Original-Cin Q&A: My Lady Jane's 'Royal Parents' Rob Brydon & Anna Chancellor on Cracking Up Royally
The new Prime Video period-piece series, My Lady Jane is set in the world of “what if.”
Inspired by the best-selling novel by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand and Jodi Meadows, the comedic series explores an alternate history centering on Lady Jane Grey, the Tudor noblewoman who briefly claimed the English and Irish throne in 1553, a spell which earned her the nickname the 'Nine-Day Queen'.
Unlike Jane's very real beheading, in this story, the damsel in distress saves herself.
It stars newcomer Emily Bader as Jane and Edward Bluemel as her beloved, Lord Guilford Dudley.
Rob Brydon as Jane’s scheming father-in-law.
Also starring in the series are veterans Rob Brydon (known of late for The Trip series of comic mockumentaries with Steve Coogan) as Guilfrod’s father John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, and Anna Chancellor as Jane’s mother Francis Grey, the Duchess of Suffolk.
Bonnie Laufer spoke with Brydon and Chancellor about letting loose for this historical comedy.
All eight episodes of MY LADY JANE are now streaming on Prime Video
CLICK HERE to watch Bonnie’s Interview with stars Emily Bader and Edward Bluemel
CLICK HERE to watch Bonnie’s interview with Creator/Showrunner Gemma Burgess and Showrunner Meredith Glynn
Jane’s mother, Anna Chancellor, suffering a young suitor
ORIGINAL-CIN: Greetings from Toronto. Rob, I remember interviewing you here during the film festival a number of years ago (2005) for your film Tristram Shandy.
ROB BRYDON: I remember that festival so well. And what was exciting about that was I'd never been to the film festival before. I arrived after a long flight and then a long car journey. I checked in, and I made my way to the elevator, and as I was about to get in, the door opened, and who stepped out, Pierce Brosnan, while he was still James Bond! I think that was exciting.
ORIGINAL-CIN: Very exciting. You never know who is going to walk out of an elevator at the Toronto Film Festival! Also exciting, is this new series, My Lady Jane. You are both so good in it.
And Anna, I want to start with you, because I would think after reading the script and knowing you were going to play Lady Francis Grey, you were rubbing your hands with glee at how awful she is.
ANNA CHANCELLOR: Yes, I was, I just couldn't believe my luck. It was so fun. Add in the period costumes that we got to wear, the ridiculous wigs, the people we got to work with… I was blessed. I am blessed. It was the most fun and the perfect role to play!
O-C: Rob, you play Lord Dudley, he’s an interesting character. Do you see him as a good dad or a bad dad? What do you think?
BRYDON: Well, he's a bit like all of us, isn't he? He's a little bit good, mostly bad. It's quite interesting with him, isn't it, because I think that there's a good heart in there somewhere, but he can't stop himself.
He's having to scheme for the survival of his family. He doesn't have as much money as people think he has. What's nice is that he’s not just a villain in a cloak. There is occasionally a softness, and that's what makes it so appealing.
O-C: My heart warmed to him as the series went on.
BRYDON: Isn't that interesting? That's great. For a character to have that development, you may almost want to use the word arc, and please feel free, it's a journey, it's an arc, it's a development.
O-C; Anna, you were just mentioning the costumes and the sets and the cast and all of the animals, it looked like organized chaos.
CHANCELLOR: Well, you get to work early, and then you're in the makeup chair, and they're putting your wig on, and that can take ages. And sometimes it hasn't set properly.
It's quite precarious just getting yourself ready for your scenes. It takes maybe a good 20 minutes just to get you into the costume and then you've got to get into a car. The women had to have special cars. We had to have bloody vans because our dresses were too big and flowy and if it was hot!
So almost, technically, just to get yourself in a costume on set was sort of a feat. But then once we were on set, we were always really pleased.
I know everyone says this, but we genuinely were always really pleased to see each other, and we always had fun things to do. It wasn't like you felt, “Oh my God, we've got this really long, interminable, boring, difficult scene to do.” It was always fun for us, all of us.
O-C: Rob, given your comedic background, how much freedom did you have in terms of improvisation? According to your co-stars, anyone who had scenes with you could not keep it together.
CHANCELLOR: Whenever we had Rob on set, the director would say to him, “Do your lines from the script and then say yours.”
BRYDON: Yeah, they were very appreciative of any improvisation and for me, that's a gift. So I’d get to say the lines as they're written, which were brilliant lines. But I will often have ideas where, I'd love to say something else because it's probably going to be quirkier.
CHANCELLOR: But Rob, when you start improvising, it's not even like you know what you're going to say, it's unbelievable.
BRYDON: Oh, thank you. With it being an ensemble cast you never know what to expect because you get a different bunch of actors to play off of in each scene.
So I may have been doing scenes with Anna or maybe with Dominic Cooper and so, and I get this vibe with these people to just play off of. It was never an overwhelming workload. It was just perfect, enough to really get in and make your mark, get some laughs.
I don't know if they intentionally wrote it so that it was never too much, but it was achievable for you to always be in a good mood.
CHANCELLOR: You wouldn't think that was one of the most important things, but to keep everyone really engaged is not so easy when you're filming, and when you do 35 takes of the same scene. We never got bored or distracted, it really was all so much fun.
O-C: Anna, you really must have had a lot of fun because Lady Frances is quite naughty.
BRYDON: (Turns to Anna) Was that a stretch for you?
CHANCELLOR: No! (Laughs) You mean, she's quite voracious? She was quite a horny old gal! I mean, wasn't it funny the way this really good-looking, very young guy is crazy about her and she can't be quite bothered, but just wants him for sex. A dream role!
O-C: Can we talk about some of the younger cast, especially Emily Bader who plays Lady Jane! She is absolutely wonderful in the role and I had no idea that she wasn’t British.
BRYDON: I mean, my goodness, yeah. For the first few months, I didn’t know either! So when I first met her, she spoke with a perfect English accent all the time on the set and she would keep that accent.
When she started to talk towards the end of the shoot, she would occasionally go American, I was very discombobulated. It seemed like a totally different person.
CHANCELLOR: I was the same! I didn't recognize her because she was, like Rob said, always speaking with a British accent. One day she was just sitting on the floor, chatting to somebody in her natural accent, and I didn't know who she was. We are all so proud of her. She is absolutely superb in the role and carries this series beautifully.
O-C: As we discover early on in the series, some of the characters can turn themselves into an animal. They are called Ethians. I personally don't think it would be such a bad thing. Rob, what animal would you be?
BRYDON: I'd be a golden retriever, because I have a golden retriever. They're my favorite dogs, and I think as long as I had a good owner, it would be a wonderful life.
CHANCELLOR: I think I’d like to be a bird. In particular, a crane. I like their long legs and I think they’re kind of funny looking.
O-C: Rob, during the pandemic you started a podcast. How are you enjoying that process?
BRYDON: Well, actually, I did Emily Bader yesterday, which will come out shortly. It's interesting, but I am enjoying myself.
I originally went from Drama school to radio as a radio presenter, so I have a background for doing it.
I've done variety and I've done some talk shows, so it wasn’t something I wasn’t familiar with. However, the serious answer to your question is that it can sometimes be difficult to get the balance right.
With social media, I find out real fast who is interested and who isn’t. You'll never be able to please everybody. Some people expect me to ask the question and then shut up. I like to get more of a conversation going. But sometimes, when you're used to answering the questions, you're used to there being a value in how much you don't just give one word answers, that you're entertaining.
So that's the interesting side of it for me. I gauge it from interview to interview. In some I'll deliberately say to my guest, I'm not going to say much in this and let them take it away. I'm really going to be like a traditional interviewer, and then in others I might over-engage. But, you know, we live in this age now where you read the comments for everything, and you'll never please everybody.
In the past, you didn't know, because they would be a general perception. But you wouldn't get immediate, direct and sometimes hateful comments. It would just be talk in a pub, you know? But, it's a fun thing to do, and I've done some really lovely ones, and I'm quite proud of having that sort of catalog of work.
O-C: Anna, your career spans many decades and some wonderful performances. But do you still get recognized for your role in Four Weddings And A Funeral? It was classic!
CHANCELLOR: Oh yes, I'm very grateful to (the character of) Duck Face, and I have no problem with that. Yeah, people still come up to me and quite honestly it's lovely.
O-C: And finally Rob, are we going to see any more Trip movies with your pal, Steve Coogan?
BRYDON: We've always said we might. When we finished the last one, which was about four or five years ago just pre pandemic, we said that maybe if we waited about 10 years we would venture out for another one.
And if God willing, Steve was still alive, it would be a nice thing to do. So I think it's now dependent on Steve's health.