"He was like a rock star," maintains Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who plays Henry VIII in The Tudors (BBC2, tonight, 9pm).
"Everything revolved around the King. We put rock stars and movie stars up there and treat them like gods, and that's the way Henry was treated.
"Wherever he was, that's where the party was."
And Irish-born actor Jonathan, 31, says that royals are still viewed as special.
"Look at Prince William and Harry. I'm always reading about Prince Harry, he's getting drunk, he's kissing girls, he's falling out of nightclubs at five o'clock in the morning.
"Well, so? He's doing the same thing as every 22 or 23-year-old out there is doing. But he can't, because he's not a normal human being, he's a demi-god because he's a royal.
"That's these days - so you can imagine what it was like 500 years ago.
"If you were king and told peasants in the field that you walked on water, they'd believe you."
The historical drama with a modern twist continues this week with Anne Boleyn (Natalie Dormer) finally to be crowned Henry's queen.
Split
He ignores the splits within his court and kingdom as he awaits the male heir Anne has promised him.
Viewers should know how this particular story ends, although those who have not studied history may still be in the dark about the fate of the characters at the court of King Henry VIII.
Natalie says his second wife Anne shone in an age when women were expected to be wallflowers.
She said: "She had fire and intelligence and boldness. In comparison to the English roses that were flopping around court, she would have stood out. And Henry noticed that.
"Anne's infamous in history, and yet there's not a great deal of documentation about the woman herself.
"You've got this great thing of everyone knowing who Anne Boleyn is, but you've also got carte blanche to do what you want with it.
"Chemistry was of obvious significance and importance, and Jonny and I hit it off. Within five minutes of meeting him, we were doing love scenes.
"I guess when we think about Henry VIII, we think of the older man. But the younger man was a very athletic type."
He was, by all accounts, a fearsome monarch.
Jonathan said: "You don't cross the king, because even if he doesn't want to punish you, he has to because you made him look a fool, and a king cannot look a fool.
Banished
"Henry realised that even if you really loved somebody, including your own sister, and they try and hurt you, well, you have to cut their heads off. They have to be gone, they have to be banished, even if it breaks your heart to do it.
"Even when he executes Anne Boleyn or Katherine, he knows he is obliged to. Sometimes you have to kill the thing you love for your own survival.
"When I first got asked to do Henry, my immediate reaction was, `Well, I don't look like Henry VIII, so is that a problem?' People saw him as this big robust giant, this leg of lamb-eating, beer-swigging guy.
"I think if they wanted to accurately cast it, they could have cast a six foot guy with long blonde hair and he would have looked more like Henry.
"However, I'm pleased to say that the producers wanted to work with me in particular. They saw something in me that they liked for their Henry.
"They wanted a fresh, youthful impetuousness to this Henry that makes him do the things he does. They thought I could create something quite different to anything that'd been seen before. My Henry is not Keith Michell's or Richard Burton's or Ray Winstone's. It's mine.
"It's difficult playing Henry - Any moment can end up on screen, so you always have to approach it as though it's the first scene you've ever done.
"In Henry's court it's always daggers at dawn. There's never a boring day in the kingdom.
"Because it's like that, everyone's frightened of their position. One wrong move or say the wrong thing to Henry and your whole family is wiped out. That's an awfully tense place to be. No wonder people didn't live very long, or took to the drink."
Click here to read Ian Wylie's TV blog.
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