Natalie Dormer in Anne Boleyn's shoes

Any seasoned actor will tell you it’s harder to play a true-to-life, historical character than a fictional one. You have to be faithful to the real McCoy. It’s not only because it’s your job, it’s also because you’re up against facts no amount of artistic embellishment can alter.

Natalie Dormer never forgot this the whole time she was playing the feisty Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII’s powerful second wife in HBO Signature’s The Tudors (premieres Monday, Sept. 8, 10 p.m). Natalie knows she’s up against the forces of history. She can’t hide or run away from it. And she has big shoes to fill.

So she did what an actor worth her salt should do: she rolled up her sleeves and researched. Natalie pored over history books, visited the castle where Anne was born, the palace where she lived, the spooky site of her execution in Ireland.

“The jail in Ireland where Anne was executed had an eerie energy to it because of all the things that happened there. It had a haunted feel to it,” recalls Natalie.

Getting into character was easy from then on.

It also helped that Natalie turned incidents of childhood bullying into sources of strength the way Anne parried her political critics with steely determination.

Like Anne, Natalie’s effortless elegance shines on screen. Hers is a regal, luminous bearing fit for the king’s most charismatic wife.

But it’s an imperfect world. Natalie is no carbon copy of her character. And that’s where the challenge comes in.

At 26 (she was 25 when filming the second season of The Tudors), Natalie has yet to experience motherhood. Rich as her acting background is, Natalie has never played a mom – until The Tudors, that is. Remember, Anne gave the king an heiress: Elizabeth.

Natalie turned to real-life mothers on the set: makeup artists, the wardrobe staff, etc. And what she found out amazed Natalie so much she only has superlatives to describe it.

“It was an epiphany,” she gushes. “What happens to a woman when she becomes a mom is sheer selflessness (on her part) for her child. You’re not the most important thing anymore. I learned about being a mother.”

She also learned a lot about making physical adjustments. Five months of wearing a corset under her elaborate costume made Natalie turn to yoga and swimming to relax those uptight muscles.

After all, a corset is not exactly the most comfortable thing to wear, on the set or out of it.

 Natalie says she was “pushed and pulled in different areas.” That’s not all. She had to endure that feeling of tightness around her waist and chest.

So Natalie had to acclimatize herself to body changes and learned to breathe in various ways. Meantime, she had to retain that regal pose commoners expect from members of royalty.

Natalie could have taken some tips from Natalie Portman, who played Anne in The Other Boleyn Girl. But much as she respects her namesake a lot, the star of The Tudors decided against it.

“You have to consider that it’s a different interpretation,” she reasons out. But that doesn’t mean she’ll forever shun the movie. Natalie intends to go see it one of these days, after her stint in The Tudors.

Life after The Tudors seems equally exciting for Natalie, who is only too glad to return to modern times in her next film. Fence Walker, says Natalie, is a coming-of-age supernatural piece where she plays someone closer to her age. Another film, an Agatha Christie mystery, will take Natalie further away from the period film mold The Tudors has put her in.

The return to modern times is a relief for Natalie, whose idea of fun at work is keeping the monster of typecasting in a period film from rearing its ugly head.

At least Natalie can say, head held high, chin up: “I lived and breathed the powerful Anne Boleyn for months on end.”

It was heartbreaking as the series moved to its touching end. But by hearing her oohs and aahs about her role, you believe Natalie when she says it’s worth it.