00:00Action!
00:05Do you consider yourself a feminist, Jude?
00:07Gosh, that term seems to be so complicated now.
00:11If you'd asked me that 20 years ago, I'd have said, yeah.
00:15I know I grew up in a household with two very strong women,
00:20my mum and my sister,
00:22and a mum who I feel gave me great guidance,
00:27but, I mean, that's such a dangerous area now,
00:30I don't even know what to say to it.
00:32So what does it mean to you to behave and to act maybe as an ally of feminism
00:36in your work, in your job as an actor?
00:39It feels important. It feels very, very important.
00:42I, for one, am very happy that I'm making films and telling stories
00:47at a time when women are getting more involved,
00:49both in front of and behind the camera, that their stories are being told.
00:52And like I said, it was one of the key elements to getting involved in this.
00:55It seemed just right that Karim wanted to shine a light, a spotlight,
01:00on an extraordinary woman whose story wasn't told.
01:03In Firebend, you play King Henry VIII.
01:05I was wondering what makes for you as an actor a royal, a great performance?
01:10I think understanding the person as a human.
01:15I think understanding their judgements and their decisions
01:19and their behavioural patterns and their physicality
01:23from the sort of essence of them rather than the legacy or the portrait.
01:29And so getting inside them.
01:32What struck me in Firebend was your intensity and the tension.
01:35I was wondering how do you feel after a violent scene?
01:38What kind of impact does it have on your body, on your mindset,
01:41especially when you're the violent one, precisely?
01:44It's a good question. It's not an easy space to be in.
01:50You have to hope, and we were fortunate that this was a very safe environment.
01:55It felt collaborative.
01:57I know that I had the trust of Alicia and the encouragement of Karim.
02:03It never felt like we went anywhere that no one was happy to go to.
02:08We all knew what we had to achieve.
02:11But honestly, playing Henry physically really beat me up.
02:18It was hard work, and I felt at the end very out of shape.
02:27I think a lot of that was also the abusive nature of what we had to achieve with him.
02:34So I was quite happy to shed him at the end.
02:37But it's a terrific and terrible character,
02:40part of a legend for divorcing and killing most of his wives back in the 16th century.
02:44What do you feel about the fact that five centuries later,
02:47society still hasn't solved the problem of male violence and male domination?
02:51I wonder whether a part of it is that we haven't looked at and investigated
02:55and celebrated the survivors and understood the scenarios.
02:59Instead, we almost celebrate the tyranny of this man
03:04more than the woman who survived him and outmaneuvered him.
03:08We hope that's what this story does.
03:11To what extent do you believe in the power of fiction to make collective mentality evolve?
03:17That's a great question.
03:19I have great faith in storytelling.
03:23I have great faith in communal gathering to experience stories,
03:28to understand stories unknown to us,
03:30but also to share positive experiences as well as moving experiences.
03:36I believe in it because I think it's at our essence.
03:41After lighting a fire to stay warm, after feeding ourselves,
03:46what we would have done as groups is tell stories about the dark,
03:50about the wolves, about great characters of the past.
03:55It's in us and it's a very important part of us. It bonds us.
04:00Where's the best lesson that a film taught you?
04:02I can't think of a film, but I can think of what storytelling and what filmgoing teaches me
04:07is to be fascinated by humans and to forgive them and to understand them and love them
04:13and embrace them, embrace humanity.
04:18Do you feel you're getting better with age, Jude, as a person but also as an actor?
04:24Again, I hope so. I don't know. I think my process is more tuned.
04:33What I hope to achieve and what I know I can get out of the park is more streamlined
04:39and the judgments I make and why I do things is more mature
04:44and I suppose comes from a place of more wisdom.
04:48But I've also lost certain things.
04:50I mean, there's an element of youthful enthusiasm and youthful ambition
04:54that you just get naturally in your 20s.
04:57Do you miss that?
04:58A little bit, but a little bit.
05:02But I think the parts available to me and where I'm seemingly being allowed to explore as an actor
05:09from people, you know, you have to wait to be asked to go to work as an actor
05:13or you have to generate it yourself.
05:15And it feels like that's broadening, which I hope continues.
05:19If you were a king, Jude, what kind of king would you be?
05:23You can be ambitious.
05:25What would I be? God, I would hate it.
05:30I'd be in denial.
05:33I'd hide.
05:35Of course you're a British actor.
05:37The coronation of Charles III has taken place a few weeks ago as a citizen and a royal subject.
05:42How do you expect him to rejuvenate the English monarchy?
05:48I don't know that I expect him to.
05:50I'm intrigued to see what happens.
05:52I'm not as obsessed as some.
05:54I'm sort of intrigued by the history of the family and therefore, you know,
05:59each one of them will indeed become another chapter in that history.
06:04I think the amount of money it costs is questionable.
06:10I think that needs to be addressed.
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