‘Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light’ Producer Colin Callender: Reuniting Cast 10 Years Later For Finale Was “A Four-Dimensional Chess Game” – Contenders TV

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It took a decade of maneuvering to finally complete the television adaptation of novelist Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy with the co-stars back on screen, executive producer Colin Callender said at Saturday’s Deadline Contenders TV panel in Los Angeles.

Joined by actor Damian Lewis, who plays King Henry VIII opposite Mark Rylance’s Thomas Cromwell, the Playground Entertainment founder and chairman made it clear that filming the final chapter without both Lewis and Rylance aboard wasn’t an option, even if the window took a long time to open. “We had to, over the years, sort of play a four-dimensional chess game to get all the actors to be available at the same time,” Callender said. “Because at the heart of this series, it’s the story of two very powerful men who need each other to succeed but who don’t fully trust each other.

It’s a story of loyalty and betrayal and Damian’s performance, in the middle of that, is the anchor around which the story unfolds.” Based on the late Mantel’s imagining of 16th Century royal history, the lush Tudor costume drama follows the arc of King Henry VIII and, in particular, his consigliere Cromwell, the cunning advisor, statesman and fixer who kept his head — literally — while others lost theirs until he, too, finally fell out of court favor.

The real-life Cromwell was beheaded in 1540 on orders from Henry VIII. RELATED: Contenders TV — Deadline’s Complete Coverage Lewis compared acting with Rylance to an inspired, improvised tennis match. “It’s someone who hasn’t pre-programmed or choreographed their performance, but it’s totally in the moment and responsive to anything that you do so that things change minutely, incrementally with every take,” Lewis said of his co-star. “And