Sweet Charity

The actress, who grew up near Bexhill, East Sussex, has crossed the Atlantic for auditions during the period known as “pilot season”, but she says one of the great things is avoiding the worst of the British cold weather.

Wolf Hall, the six-part television series also starring Damian Lewis and Mark Rylance, has been adapted for the BBC from the historical novel by Booker Prize-winning Hilary Mantel, and has so far received rave reviews.

Set in the Tudor period, it is the story of the rise of Thomas Cromwell to become Henry VIII’s closest advisor.

Charity plays Mary Boleyn, sister to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, and herself a former mistress of the king.

“I have been pleased to hear how well it is going. When you do something that you really love, there’s always a slight danger that it might not get received as well as you hope.

“I’m really proud of it.”

Wolf Hall is regarded as quite a complex and difficult book, with a multitude of characters, and I ask Charity how this translates to the screen.

“It’s one step easier than the book, but it’s still very challenging. But then that appeals to some people.

“We as a cast did a lot of work together; we had a week of rehearsals and you don’t always get that in TV.

“It was quite a theatrical experience; a lot of effort was made to get everyone in the same room.”

Emphasis was placed on learning how the characters would have lived at the time – including ways of eating, walking, and the social conventions of the time, including behaviour at court, says Charity, adding that once the cameras are in place and filming has started, there is little time to talk about it.

“You have your own ideas of your character and then when you work with other people to get the piece together, it solidifies everything.”

Costume is extremely helpful for actors in terms of getting into character and even more so in the case of Wolf Hall, as the women of the time wore extremely heavy, corseted clothing.

“The clothing really set men and women apart,” says Charity, adding that it was not only the clothing that restricted Tudor women.

“I was playing a woman at court, whose experience was unlike that of an ordinary working woman, but the main thing is that women to a degree were quite powerless.

“At that time they were not allowed to have positions of authority, though women were in the background to many decisions [taken by those in power], and at the very top they were educated.

“In that sense I’m really pleased I wasn’t born at that time.”

A lot of other productions have leant heavily on portraying life during the Tudor period, says Charity, but Wolf Hall centres around political intrigue, and reflects the lengths that the book’s author Hilary Mantel goes to, to reveal historical detail.

“In that sense it is so well researched and so specific; Peter Kosminsky (the director) comes from a documentary background.”

Wolf Hall was filmed in 2014 on location at a number of period properties around the country.

Charity spent her early years in Sussex and attended Bexhill College before studying at the Oxford School of Drama, and says that she still has family in Sussex.

Her first professional acting role was in fact in Brighton in 2003, just before she graduated from the Oxford School of Drama.

It was with the company Theatre & Beyond at Komedia; six short plays written in response to the war in Iraq.

“It was an amazing first job, I got to meet six different writers and six directors, and it was special because it was about something happening right at that time. We did a Q&A after every single one.

“I felt like I learned so much.

“I think Brighton’s such a great place for theatre and new work – it really embraces new things.”

Charity has since worked in theatre, film, television and radio, in a wide range of roles.

Television credits include the role of Marianne Dashwood in the BBC mini-series of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility in 2008, and the critically- acclaimed Channel 4 drama Any Human Heart in 2010.

She starred in Candida at the Theatre Royal Bath in 2013, and has had many other theatre roles including These Shining Lives at the Finsbury Park Theatre and The Cherry Orchard at the National Theatre.

To show Charity’s career is heading in the right direction, she was recently featured as one of the rising stars by InStyle magazine participating in photoshoot with photographer and artist Ernesto Artillo.

However, Charity never set out with the single-minded vision of becoming an actor. She was keen right from the beginning to keep her options open, and although acting is her main career, she has many other creative strings to her bow.

For example, Charity also has experience behind the camera as a producer, and has almost completed work on a short film, Wraps, about women who are in recovery from heroin addiction.

Her first documentary short film, Memento Vitae, was selected for The London Short Film Festival last year.

As if this wasn’t enough, Charity also runs a vintage shop, Charlie Foxtrot, in south-east London, with her friend Frances Millar.

Wolf Hall is due to be broadcast in the USA in April, and Charity is confident it will be just as popular over there.

“I hope it will be received very well; there’s already a huge following for the books and the theatre production has gone to Broadway, and they have absolutely loved it.”

She says she feels able to look at Wolf Hall from a slightly detached perspective, as hers is one of many characters in the story.

“There are so many characters, I feel like there’s so much more than my character’s world in it. When you are the main character it’s really hard to be objective.”

• See Charity Wakefield next in Wolf Hall on February 25 on BBC Two at 9pm, or on BBC iPlayer.