(rhythmic music) - "The Mirror and the Light" is based on the last novel that Hilary Mantel wrote before she very sadly died.

If I were to ask myself, "What is the thing about it that drives me most, that inspires me most?"

It's something that Hilary said to me right at the very beginning of this journey, which is, "Remember that these characters don't know that they're characters in history.

To them, they are living their lives, just as you are or I am.

- [Director] And action.

- We work on making a historical piece feel contemporary because it was contemporary to the people involved.

We are always with Cromwell, we don't go into a room before he does, if there's an action happening in another room, and he's not in that room, we don't see it, we may hear it, but we don't see it, and that's quite subtle, though, it's not something we highlight or overdue or are dogmatic with, but it's what informs the way we approach every scene is, where's Cromwell?

- Filming is essentially an industrial endeavor, but in order to create your imaginative created space around you, you have to work quite hard, and it's made much easier with Mark and Peter running it.

What they do, both of them, unapologetically, is they protect the work, and it's an unfashionable thing to do, it's an unfashionable thing to say, but the space that you're in when you work, has something serious about it, and it has something magical about it, and you can create something magical and sacred about it if you're prepared to do it.

- [Director] And action.

- Hilary's got a lot of the imagination of an actor, she feels inside people's bodies, and sort of smells what they're smelling, and touches what they're touching, and she can get herself into another character, in a way that, I mean, a lot of novelists can, but she's exceptional.

Her imagination seems to me exceptionally vivid, for the here and now of the past, if you know what I mean.

- She's a wonderful storyteller, and we are all in the business of telling stories, and the good ones are magical.

She took on something that is very well-known already and made it seem fresh, new, and therefore, more real in some ways.

So it's a pleasure to take her work and do our very best to portray it in a different medium.

- Having met her, I feel like I'm almost saying, "Hi, Hilary, we're carrying on with it, don't worry."

(gentle music)