But it is. Our one-hour interview, agreed in writing, was to be done remotely – as many are since Covid – with our cameras on and an agreement that RT will use clips to promote the return, after almost ten years, of the BBC historical drama Wolf Hall.

However, this fellow turns up ten minutes late, no apology offered, with his camera off. Then, when asked if he would mind making up the time at the end, he announces that not only will he not do that but, as a matter of fact, as he mentioned just before the interview started, he will have to “bail” 15 minutes early, thereby cutting our agreed time by half (reduced yet further when he pulls the plug).

It’s cunning to do it on the spot when there’s not a lot that can be done about it. Capricious, because that’s how his behaviour comes across. Controlling, generally.

It’s interesting that these traits are shared by Henry VIII, the character he plays in BBC1’s six-part adaptation of the last part of the late Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light. Is it method acting in reverse with Damian Lewis, perhaps? And if so, then it’s tempting to say that his co-interviewee today, director Peter Kosminsky, who is as reasonable in his manner as Lewis is brusque, is his Cromwell, not only enabling his star’s behaviour but left to clear up the departed despot’s mess.

To start with, the invisible Lewis is not happy about the positioning of my camera. “Can you alter your framing a bit?” You don’t like the way I have the camera? “No.” I make an adjustment. “That’s better.”

While acknowledging the truism that great writing makes the universal out of all characters regardless of time and place, my first question –both innocuous and straightforward enough – is to ask them what they consider the relevance of Henry VIII today.

Kosminsky: “Damian should probably speak since he’s playing Henry…”

Lewis: “Well, I think that someone as historically significant as Henry VIII will always remain significant,” he starts and then suddenly turns. “Unless your question is suggesting such an un-woke character as Henry VIII, shot through a sort of contemporary prism, should no longer be seen on TV? But I’d obviously have to reject that idea.”

Come on now, do I look like a Generation Z-er? “Well, it’s a bit of an odd question as to whether it’s relevant or not…”

Of course, the question was to ask the ways in which the character and series are relevant, not to question his relevance per se. Fortunately, Cromwell – I mean Kosminsky – steps in to smooth things over and gives an eloquent and lengthy reply.

“Let me dive in for a second. You know what, Ginny, I think it couldn’t be more relevant,” he says. “Look around the world: Vladimir Putin to take an example. There are despots springing up all over the world. We might have another despot back in the White House in the next two or three months, if we’re very unlucky, who’s promising to be a dictator from day one.

Are you suggesting such an un-woke character as Henry VIII should no longer be seen on TV?

“And we see the same tendency in Europe and our own country as we watch the Conservatives decide which extreme right-winger they should have as their leader. I think it’s a very relevant time to look at one of the last periods of English history where we effectively had an all-powerful ruler, and a capricious individual at that.

“And I should tell you, Damian plays him brilliantly and chillingly in the series. And therein lies Cromwell’s downfall really – that Henry takes changeable to a ludicrous level. He is both all-powerful and almost impossible to second-guess. You never know which Henry you’re going to encounter each morning or when you come in after lunch. It’s the most destabilising and terrifying state of affairs. Cromwell’s trying to manage and handle this guy and he just never knows what’s going to face him. So, I think it’s a fantastically relevant time to take a look at the politics of despotism.”

Damian, is there anything freeing or exhilarating about playing such a badly-behaved character? “Well, acting is therapeutic, for sure, but I don’t think you’d want to be playing these kinds of people too often because they do wear you down over time. So, yes, there is a freedom, there is something therapeutic to be able to behave in whatever way you want, because any good drama most of the time explores us in extremis – our excesses, our greatest conflicts and our greatest triumphs – and life isn’t always like that. Life can be a bit more grey and a bit more dithering.

“So to be in dramas in which you are playing characters who excel or exceed or surpass, who destroy or are in some way living life at a zenith, that is fun and therapeutic to do, yeah.”

Or just to be bad? I’m also thinking of Gary Oldman here, playing a character in Slow Horses where everything is greasy, from his hair to his food to his farts. There’s a baseness in all of us that might be fun to exaggerate and embody?

“No,” Lewis says. “I think that’s a generalisation. It might be upsetting to some people.”

Has it been upsetting to you? “No, because Henry is someone to be played with relish, because that’s who he was himself. He played his own life with relish, so you have to engage with him at that level.”

Henry VIII must be a great character to get your teeth into. I understand you have become a bit of a Tudor specialist; have you always been
a history buff?

“Oh, yes. I enjoyed history very much. I enjoy the university of acting. You can continue to put yourself through an education if you’re careful and clever in your choice of roles; if you’re fortunate enough to have choice in the first place. So, yes, playing someone like Henry VIII does open an opportunity to read extensively about Tudor history and that is certainly partly what interests me about the roles I take.”

We talk about music for a bit as, like Henry, Lewis is a keen sportsman and musician. When Lewis, now 53, left Eton, he busked in London Tube stations and in France. During lockdown, he took up playing the guitar again. Following the death of his wife, Peaky Blinders actor Helen McCrory, of breast cancer at the age of 52 in April 2021, Lewis wrote some very personal songs in his grief which feature on his debut album, Mission Creep, released last year.

Lewis enjoys touring and hanging out with musicians, and as long as there’s interest from the public – “it has to wash its own face,” he says – he will keep at it.

As a fellow music lover, I’m intrigued by his busking days and which song pulled in the most money. “I did a smorgasbord of greatest hits from back in the day. The Elvis medley went down very well.”

What was your Tube station? Might I have seen you? “No, you won’t have seen me.” Why not? Not even randomly, as a commuter? “You might have done – 30 years ago.”

Even in this awkward interview, Lewis then kindly agrees to listen to the new album of a former prisoner I know through my charity Liberty Choir who has released an album in the same vein as his “roots” music.

Getting back to Wolf Hall, my thoughts are that they will both have opinions on the monarchyitself, then and now, considering they have spent so much time studying one of England’s most famous royals.

I enjoyed history very much. I enjoy the university of acting

Are you a monarchist, republican or indifferent, Peter? “With the greatest of respect, Ginny, I don’t think that’s relevant at all. I’m happy to talk about the show, but I don’t want to talk about my own personal political views one way or the other. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to respond on that.”

OK. What about you, Damian? “I think I’m going to take the same view as Peter. Stick to Wolf Hall will probably be the best way.”

OK, here’s a question that cannot offend, surely: does working on such a project shift your opinion, or deepen your understanding and respect – or otherwise – of the monarchy?

Kosminsky: “For me, not at all.” He then begins a long and fascinating discourse about barbaric practices in the name of religion. The director undertook extensive research on the Islamist militant group Isis for The State, his 2017 Channel 4 series that dramatised the experiences of four young British Muslims who fly to Syria to join the extremists. “We rightly condemn that, but it’s interesting that when Christianity was at a similar stage of development, 500 years ago, similar things were done in this country in the name of religion.”

He talks about the hanging, drawing and quartering, pulling the entrails out of people, beheading them and burning them alive in public. This is followed by Kosminsky explaining his fascination with the way that religious worship evolved so swiftly in Cromwell’s time. “We see the beginnings of Protestantism really, and Cromwell and Henry were at the vanguard of that. And I’m thinking, actually, it’s the issue of religion and persecution of religion that for me were the biggest lessons to be learned. I don’t know what Damian has to say about that. I’m not sure we’ve ever discussed it…”

Kosminsky continues, following an unfilled pause, talking about the modernisation of the Church of England and expounding on the democratisation of religion. “The fact that ordinary English people could attend church and understand what was being said in their own language by a priest that faced them, rather than facing the altar, was a revolutionary change. And Anne Boleyn was also a great religious reformer.”

Damian, are you a religious or spiritual person? “That’s a personal question I don’t want to answer either, really.”

Kosminsky: “We’re both quite private people. We’d love to talk to you about the show, but I don’t think either of us particularly thought this was going to be an interview about our own personal views and opinions.”

Oh, but we don’t do interviews that are just about the show. Surely, I think to myself, they must realise journalism is not the same as public relations. The joy of interviewing person-to-person, even remotely, is that you learn something, hopefully new, about that person. Readers want to know more about those behind the art and their inspirations.

Lewis: Ginny, there’s been a misunderstanding. I was very clear that I wasn’t doing any profiles and it’s starting to feel a bit like a profile, so… Peter, will you forgive me, I’ve got to go at quarter past, so I’m going to jump off and leave you with Peter, who’s…

Kosminsky: You pop off, Damian.

Lewis: “…very eloquent about the show, which is the best way to go forward.”

Kosminsky: “OK, mate, good talking to you.”

I’m very pleased to speak to you, Peter, but this is not how I do interviews.

Kosminsky: “I’m not trying to be difficult, Ginny. I love your journalism.”

But then you know my approach?

“There’s nothing wrong with asking these questions. They’ve just taken Damian and me by surprise and, as I say, we’re both quite private people. But ask the questions and I’ll see if I can answer them.”

It’s Cromwell (Kosminsky) again doing damage control for Henry (Lewis).

It’s amusing in a way to consider that in the books and the series Henry VIII is sort of the minor figure; all our interest is focused on clever Cromwell, played by Mark Rylance.

“Henry’s not a minor figure in history, of course; he’s a far greater figure for every single one of us who was educated in England. And although Cromwell is the central character in the way you say, his entire life is defined by how the hell you deal with this seriously capricious,ungovernable individual. I mean, Henry killed off all the various people who served him.

Hilary told me it needed to feel of the moment and real

“Cromwell wasn’t the only one and he spent ten years trying to survive and make some changes that he thought were important in English society at that time. So, yes, it all starts and ends with Cromwell, but Cromwell’s life is defined by Henry.”

The Mirror and the Light covers the last four years of Cromwell’s life, from 1536 to 1540. “What’s interesting is that it’s [almost] ten years since the last television series and the two series cover a ten-year period in Thomas Cromwell’s life from when he comes to the attention of Henry VIII to the point where Henry VIII executes him.

“Hilary Mantel’s brilliance was to take someone who has always been portrayed as a villain, a doer of evil from Elizabethan times, and after five years of research, before she put pen to paper, say, ‘Hang on, this person has their own story, and they were the hero of their own lives.’

“The one thing she taught me was that these people don’t know they are figures in history. Anne Boleyn doesn’t know she is going to be one of six [the new series begins with scenes of her on the way to her execution and Henry marrying Jane Seymour]. She does not know that she is going to be beheaded by a swordsman from Calais. And obviously for us, the story ends the moment Cromwell is extinguished.”

It’s clearly still painful for Kosminsky to have lost someone whose friendship, as well as working partnership, meant so much to him.

Mantel, who had suffered ill health most of her life, died in September 2022, aged 70, from complications in the aftermath of a stroke that struck her down three days earlier. The last part of the Cromwell trilogy had been published two and a half years earlier in March 2020. Mantel was open about how the original television series, adapted from the first two novels in the series, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, had influenced her writing of the last book – she even sent Kosminsky sections of it, in 100-page instalments, as she completed them for his comments.

When Kosminsky was first approached to direct the BBC adaptation he thought that it was a wind-up “and so it was already a matter of some astonishment that I would be entrusted with something like this”. Kosminsky, at this point, was a respected maker of dramas about big issues that had their roots in real life. “But then to develop a close relationship with a literary genius, a double Booker Prize winner, an ex-documentary-maker like myself, I had to pinch myself, really.

“But then she said to me, ‘I always imagined this shot with a hand-held camera, almost as if the boom dropped into shot from time to time… It shouldn’t be a stuffy, proscenium-arch costume drama. It needs to feel of the moment and real.’ Then I started to think that I did legitimately have a role here.”

He goes on to say that the writer was never precious about her “much garlanded” material. “Her attitude was, ‘I’m here to act as a resource for you. Ask me what you want.’ And she would respond to emails within a couple of hours maximum, at great length and in great detail as we were preparing the show.”

The script work by Peter Straughan had all been done when Mantel died. “It was a horrible shock, so completely out of the blue. She was a close friend and we were all devastated. And this was her last completed novel – and probably the acme of her working life – so you feel the weight of responsibility to bring that last novel to the screen in a way that she would have been pleased with and that’s what I have been living and breathing for the last ten years.”

I can see your emotion. “Well, yes, I miss her. We missed her every day of the shoot when we couldn’t consult with her or check in with her. It’s been tough, but not as tough as for her family, obviously.”

Just as it is a close relationship with a writer, it’s the same with an actor, he says: “It’s almost a love affair, Ginny.”

When the actors are cast, it’s not a question of asking them to do the lines a bit faster. “You’re talking about emotion, you’re peeling away the layers of the onion and saying, ‘Where’s that line coming from? What’s the emotional drive behind that line?’

Mark Rylance received a Bafta for his Cromwell in the first series of Wolf Hall, but Kosminsky thinks this second part will be the actor’s defining role. “The original, where he got so many accolades, is the story of a man on the rise with nothing to lose; a man who is almost on the streets who sees an opportunity and grasps it with both hands. It’s a real exercise in chutzpah.

“But The Mirror and the Light is something different. In the original, Cromwell was the rebel fighting the establishment, clawing his way up and clawing them aside. In this series, he is the establishment and the only way is down. And he falls spectacularly.

“I can’t speak for actors – although they are my life’s study – but I would have thought to play developing darkness, developing despair, clinging on with your fingertips, is a more challenging experience than playing the rambunctious rise. And I think this is the most powerful performance ever by Sir Mark Rylance, as I should call him, who rises to the challenge brilliantly.

“You get very close to these people. They trust you to go on that journey with them. So your emotions are engaged and if they are hurting, if they’re down – and Cromwell goes down a very dark tunnel in this series – my job was to go down that tunnel with Mark. And, yes, of course it has an impact. You don’t just take that off like an overcoat and go off for a beer. You know, it ripples on.”

There’s so much respect, and tenderness almost, here between the director and his actors who are trying to create something worthwhile. Which is, in the end, what we are all trying to do: shed some light on the mirror.