'Mary & George' producer felt pressure casting a character described as 'the most handsome man in the world.' Enter Nicholas Galitzine.

Starz’s Mary & George is not your typical period drama.

Based on Benjamin Woolley’s 2017 book, The King’s Assassin: The Fatal Affair of George Villiers and James I, the provocative seven-part limited series starring Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine doesn’t hold back on sex, debauchery and scandal as it explores the lengths people go to obtain and sustain power.

Set in 17th century England during the Jacobean era, Moore plays the little-known historical figure Mary Villiers, an intelligent and cunning woman who recruits her attractive second-born son, George Villiers (Galitzine), to seduce King James I (Tony Curran) as a means to obtain a better social status for her family. What starts out as a transactional affair between George and the king turns into a more complicated relationship involving love, lust and eventually greed.

“Right from the beginning, we wanted to make a show with a little bit of a punk attitude, because the Jacobean court was quite debauched,” executive producer Liza Marshall told Yahoo Entertainment. “It was a relatively free place after the constrictions of the Elizabethan court. We wanted to embrace that.”

But finding the right actors to play the trio was a process. Moore, the sole American on the project, was the first choice for Mary, an unapologetic matriarch always planning her next move — sometimes at the expense of her loved ones.

“Julianne had never played a part like this before. I think she had enormous fun with Mary as a character,” Marshall said. “We always wanted to create someone who was Machiavellian and possibly a little bit evil but enjoying herself, and we were always on her side. Julianne embodies that perfectly.”

Galitzine, whose star continues to grow after the success of Red, White & Royal Blue and the upcoming The Idea of You, was one of the first actors to come onboard. Since George was described as “the most handsome man in the world,” Marshall said, there was added pressure to fulfill that visual expectation. “When he walked into a room, everybody would stop talking.”

The showrunner said Galitzine “goes on the best character arc in the drama — from callow, inexperienced youth to someone who becomes drunk on power.”

At the start of the drama, James is conveyed as a royal who prefers raucous gatherings and bedding male lovers to lording over the throne. As the series goes on, layers are peeled back, revealing the king’s tragic roots.

“I looked back to his childhood,” Curran told Yahoo Entertainment. “It was a very traumatic childhood.” Both of his parents were violently killed under different circumstances. He was also kidnapped for a year as a teen.

“There is this brilliant phrase ‘James had been nourished in fear,’ and Tony really embodied that in his performance,” Marshall said. “You really feel for the king, and he brought so much empathy to the part.”

Marshall recalled coming across a story in Time Out magazine years ago about James’s sexuality and his intense relationships with men — something she hadn’t learned while studying history in college in the U.K. That piece inspired her, along with executive producer D.C. Moore, to go down a path that led them to Woolley’s book and later, Mary & George.

Examining themes of queerness and sexual fluidity through George and James’s love affair was intriguing for the producers. “We think we’re so fluid sexually now, but if you go back 400 years, people looked at sexuality in a very different way,” Marshall said, “and I thought it felt really fresh and modern.”

She continued, “The king’s court was literally built around [James’s] love and lust for young men. And everybody was trying to push forward different hot, young men to try and seduce the king so they could rise to power. I don’t think people were making the same judgments about it that we might imagine.”

Curran shared that he and Galitzine went out to dinner with director Oliver Hermanus, who helmed the first three episodes, to discuss portraying the emotional intimacy and rawness of their sex scenes. “We wanted to keep it as truthful to the portrayal of these characters as possible,” the Scottish actor said, noting that he often sought feedback from the on-set intimacy coordinator.

“Like all great love affairs, they have peaks and troughs, they have beautiful moments and they have some very dark moments. We were focused on characters we were playing, serving the story and serving the script and expressing ourselves in these moments because there was a tenderness between these two men,” Curran continued.

Marshall said that “undeniably, James was in love with George Villiers.” The question is, was George ever in love with James?

“We never really got to the bottom of how much George loves him or how much he was using him so he could rise to power. But I like to think that there was real love between the two men. That’s never been depicted before — for all the obvious reasons,” Marshall explained.

While Mary & George does take creative liberties, the overall sentiment remains intact.

“As long as there have been men and women, there have been queer relationships,” Curran said. “The idea of embracing who you are, embracing your identity no matter what your sexuality is, your background, your color, your creed — I think it’s important today. ‘To thine own self be true,’ because what else do we have if we are not true to ourselves?”

Mary & George premieres Friday on Starz and on the Starz app.