‘Wolf Hall’ Producer Says Cost of Making U.K. Drama Has Risen ‘Exponentially’ Due to U.S. Streamers: ‘It’s Caused Us a Real Problem’

“Wolf Hall: The Mirror and The Light” producer Colin Callender has blamed the influx of U.S. streamers for driving up the cost of drama production in the U.K., saying it has “caused us a real problem.”

“In the 10 years since we made the first show [“Wolf Hall”], the cost of producing drama in the U.K. has gone through the roof,” Callender said after a preview screening of the Hilary Mantel adaptation this week. “It’s increased exponentially. And ironically, in spite of all the talk about the inward investment from America being great for the industry, it’s caused us a real problem, because it’s meant that the streamers in particular are paying significantly more money for talent, locations and so on.”

Related Stories

VIP+

AI in Animation Is Not an All-or-Nothing Proposition

TV News Election Night Likely to Carry Over for Days and Days

“And so when you take the combination of inflation, cost of living, the extraordinary increase in rates that talent are being paid, in part because of the streamers, it’s made producing drama of this scale very, very challenging for British producers.”

Callender is CEO of Playground Entertainment, which produces the “Wolf Hall” series as well as other shows including “All Creatures Great & Small.”

The first season of “Wolf Hall,” based on the first two books of Mantel’s trilogy about Henry VIII’s advisor Thomas Cromwell, was released in 2015, starring Mark Rylance as Cromwell and Damien Lewis as Henry VIII. Claire Foy played Henry’s second wife Anne Bolyen, who was axed – literally – at the end of the first season.

It was another five years before Mantel, who died unexpectedly in 2022, published the final book, titled “The Mirror and The Light.” The adaptation of the novel was delayed further by the COVID pandemic, the actors’ schedules and the locations, many of which are real Tudor buildings, meaning the production could only shoot when they were closed to tourists in the off-season.

Peter Kozminski, who directed the first season, returns alongside screenwriter Peter Straughan as well as many of the actors, including Lewis and Rylance.

Straughan said the creative team were “handicapped” without Mantel’s input following her death. The author had contributed significantly to the first season as well as a stage adaptation, reportedly one of the reasons the third book had been much delayed. But the screenwriter revealed that while Mantel was writing “The Mirror and The Light” she had sent him portions of the novel as well as lengthy “email exchanges” which were a “fantastic resource.”

“Some people feel — I happened to — that while she was alive, she was the greatest writer in the English language living,” he said. “And we are now adapting her last novel. It was quite a responsibility. And I think for me personally, I just obsessed with not letting her down.”

The third book – and the corresponding series – charts Cromwell’s downfall from favored courtier to enemy of the state, which director Kozminski described as “a story of descent and descent into darkness.”

Kozminski also touched on the addition this season of actors of color, after the first instalment of the series featured an entirely white cast. “This is not something we did in the first series. I’m delighted we’ve been able to do it [now],” said the director. “The approach was we want the very best actors who are available for the show.”

“Obviously we aren’t playing lookalikes in the series. Damian is many things, but he doesn’t resemble Henry VIII particularly, Jonathan Pryce doesn’t particularly resemble Cardinal Wolsey.”

Lewis admitted during the Q&A that he had donned padding to fill out his figure during the current series. Asked how he wanted to play Henry in the new adaptation, Lewis replied simply “fat.” The actor wore a “fabulous foam suit,” he revealed, which protected him from the chilly British weather while shooting on location. “He is physically imposing, as well as psychologically unpredictable,” Lewis said of the sixteenth century monarch.

Asked what his most “memorable” moment during production was, Lewis replied it was the wedding between Henry and his third wife, Jane Seymour (played by Kate Phillips), as well as another scene in which she dies following childbirth. “It was a particularly moving day as she passed,” said Lewis, whose own wife, “Harry Potter” actor Helen McRory, died in 2021. “From an acting point of view, and being immersed and present, it was a lovely moment.”