Henry VIII as a tyrant and a hottie

updated 3:25 p.m. ET March 30, 2007

DUBLIN, Ireland - Henry VIII is coming back to the throne. And this time, he’s bloody gorgeous.

Showtime’s epic 10-part miniseries, “The Tudors,” holds court starting at 10 p.m. EDT Sunday, with Jonathan Rhys Meyers cast as the unlikely lead.

And much like Henry VIII, the show’s producers can’t disguise their ambitions — to produce a show that finally gets Showtime an HBO-style hit, popular both with the Emmy nobility and peasants alike. They’ve invested an unprecedented $38 million and have spent millions more promoting it.

“We are hoping to be back here filming for another two, three, maybe four years, because the material we have to work with is so rich and there’s so much story to tell. But we must command an audience, so we have tried to make the story as modern and fabulously good-looking as we can,” said executive producer Morgan O’Sullivan at the end of the 22-week shoot in Ireland.

“ ‘Sexy’ is the word,” O’Sullivan added with a smile. “But it’s all done to advance the story. It’s not gratuitous.”

Hmmm. Within the first half-hour, Henry manages — between winning a joust and pursuing war with France — to father his first bastard son and have his way with another of his wife’s busty handmaidens.

Rhys Meyers defends the copious flesh and bumping and grinding in “The Tudors” as on the mark.

“These people had an awful lot of sex, more sex than we have today,” said Rhys Meyers, puffing on a Marlboro in his trailer as a downpour pummeled its tin roof.

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“Once the sun goes down there’s very little to do in the Tudor kingdom. There’s no TVs, no iPods, no nightclubs, no motorcars, no bowling alleys,” he said. “So you either read, talk, laugh, drink, sing — or shag the devil out of each other!”

Rhys Meyers, who’s starred in “Bend It Like Beckham” and “Match Point,” has become a face of Hugo Boss and Versace with his catwalk-model cheeks, lips and rail-thin physique.

In other words, he’s nothing like the pale, square-headed fatty in the famed Hans Holbein portraits.

“I remember having this conversation with Showtime: If you want somebody who looks like Henry, don’t cast me,” Rhys Meyers said. “But we begin the story when Henry and I were the same age, 29, when history tells us he was athletic and good-looking. ... I may end up with a load of prosthetics slapped on me and a big red wig and such, but for now I just have to show off a lot of range for 10 hours.”

The first two hour-long episodes suffer from the clunky dialogue typical of historical epics, as characters are obliged to announce obvious bits of background to each other for the viewers’ benefit.

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