He boasted of having a “good calf” and was described by one contemporary as being “the most handsomest potentate” he had ever set eyes on. Yet for nearly a century, some of Britain’s best-known actors have portrayed Henry VIII as a pot-bellied psychopath riddled with gout.

Now a new American drama series about the Tudors has reinvented the portly king as a “hypersexed” heartthrob whose “d–k changed the course of history.”

The Tudors, which stars the British actor Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, portrays the monarch as a 16th-century equivalent of the television mobster Tony Soprano, and it even gives him his own “brat pack” entourage.

The eight-hour drama, which was shot in Ireland and cost $29.4 million, contains copious amounts of nudity and sex, despite there being no evidence to suggest that Henry was sexually promiscuous in his youth.

Ben Silverman, who has spent four years producing the series for America’s Showtime cable network, said his Henry would take viewers by surprise, but he insisted it was historically accurate. “I always think of Henry VIII as Tony Soprano in ‘The Sopranos,'” he said. “He was one of the most primal characters in history, but he has always been portrayed as a fat man with gout. If we had gone back and done the fat Henry VIII, people would have said, ‘We have seen it a million times.’ There would have been no reason to tell that story again. Henry was a man who could do anything and f— anyone. The fact is, his d–k changed the course of history, literally.”

The show is one of the most eagerly awaited events on American television this year. Talks are under way to sell the 10-part series to Britain. Both the BBC and Sky are believed to be interested.

The new version is unashamedly reliant on younger characters and adopts the fast pace and sharp editing techniques of shows such as “Lost,” “The Sopranos,” and “24.” Charles McDougall, who has also directed “Desperate Housewives,” has made a number of the episodes.

Mr. Silverman, whose hits include “Ugly Betty” and the American version of “The Office,” said: “We are being truthful to the period while at the same time telling the story through a soapy, passionate, violent, and contemporary filter. It’s more like Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo+Juliet’ than the kind of ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ people are used to. It amuses me that the best British drama for 15 years is actually coming out of America.”

The series, which co-stars Sam Neill as Cardinal Wolsey and Jeremy Northam as Sir Thomas More, concludes when Henry begins his relationship with Anne Boleyn, played by Natalie Dormer, who came to notice in Lasse Hallstrom’s 2005 film “Casanova.” The 29-year-old Rhys-Meyers is best known for his performances in Woody Allen’s “Match Point” and last year’s action-thriller “Mission: Impossible III.”

Showtime is considering a further eight series tracing the history of the Tudor dynasty and will devote at least one more series to Henry — and the rest of his wives.

There was a mixed response to the show from British historians, who felt the producers might have gone too far. While they welcomed the idea of portraying Henry VIII as a young and attractive man, there is less support for the notion of his being promiscuous.

Brett Dolman, a curator for royal palaces who is working on a major exhibition of Henry VIII to be unveiled in the summer, insisted that there was no evidence to suggest that he was “trying to have as much sex as possible.”

“There is evidence to say he was athletic and magnetic in his younger days,” he said. “But there is no actual evidence that he had a great number of mistresses. For the first 10 years, Henry was very close to his first wife Catherine of Aragon. They formed a very good partnership. It is important to remember he married very early, and there is evidence of only one mistress. But one or more mistresses was fairly tame by the standards of the period.”

Laura Stewart, a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow at Birkbeck College in London, said: “To portray him as someone whose sexual urges are driving the history of England is problematic. It suggests he has no other policies or political ambitions.”