - and there was nothing. They had no relationship at all really which is a huge disappointment to her."
All they really seemed to share was their Catholic religion and the desire to overturn the years of Protestant rule instigated by Mary's father, Henry VIII, which led to the religious persecution that earned Mary her gruesome nickname.
"She was very devout and she believed absolutely that she was putting things to rights with the country and in the eyes of God," says Joanne. "Crazy as it is, there is some sympathy to be drawn - she was completely devoted; in her life and her work, everything, she believed she was doing the right thing. Her only moments of joy and pleasure were in her more devout, communing-with-God moments because day-to-day life was pretty tough on her. She was very alone and very conflicted about how to deal with things. I feel sorry for her."
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