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    Nicholas Galitzine Wants to Prove He’s More Than Just a Pretty Face

    Known for playing princes and their modern equivalents, this British actor hopes his steamy new drama, “Mary & George,” will change how Hollywood sees him.“I’ve often found that the way people see me is very different from how I see myself,” Nicholas Galitzine said. “People attribute a pristineness to me.”This was on a recent morning in a rococo hotel room, just west of Madison Square Park. (How rococo? Imagine Fragonard macrodosing on psilocybin.) Galitzine, who recently relocated from London to Los Angeles, was in New York for a few days to promote “Mary & George,” a steamy historical drama in which he stars as George Villiers, the ambitious lover of King James I. It premieres Friday on Starz. Next month, he will also appear as Hayes, a boy-band sensation in an age-gap romance, in the giddy Amazon rom-com “The Idea of You.”Boyishly handsome, with lips like plumped throw pillows and a jawline that is frankly ridiculous, Galitzine, 29, is often cast as princes (“Cinderella,” “Red, White & Royal Blue”), straight and gay, or as modern-day prince equivalents — a pop phenom, a football star. That’s how Hollywood has seen him: patrician, elegant.“Refined, maybe, is a word,” he said. (That upmarket English accent? It helps.) But refined is not an adjective he applies. He described himself instead as “chaotic,” as “messy,” which princes aren’t always allowed to be.“That’s a tricky thing sometimes, playing princes and people expecting that,” he said. “The reality is very different.”In the Starz period drama “Mary & George,” Julianne Moore and Galitzine play a scheming mother and son.StarzWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    In “Mary and George,” Julianne Moore Is a Scheming Mom

    In the historical drama “Mary and George,” new on Starz, Julianne Moore plays an ambitious mother whose son catches the eye of King James I of England.Standing in a shadowy archway on a bridge leading into Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire, England, sheep nibbling the grass below, Julianne Moore curtsied deeply, lowering her eyes before a splendidly gowned woman. “Your Majesty,” she began, before being drowned out by a loud “baa” from the sheep. Moore burst out laughing, as did her fellow actress, Trine Dyrholm, who was playing Queen Anne of England. “Talk to the sheep!” Moore commanded the director, Oliver Hermanus. “Tell them we’re doing a TV mini-series!”That mini-series is the visually sumptuous, seven-part “Mary and George,” strewn with sex scenes that look like Caravaggio paintings and riddled with all the good things: intrigue, scheming, cunning and villainy. The show, which premieres on Starz on April 5, was inspired by Benjamin Woolley’s 2018 nonfiction book, “The King’s Assassin,” and tells the mostly true tale of Mary Villiers (Moore), a minor 17th-century aristocrat with major ambitions, and her ridiculously handsome son, George (Nicholas Galitzine), who she uses as a path to power and riches at the court of King James I (Tony Curran).James likes ridiculously handsome young men. “The king,” says Mary’s new husband, Lord Compton, “is a dead-eyed, horny-handed horror who surrounds himself with many deceitful well-hung beauties.”From left: Laurie Davidson as the Earl of Somerset, Tony Curran as King James I and Trine Dyrholm as Queen Anne.StarzGeorge’s ascent isn’t easy: Mary must get the current favorite, the Earl of Somerset (Laurie Davidson), out of the way; forge and break alliances; and murder the odd opponent. George, naïve and insecure, must learn how to deploy his beauty and charm. But over the course of the series, George becomes a powerful political figure, with Mary a formidable, frequently antagonistic, presence alongside him.“These are people who use sex not just for intimacy and relationship building, but for power, as a transaction,” Moore said in a video interview. “The most compelling thing to me about Mary was that she was very aware of how limited her choices were. She had no autonomy, her only paths are through the men she is married to, or her sons.” George, she said, “is almost her proxy; he has access to a world she doesn’t have.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More