Alicia Vikander on playing Katherine Parr and Jude Law's "horrendous" stench

But that could well change thanks to the release of the new film Firebrand, which has just arrived in UK cinemas and sees Oscar-winning Swedish actress Alicia Vikander take on the lead role (opposite Jude Law's brilliantly disgusting Henry VIII).

The film is directed by Brazilian auteur Karim Aïnouz, and aside from an interest in peeling back the layers of Parr's story itself, it was his involvement that made the prospect an especially tantalising one for Vikander, as she explains during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com.

"I was quite intrigued just to figure out what this combo would be like," she says. "Him taking on this extremely British piece of history, with his very big, charismatic, Brazilian, Latin, colourful temperament that he has with both himself and his films."

The fact that, like her, Aïnouz was an outsider to British history also endeared her to the project, and this was something which formed the basis of their early discussions.

And although they were both keen to do as much research as possible to fill in the gaps in their knowledge, Vikander reckons that the film might have ended up rather differently had it been made by English creatives.

"That was actually part of our first conversation, where we both kind of like, 'I don't know much,'" she says. "Obviously, we were very serious about wanting to then do as much preparation work and read up on this piece of history, because we wanted to tell it with accuracy – or at least knowing the history, so we could make choices deliberately when we made the film.

"But then I was thinking, if it had been a part of Swedish history that I did spend a lot of time reading about in school growing up, I probably would have had this kind of weight on my shoulders, have felt this kind of unspoken responsibility to maybe treat history a certain way.

"And I think us not having that gave us a bit of a fresh point of view, and hopefully did take us down a different path whilst making our film."

The film certainly takes viewers down some interesting paths, deviating from history – or at least the historical record as we know it – on a number of occasions throughout its runtime.

One scene at the very end of the film, which we won't give away here, provides an especially novel view of events, so what does Vikander think of some of those choices?

"It was interesting, because, actually, we just don't know," she says. "Even in the parts, the moments in the film where the story takes quite... you know, goes with ideas... that's also places where there's no record of actually what did happen.

"What I thought was just amazing is that that is the case: if you have something that happened 500 years ago, most of the history books that we read, or the people that we met who knew so much about this era, you realise that it's all kind of based on certain facts, and then even historians have to do their own bit of creative imagination."

Aside from Aïnouz's involvement, one of the big pulls to the project for Vikander was the fact that Jude Law was already attached to play Henry VIII. She describes him as an "extraordinary actor", and says that she instantly knew he was going to do "something quite new and brilliant" with the role.

And it also allowed her the opportunity to reminisce about one of her very first major film roles, playing Kitty in Joe Wright's 2012 adaptation of Anna Karenina, which also starred Law as Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin.

"I have seen him briefly over the years, but it's also been such a wonderful thing – I had such memories of when I worked with him," she recalls.

"It was him and Keira Knightley, two actors that I couldn't really believe that I was in the same room as, and we had quite a long rehearsal period, and they were like, the most professional, kindest [people].

"[They] saw people who were new in the room... and this is one of those things that they won't remember, but as the young and new person in the room, it just changes everything."

This time around, she and Law had "quite a few days" of preparation together, in which they tried to find "a different angle" to Henry and Katherine's relationship, diving deeper into their domestic arrangements than previous adaptations.

But there was one aspect of Law's preparation process that particularly sticks out – and led to a couple of uproarious moments on set later down the line.

"He has a perfume maker in London," Vikander explains. "Who apparently – I thought it was kind of brilliant – very often creates smells for his roles. And he actually gave me a Katherine smell, which was something with lavender - it smelled very good in comparison to his.

"But then he also asked for a favour from this perfumer to make one that resembled all the kind of... his leg ulcer, you know, the open wound, the puss, and the blood and the stench. I mean, it was absolutely horrendous!"

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She continues: "It's interesting to see when a smell actually makes people physically gag, and you can't control it. So, we had one time in a take when Karim, who just loved that box, was, like, running around [spraying the scent]... he loved seeing everyone just go under, and suddenly we just saw something wobble.

"And it was a camera operator who obviously... it was a very intense scene, so obviously, you know, the poor guy doesn't want to ruin the shot. Because everyone else is, like, giving their all, and suddenly he just, like, falls and went down on the floor!"

The scent might be the most extreme example, but there were other ways, too, in which those involved in the production tried to make the film feel as authentic to the period as possible.

For example, there were various consultants on set – some of whom, quite incredibly, had lived as Tudors for as long as six months – who gave their expert advice in a number of different areas.

"It's interesting, because I think, especially with costume dramas, there's a certain kind of... like, Victorian aspect of the British Empire that still kind of is quite present," Vikander says. "Which is quite formal, stuck-up, you know, a certain kind of way.

"And then, when you met these Tudor experts, what they wanted to tell you is, like, 'No, no! This is so kind of gritty and robust and this is how... they eat, obviously, with their hands. They sang like this. They s**t like that. The priest would say, you need rigorous sex to have a strong son.'

"You know, it's very different, the kind of temperament of the royal court back then than what it was maybe 250 years, 300 years later."

Another element which helped turn the filming process into rather an immersive experience was the decision to shoot entirely on location at Haddon Hall – a country estate near Bakewell in Derbyshire which has been used for a number of film and TV productions over the years, including The Princess Bride and the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice.

Vikander and Law even had their green rooms in the basement, rather than the more traditional method of using a trailer outside, and this all contributed to making the shoot a very memorable one.

"I think [it helps] when you have a 360 place, and especially when you try and fool yourself that you're going back in time to be in a place," she says.

"So many films have shot there because it's one of the few places where film crews are allowed, where they actually can do 360 sets. And that was very much how Karim liked to work – with the smells, where there was, like, food on set, the animals, the children, you know. So, to have that little bit of magic when you step on set."

Of course, aside from all these technical aspects, one of the keys of the film is putting Katherine Parr more firmly on the map. As the last of Henry VIII's six wives – and, of course, the only one who outlived him – Parr is an extremely important woman in British history, and, as mentioned above, both Vikander and Aïnouz felt that she has sometimes been neglected by the history books.

Indeed, although Vikander initially assumed that it might be her own position as an outsider to the UK which made her a little ignorant on the topic of Parr's life, she soon found out that British friends and colleagues felt the same way.

"I think [with] that era, you almost kind of get... you know, it seems like you become jaded, because it was such tough times," she says. "And you're like, 'Oh, and then there was another head that rolled, and then another person died.'

"And that was kind of a thing that dawned on all of us, because when you suddenly stand there, you obviously tell it from these people's point of view, and the kind of human aspect of what it must have been like to be in these rooms, to be a woman at that time was pretty tough to experience."

When she began reading history books and meeting historians, Vikander soon realised that "everyone seemed to really admire this woman". She learned that despite not having any children of her own, she was "a fantastic mother figure" to Elizabeth I, and despite having some "quite controversial ideas", she was also a "good Christian".

"She obviously spent quite a few years being married to this man, and she managed to not only just keep herself alive around him, but actually even managed to publish these thoughts and [become] the first woman in British history to be published under her own name."

She adds: "I think what actually was quite a big moment for me in my preparation was I heard all these pretty extraordinary things about her, but obviously I'm portraying a human being, and in the same way that I heard Jude tried to humanise this beast, it was not until I read parts of the texts that she's published, and suddenly there's flavours and nuances there of a woman who kind of talked about 'the petty people', you know, about how she's kind of closer to God, how she probably should have the right to spend tons of money on expensive [things].

"And, like, to have that kind of connection through the words with a woman who lived 500 years ago was pretty remarkable. And it kind of hit me whilst reading it, and suddenly I was thinking, 'What is the oldest text I've read from a woman?'

"And something I realised was all the texts that I can think of that are more than 500 years old... I've never been close to reading a female point of view. So that itself was kind of a very powerful moment."

When it comes to watching the film, Vikander's first wish is that people simply enjoy watching the story unfold. But she also does hope it can help bring Katherine Parr to the forefront, and perhaps allows even a portion of its audience to go on a similar journey of discovery as she did herself.

"I was almost embarrassed that I didn't know much about this woman and what's been accomplished," she says. "One thing that happened to me when I read the script was that I probably had, like, a couple of hours of binging Wikipedia and other websites to try and just... like, wow, how come I don't know anything?

"I wanted to learn more. And if anyone has the same experience doing that after the film, then that would be fantastic."

Firebrand is playing now in UK cinemas.

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