Catherine Parr has spent centuries being reduced to a single word: “Survived.”
that celebrates her greatest achievement as outliving the famously bloodthirsty king of England.
This was what drew actress Jessica Raine to the role in the first place.
Jessica Raine as Catherine Parr.Starz
“She’s very much reduced to the rhyme of the one that survived,” she tells EW.
“And she’s got this really rich history that I was completely unaware of.
She was married twice before she married Henry VIII.
So, she’s been in three loveless marriages.
She is the first woman to have an original work published in England, ever.
Henry VIII trusted her to hold the fort while he went away to fight.
But Parr’s life is perhaps most complex after she often disappears from the history books, i.e.
the segment of her life after Henry’s death.
“She’s released from this marriage, and can finally get together with her lover.
It’s this love that’s really deep and has a lot of history.
I am really excited for audiences to meet a Catherine Parr that we’re not necessarily familiar with.
“Which I thought was really un-queenly and cool.
I could relate to that because I’ve been known to have a bit of a potty mouth myself.
It was a window into a woman who was very passionate.”
That is what further complicates Parr’s role in the storytelling.
“Catherine never sees [Elizabeth] as a rival,” Raine reflects.
But what Catherine does is massively underestimate Elizabeth.
She sees her as a child, and therefore, not as a threat at all.
That can happen when you know someone from very young and they blossom in front of your eyes.
You almost don’t notice; you still see the child.”
“I loved how Catherine wanted to educate her,” she says of the relationship with Elizabeth.
There’s two things going on at the same time, and Anya’s writing does that a lot.
