Pride, Power, and Punishment; Charlotte Hope sets up Part Two of STARZ’s THE SPANISH PRINCESS

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede There’s a telling moment in THE SPANISH PRINCESS where Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII, having just lost another child, wonder to each other whether God is punishing them. “Why would he?” asks Henry. And the two of them briefly exchange a nervous glance. They both have secrets. And both of them have suspicions about the other one’s secrets. But what does God think of it all, and is their inability to produce a male heir proof of God’s disapproval? The pressures are obviously mounting in Part Two of THE SPANISH PRINCESS, which debuts Sunday, Oct. 11 at 9 p.m. ET on STARZ. When asked about the intricacies of that specific scene, the initial response from English actress Charlotte Hope, who plays Catherine, was, “I’m so impressed by your knowledge of the show. You can recite the whole thing, it’s incredible!” Uh, no one wants that. “No, I’m impressed, it’s a very good performance – but I do think the thing about Henry and Catherine is at the end of Season 1, they kind of make this pact with each other,” Hope explained. “She’s like, ‘I know you slept with Joanna (Catherine’s sister),’ and he’s like, ‘I know you weren’t a virgin (having been previously married to Henry’s older brother),’ and we’re just going to pretend it’s not an issue. But they’re super, super religious people. I really believe the reason Henry divorced Catherine in the long term is his religious fervor. God is kind of the third party in their relationship. It’s a huge pressure that is really destructive.” The history of what happened with Catherine and Henry, who is played by Ruairi O’Connor, is obviously one of the most famous tales in human history. But THE SPANISH PRINCESS deftly finds a way to utilize the viewers’ general knowledge to convey an intense sense of foreboding. “Catherine is in a really great place at the beginning of Season 2, she’s got everything she ever dreamed of, she has a very handsome husband, a six-month-old baby son, and both of them are pretty high on themselves, and think that they’ve completed life,” Hope said. “But that’s also kind of unnerving as a viewer to watch. There’s that point where they lift up Henry IX, and unless you’re really terrible at history, you know there is no Henry IX. It’s unnerving to see her so confident and assured of her place in court, and you know how that story is going to end.” Hope, who also played Myranda, a wicked servant of House Bolton in HBO’s GAME OF THRONES (available for streaming on Crave), has largely specialized in period pieces, but she said there’s something special about playing someone who is as remarkably tough and incredibly vulnerable as Catherine. Hope even gets to don some armor and take part in a battle in Part Two of THE SPANISH PRINCESS. “I’m really drawn to women on the edge, because I just find that the tipping point between strength and fragility is really a fascinating place – but my favorite moments are probably when we get to go into battle, just because I felt so bad-ass,” Hope said. “Especially having spent so much time weeping in corsets, getting to put on this armor, and being in the rain and the mud and just fighting, felt very empowering to me.” And now she can’t let it go. “I’d really like to do an action movie, because I’ve spent a lot of time going to the gym, so I feel very strong,” she said with a laugh. “When the trailer came out (for Part Two of THE SPANISH PRINCESS), and it was all about fighting, I messaged my agent, and I was like, ‘action movie, please.’ And he was like, ‘Okay, relax.’ But I guess just because I’m quite a diminutive person, to get to play something that feels against my type is really satisfying.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv