Henry Cavill's Breakout Role Came In A Historical Drama Series 12 Years Before The Witcher

Fans of Henry Cavill probably know the actor best for his role as Superman in Zack Snyder's DC films or Geralt of Rivia in Netflix's video game adaptation "The Witcher" (or, potentially, as a mustachioed villain in "Mission: Impossible – Fallout"). Unless you're a history buff, you might not know that Cavill played a pivotal supporting role in the historical drama "The Tudors," which aired on Showtime from 2007 to 2010. Specifically, he played Charles Brandon, the first-ever Duke of Suffolk and a major player in the Tudor court.

For the uninitiated, "The Tudors" centers around the rise, reign, and fall of King Henry VIII (played in this series by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), one of England's most notorious kings — and one of my "favorite" historical figures. Personally, I find Henry himself odious; he was a pampered, corpulent, and vengeful orange-haired man with petty grievances and even pettier reactions who was never supposed to be king, but was forced into the position after his older brother Arthur Tudor died (leaving his wife, Catherine of Aragon from Spain, available to wed the new boy king Henry). That said, I love Henry's wives equally.

Henry very famously had six wives, and there's even a rhyme to keep track of them and their fates — "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived." Though this is a diminutive and dismissive way to refer to the many wives that Henry belittled, brutalized, and even killed in some instances — specifically, Catherine, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr, played on "The Tudors" by Maria Doyle Kennedy, Natalie Dormer, Anita Briem & Annabelle Wallis, Joss Stone, Tamzin Merchant, and Joely Richardson, respectively — it does get the point across.

That's a lot of context, so how does Charles Brandon fit into Henry's life and various marriages? He happens to be the king's very best friend, even though he does enrage Henry by marrying a woman he loves (who just so happens to be Henry's sister). Allow me to explain further.

So what role does Henry Cavill's Charles Brandon play in the fictional Tudor court depicted on "The Tudors?" (I call it "fictional" because, even though it's ostensibly based on real history, "The Tudors" bears little resemblance to the likely reality; for starters, Jonathan Rhys-Davies never gets enormous and disgusting enough to properly portray Henry, who was morbidly obese and had a leg wound that wouldn't stop oozing pus by the end of his life.) Throughout four seasons of "The Tudors," Cavill's Charles is a vital character, and here are the basics of his storyline.

Despite being Henry VIII's closest lifelong friend — and perhaps his only true friend after he was crowned king — Charles finds himself in a sticky situation after he falls in love with Henry's widowed sister, Princess Margaret Tudor (Gabrielle Anwar), and quietly marries her. Enraged, Henry banishes both Margaret and Charles from court but does ultimately welcome them back into the fold; unfortunately, Charles, like many men of the Tudor era, can't keep it in his pants, and his marriage to Margaret is constantly affected by his infidelity. In the series, Margaret dies from tuberculosis in season 1, and Charles repents for his extramarital affairs at her deathbed. Throughout the rest of the series, Brandon is mostly Henry's right hand, though he does remarry — wedding his ward Catherine Willoughby (played by Rebekah Wainwright in the first three seasons and Marcella Plunkett in the final season). He still can't stay faithful to his wife, though, and when he falls ill and dies in the fourth and final season, Catherine Willoughby and his French mistress Brigitte Rousselot (Selma Brook) mourn him.

The biggest historical inaccuracy here is that Charles Brandon did not marry Margaret Tudor. Henry VIII had two sisters, and "The Tudors" sort of combines them into a single person. Charles actually married Mary Tudor, Henry's other sister. Other than that, I don't have time to get into all of the historical inaccuracies found on "The Tudors," so let's talk about Cavill some more.

After "The Tudors" ended in 2010, Henry Cavill was in demand, but he mostly worked on the big screen; in fact, he didn't work in TV again for nearly a full decade. In 2011, Cavill appeared in the fantasy film "Immortals" and the action thriller "The Cold Light of Day" a year later, but his biggest post-"Tudors" break came in 2013 when he snagged the role of Superman in Zack Snyder's DC Extended Universe film "Man of Steel." Alongside Snyder, Cavill went on to play the titular Man of Steel in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," "Justice League," and the revamped and highly demanded "Zack Snyder's Justice League," alongside smaller appearances in "Black Adam" and "The Flash." (In 2025, Cavill was "replaced" by David Corenswet in James Gunn's rebooted "Superman," but saw fit to give the actor some advice.)

When Cavill wasn't playing Superman, he popped up in the aforementioned "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" as well as "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," "Argylle," and "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare," and he also joined a budding film franchise on Netflix. In the first "Enola Holmes" movie, Cavill plays Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective Sherlock Holmes — but this time, Sherlock plays second fiddle to the story's real heroine Enola, portrayed by "Stranger Things" breakout Millie Bobby Brown. (Sam Claflin plays the family's third brilliant sibling, Mycroft Holmes.) Cavill reprised the role in "Enola Holmes 2," so he's probably not quite done playing this British icon just yet.

If you want to relive Cavill's time as Charles Brandon on "The Tudors," the series is streaming on Paramount+ with Showtime now.