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ANATOMY OF A scandal
A new drama reveals the untold story behind Prince Andrew’s bombshell Newsnight interview...
When Prince Andrew sat down with Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis in November 2019 to defend his relationship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, he had no idea it would become one of TV’S most astonishing car-crash interviews. It backfired so spectacularly that Andrew’s royal career came to an abrupt end – within days he announced he was stepping back from his duties.
Now new Netflix film Scoop tells the behind-the-scenes story of that notorious episode, and the women who were central to it – Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson), BBC producer Sam Mcalister (Billie Piper) and Prince Andrew’s private secretary Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes).
Gillian admits she was so frightened of playing fierce journalist Emily that she turned down the role at first. ‘I said no because it was too daunting,’ says the X-files star. And even though she changed her mind, Gillian, 55, says, ‘It was the first time I’ve played a real character who’s still alive, and it’s mo red aunting playing Emily Maitlis than Margaret Thatcher. People kno wherso well, they’ve watched her for years.’
While Emily’s forensic questioning of Prince Andrew produced never-to-be-forgotten anecdotes about his inability to sweat and birthdays at Pizza Express, Scoop introduces us to the largerthan-life producer who made it all happen. We see Sam Mcalister, a single mum worried about losing her job in a round of BBC cuts, set about schmoozing Amanda Thirsk, convincing her that an interview with Emily would help the prince boost the profile of his charity Pitch@palace.
‘Sam, who is incredibly tenacious, realises there’s more to this story than just his personal charity, and she starts pursuing that,’ explains Billie, 41, who was drawn to the role because she recognised herself in Sam’s story. ‘We don’t have a dissimilar background. We come from the sa me s ort o fw orld and it’s always g ood to h ave something you can rela tet o in the characters you play.’
The portrayal of Andrew is crucial to the story, yet Rufus Sewell looks little like the prince and was required to spend four hours in make-up. ‘I had prosthetics around the eyes,’ says
Rufus, 56, star of The Diplomat. ‘The upper teeth were an exact copy of Andrew’s – they looked so strange in my mouth! It was really useful to have the prosthetics put on me slowly and just watch him begin to emerge.
‘The most I looked like him was when they put lids over my eyes. But I couldn’t really express with my eyes – I couldn’t blink without them sticking, or open them wide. So we decided to make me a little less like him.’
Rather than portraying Andrew as apo mpous boor, Rufus controversially manages to make us feel sorry for him. ‘It’s a more powerful story that way,’ explains director Philip Martin, who also directed episodes of The Crown. ‘It’d be easy to portray Andrew in a certain way, but then the drama becomes rather one-dimensional.
What’s interesting about Peter Moffat’s script and Rufus’s performance is it’s a nuanced portrait of Andrew that lets you understand in some ways why he’s in this situation.’
Andrew is even portrayed naked in one scene, emerging from his bath to read the bad reviews of the interview. ‘At that point it felt interesting and important just to see Andrew not through the lens of his status, but just as a person looking at his phone, confronting the reality of how the interview had played out,’ says Philip.
Unable to film at Buckingham Palace or the BBC, the production team built a replica of the Palace drawing room where the interview took place in a studio. They built the Palace gates on a filming lot and used CGI to fill the background with the Palace. West London office buildings doubled as the BBC’S HQ.
Amazon are also producing a drama about the scandal focusing on Emily Maitlis’s journey to that point, with Ruth Wilson playing her and Michael Sheen as Andrew. This film shows the importance of journalism getting to the truth, and that’s what persuaded Gillian to play Emily in the end. ‘It’s important journalists have the opportunity to hold authority to account and speak truth to power. This film celebrates that.’