Your next must-watch royal movie is headed your way on Friday: Netflix’s Scoop, which details a behind-the-scenes look at BBC’s infamous 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew—you know, the one that effectively ended his royal career. (Ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will do that.)
Andrew is played in the film by Rufus Sewell, who goes toe-to-toe with BBC’s Emily Maitlis for the interview—and, well, you’ll see. Beyond just the interview itself, the movie tells the story of the women of the BBC who negotiated with Buckingham Palace to secure the “scoop of the decade”—Maitlis, played by Gillian Anderson; the star of the show, Sam McAlister, played by Billie Piper; and Esme Wren, played by Romola Garai.
The man in the center of it all is Sewell, who USA Today reports needed “a large prosthetic bottom” for a scene in which Andrew bares his behind for a scene climbing out of the bath. “It’s not that I’m ashamed of my own,” Sewell told Radio Times. “I get it out whenever I get the chance—but this bum was specially shipped in.”
That wasn’t where the physical transformation into Andrew ended. Sewell said it was a lengthy process to perfect the “Windsor clenched jaw,” and said that he became “obsessed” with watching not just the trainwreck Newsnight interview from five years ago, but also footage of Andrew from his younger days, when he was a playboy known as “Randy Andy.”
“I watched a lot of footage of him when he was younger and at his best because one of the temptations is to avoid anything that seems to show him in a good light,” Sewell said. “It’s quite a responsibility.”
Sewell added “Ever since I left drama school and did my first few roles, I’ve always wanted to get back to roles that allowed me to transform”—and this role did just that. Of the Duke of York, Sewell said “Andrew actually has this blokey quality,” he said. “If you listen to him as opposed to King Charles, he has a lad’s lad quality. He’s Randy Andy who chats up the working girls when he visits the factory.”
Tatler reports that Sewell would sometimes spend as long as four hours transforming himself into Andrew for Scoop, and Sewell told The Telegraph that the film “doesn’t make a case for guilt or innocence, one way or another.” (Sewell himself declined to share his personal opinions on the matter.) Sewell did, however, tell Radio Times that “the idea that people who are likable sometimes do terrible things is a very important one.” He added “It’s comforting to assign a blanket of evil towards anyone who does anything bad—not to say that he did or didn’t. But it’s important to remember that sometimes the nicest people are not good.”
Speaking to The Times, Sewell said “His wishes are caught up with all kinds of muddled ideas. One is that he believes he’s a victim of being too honorable. But he’s afraid of what the repercussions will be for other people. And he also feels that he has been set up. Watching him, it’s clear that he has very mixed up feelings of culpability and innocence and victimhood—and that is fascinating to play.”
Sewell added to The Daily Express that portraying Andrew was, at times, “painful,” and that Anderson as Maitlis was “terrifyingly” up to the challenge of playing the BBC journalist.
