If King Henry VIII seems a little bit cranky in Showtime's "The Tudors," the man who plays him doesn't think it's all that hard to understand.
"Well, I think six marriages do not make a man happy," said Jonathan Rhys Meyers. "I don't know anybody who has been married six times who is particularly happy."
Rhys Meyers has never been married himself, but he has some definite ideas on the subject. Which may explain why he's never been married.
"Love is blind; marriage is an eye-opener," he said.
And his Henry is an extremely complicated man. In Season 1, the king was more likable, less threatening.
But in "The Tudors" — which isn't exactly historically accurate but follows the general outline of Henry's life — things have not been easy for the king.
"A lot of his trauma … sort of snowballs into his 30s, and he finds he can't trust anybody because nobody is trustworthy because everybody has their agenda," Rhys Meyers said. "So you look at anybody who goes into power and how young and fresh they look when they enter into their office, and how hardened and cynical they are when they come out of that office. So it's the experience of leadership, I think, that makes him a very, very tense person. He is very dangerous."
Of course, anyone who has to marry his brother's widow and then is manipulated into marrying Anne Boleyn has a right to be tense. And then you throw in the political machinations that accompany the rivalries with France and Spain and that little contretemps with the pope, and that would make anybody a little surly.
Not that Henry is blameless in all of this, of course. He isn't exactly a great husband. But then, given that Anne Boleyn moved in on him while he was still married to Catherine of Aragon, she really shouldn't have been all that surprised that he moved on again.
Losing her head certainly wasn't in her plans. And that's where Season 2 of "The Tudors" left off.
The show is essentially a big soap opera on a grand scale. And that's not criticism — "The Tudors" is very watchable TV. It was, at times, rather slow in Season 1, but it really picked up the pace in Season 2.
(Be aware, however, that this is on Showtime, which means it includes nudity, sex and violence.)
And Season 3 gets off to a strong start (Sunday, 10 p.m., Showtime) as Henry VIII starts off a third marriage, this time marrying Jane Seymour (Annabelle Wallis).
It's an island of calm after the tempestuous Anne Boleyn years, but, alas, it isn't destined to last long.
This isn't exactly a SPOILER ALERT — it's all in the histories — but Jane dies after giving birth to Henry's long-awaited male heir, Edward.
"It wasn't the crazy, mad passion of Anne Boleyn," Rhys Meyers said. "After Anne Boleyn, it was kind of like, 'Whew! Really, I think I can use a break.' And Jane Seymour was the break. She was the ray of light. She was the ice in your soft drink. It was great."
But we're talking about a medieval king, so "love wasn't really the issue. I don't think they thought of love in the same way as we think of love. … At that time, it was if you don't have this kingdom and if you don't have that castle, who cares about the girl? There were very few relationships in history in that time that became love matches."
Love or not, Henry is certainly a passionate individual. That passion and Rhys Meyers' performance continue to drive "The Tudors."
"You will find at the start of Season 3 (that) even though he's still very dangerous, he has found some sort of comfortable family life, and then that's snatched away from him," Rhys Meyers said. "So then it throws him into further turmoil."
And opens the way for the fourth wife of Henry VIII — Anne of Cleves (played by singer/songwriter Joss Stone) who shows up midseason.
There's also the ongoing fight to eradicate the Catholic Church in England; attempts to oust Henry's chief adviser, Thomas Cromwell (James Frain), who's determined to overturn the Church of Rome; and an uprising in the northern part of the country because of the religious strife.
All of that is, of course, great fodder for even more drama. And more great soap opera.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com