MEMORABLE QUOTES
- “He was kind of this beautiful thing at a time that was getting darker and darker,” Alpay says of his Tudors character. "The king was diving into this mania having changed everything about England to be with this one woman. Smeaton was like a streak of bright crimson against that very black canvas.” Alpay read up on his character, but had a hard time finding enough details to give him a complete picture of Smeaton. Tudors writer Michael Hirst, who is known for spending the majority of his time squirreled away writing, eventually filled out Smeaton one night over dinner with Alpay. “He said to imagine the 16th century and imagine traveling back in time and we’re courtiers, but we’re just a little out of synch – we don’t know the codes, we don’t know the mores, we don’t know the right way to do things,” Alpay says. “That’s who Mark Smeaton is – he’s a time traveller.” The actor says Hirst’s explanation put Smeaton into a context he could understand. “Because, really, what do we have in common with people from the 16th century,” Alpay asks. “It was a horrible place where your live expectancy was very short; people p---ed standing up in their pants.” After a brief conversation about toilets in the 16th century (for the record, it was invented in the late 1500s but was not used until the 1800s), Alpay reveals that the pressure of playing a character so apart from the rest of Henry VIII’s court was a huge amount of pressure. “I was s---ting myself the whole time I was there,” he says frankly. “I think that’s why I was going on these hikes. I would get on the train out of Dublin and walk for three hours through the mountains. I spent more time wandering around that country than I have ever wandered anywhere in my life. I don’t know what I was looking for. I don’t know what I was trying to find.” [source: AOL Posted: 09/23/08 By SORAYA ROBERTS ]
- "When Smeaton was dragged up to be executed he’s got this bravado about him, he’s like, “of all the people about to have their heads chopped off I’m the only one who deserves it,” and I thought wow, his bravado and cheekiness, he’s celebrating the fact he slept with Anne Boleyn. And what does Michael do? He creates a guy who is possibly Anne Boleyn’s only real friend, who was emotionally available to her when even her husband wasn’t. And in the end when they torture this false confession out of him, when he turns around and says he’s the only one who deserves this death he’s not saying I’m the only one here who slept with her, he’s saying I betrayed my best friend and I deserve this death. It completely changes things. It’s stunning." [David Alpay on his character in an interview with NOW Magazine]
- “I never told them that I didn’t have an English accent. I kind of auditioned with an accent and just kinda got the part and bluffed my way through, I guess.”
- “What’s really cool is that the show refuses to provide answers like that on the surface,” Alpay says, “and it’s not until the last two episodes of the season that we really find out what’s happening, and it’s heartbreaking, actually. Smeaton and Anne aren’t out to get the king or screw around and cause trouble. They’re just two people who, in a way, really love each other and care about each other, but the environment, the society that they live in, that has a really hard time with that. There’s a social friction that’s the kernel that grows into bigger problems later on. He’s a very innocent character who isn’t duplicitous, but seen through Henry’s eyes he seems that way. The history books though have kind of favoured Henry’s viewpoint.” [Metro News. CA]
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