Damian Lewis about....

It's no wonder we grow up believing Henry VIII left England and his six wives All Shook Up.

Because Wolf Hall Damian Lewis thinks school history lessons have taught us he was just like a very different King – Elvis Presley in his final years.

Now the Homeland star, who plays Henry in the BBC2 drama, wants us to take a different view of the Tudor tyrant – as a sensitive, talented athlete who loved his mum.

Damian says: “I think we all have this understanding that Henry was this womanising, syphilitic, bloated, genocidal Elvis character.

“But actually the truth is very different. He had a 32inch waist and remained that way for a long time.

“He spoke three languages, wrote poetry and at 6ft 3in tall he was the pre-eminent athlete of his generation, a brilliant jouster and archer.”

Damian Lewis says a jousting injury that ended the king’s sporting days and his desperate quest for a son and heir turned him bad.

“He started to eat and wallow in self pity about his predicament,” says the star.

“He sort-of ended up like Elvis, just growing fat, having been this beautiful, brilliant man, this performer, much like Elvis. He just ate too many hamburgers, you know.

"He’s said to have eaten 13 meals a day at times. I think his increasing megalomania and paranoia created more of the monster we’re used to knowing.”

Damian also reckons Henry is much maligned over his women troubles.

“He was a man who was rather sensitive, not this sex maniac. A man who believed in a rather old-fashioned romantic love. I think a strong influence in his life was his mum,” he says.

Damian, 43, spoke during a break in filming on the set of Wolf Hall.

Based on Hilary Mantell’s novel, it also stars Mark Rylance as shadowy Tudor “fixer” Thomas Cromwell and Clare Foy as the King’s second wife Anne Boleyn.

After four years in the States playing Marine Sgt Nicholas Brody in Homeland he jumped at the chance to work with 55-year-old Mark.

He says: “Mark was a big draw for me. I’m a huge fan of his and chance to work with him was exciting.”