BAZ BAMIGBOYE: How Jodie returned to Blighty to take on Anne Boleyn

BAZ BAMIGBOYE: How new mum Jodie returned to Blighty to take on Anne Boleyn

Jodie Turner-Smith is every inch a queen in her fierce and passionate portrayal of Anne Boleyn in a gripping new television drama about the second of Henry VIII’s six wives.

Turner-Smith’s colour-blind casting is an ingenious move by producers Faye Ward and Hannah Farrell, because it accentuates her position as an outsider — and makes us more aware of the perils she faced at the hands of her husband and his scheming courtiers.

With writer Eve Hedderwick Turner and director Lynsey Miller, the aim in Anne Boleyn was to ‘challenge the perception’ of the doomed queen — ‘and even what was taught in schools’, said Ward, the creative director of Fable Pictures and a force behind Sarah Gavron’s acclaimed film Rocks (now streaming on Netflix).

Jodie Turner-Smith is every inch a queen in her fierce and passionate portrayal of Anne Boleyn in a gripping new television drama about the second of Henry VIII’s six wives

She said the many volumes written about Boleyn — mostly by men — ‘read as if her downfall was her fault, when she was murdered by her husband’.

Peterborough-born Turner-Smith has appeared in several TV dramas, such as The Last Ship and Jett. But it was in the film Queen & Slim that she really captured my attention.

She and Daniel Kaluuya (Sunday’s best supporting actor Oscar will surely have his name on it, for his role in Judas And The Black Messiah) play a couple, on their first date, forced to go on the run after a disastrous encounter with a U.S. cop.

The reason for casting Turner-Smith, Ward told me, was because ‘we want the audience to see the poster for Anne Boleyn and know that your indoctrinated version of the story is going to be rewound and reset’. 

Turner-Smith’s colour-blind casting is an ingenious move by producers Faye Ward and Hannah Farrell, because it accentuates her position as an outsider — and makes us more aware of the perils she faced at the hands of her husband and his scheming courtiers

The three-part mini-series will be coming soon to Channel 5. Turner-Smith spent much of her childhood in the U.S., where she now resides with Canadian actor Joshua Jackson and Janie, their one-year-old daughter.

The actress shot Anne Boleyn last year with a stellar cast that includes Mark Stanley as Henry VIII; Paapa Essiedu as her brother George and other major roles played by Thalissa Teixeira, Amanda Burton, Lola Petticrew, Isabella Laughland, Barry Ward and Anna Brewster.

‘Heroically, Jodie left America in the middle of a pandemic with her mum and her baby and came to England — and performed as the queen … while still breastfeeding,’ Ward marvelled.

Oh, and it’s worth delving into Miranda Kaufmann’s book Black Tudors for stories of Africans who lived in Tudor England.


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The reason for casting Turner-Smith, Ward told me, was because ‘we want the audience to see the poster for Anne Boleyn and know that your indoctrinated version of the story is going to be rewound and reset’

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