Nicholas Galitzine broke his ankle thanks to his high-heeled shoes on “Mary & George”

See me, feel me, touch me, heel me.

Nicholas Galitzine knows the true meaning of suffering for his art.

The actor, who stars as George Villiers on Mary & George, broke his ankle early on in filming and had to shoot some of the show's more complex dance and fight sequences with his injured leg.

The series, which hits Starz on Friday, tells the story of George and his rise to power in the court of King James I of England (Tony Curran). With the plotting and scheming of his mother, Mary (Julianne Moore), he insinuates himself into the King's company, eventually becoming his lover and ascending to a dukedom.

It's a steamy, dark look at history complete with all the beautiful costumes that generally accompany a period drama. But it turns out those costumes can be dangerous.

"There were these heeled shoes that you see characters wearing a lot," Galitzine explains of his mishap. "These stately homes have very slippery floors. While filming the scene in the first episode where I run and tackle this serving boy, my ankle slipped [and twisted] a full 90 degrees inward. I fractured my ankle and had to continue doing stunts the next couple days and then was dancing on it."

Because the accident happened near the start of the shoot, Galitzine had no choice but to work with it, often wearing riding boots as the character to conceal a splint.  "It was not entirely period to wear riding boots in all these situations, but it was the only way I could fit the splint on my ankle and not have it show on screen," he explains.

It was a grueling schedule even without a broken ankle. Galitzine had to learn everything from how to convincingly speak French to how to play the viola de gamba, a stringed Renaissance instrument. And he also had to learn to dance, as it was George's dancing in performances at court that first caught the king's eye.

"I was basically on set every single day of this six month shoot," Galitzine says. "Learning the dancing I had to do with a broken ankle. I was literally filming a dance sequence like three days after I broke my ankle, which is really difficult considering I'm actually not a dancer by trade either."

The actor reveals that he injured more than his ankle while filming Mary & George. "The same day [that I broke my ankle], one of my costars, in trying to hold me down, slammed my head into a table. So, I had a black eye and a broken ankle. Tony [Curran] head-butted me at one point. He also cut my chin open with one of his rings. I really went through the wars on this production."

And while Galitzine emphasizes how physical the project was for him, he says it was all worth it. "I'm so pleased with the final result," he says. "None of it, obviously, was purposeful, and it mirrored the epic-ness of the journey that I went through over the show, both as Nick and as George."

Indeed, Galitzine says the physicality and injuries actually helped him as he played George from his uncertain teenage years through his ascent to power, where he found greater confidence as an adult. He quite literally starts the series on uneven footing, feeling off-balance. "He's so naive and at the mercy of his mother's whims when we first meet him," he explains. "Then, he starts to realize his power in this world that he lives in, and it is that grumpy teenager thing where he tries to rebel against it. And then the more and more wealth he accrues, I felt a level of power."

Ultimately, Galitzine channeled that into his view of George's greatest power over others: his skills as a true Renaissance man. "He knew how to play instruments, how to speak another language, to ride, to hunt, to dance," he reflects. "That's someone that a lot of people would want to be around. Maybe he didn't have the same political savvy as his mother or the king, but there was something very enigmatic and intriguing about George that really seduced people."

Mary & George premieres April 5 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Starz.

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